Paul Allen's company sues Apple, Google

If this lawsuit goes as famously bad as most of his other post-Microsoft investments, then Google, Apple, etc. have nothing to worry about.

I still don't see how software can be patentable. Lets say for a second that software is genuinely patentable (as american IP law says it is) how would you ever conclusively prove that the technical method of doing something, in code, is the same as the patented method. After all simply placing stuff on certain parts of a screen or generating recommendation based on previous purchases is surely not patentable? I would imagine it would fail the obviousness test and the lack of a technical effect test as well.

I'm no expert but these are just my thoughts.

Si

This is why software patents are really bad for everyone except the lawyers. They stifle innovation and the normal development process that actually builds on the work of others. "invention" is a romantic fiction that is being used as a legal club by bullies wishing to keep down the competition and causing a lot of collateral damage in the process.

So basically Paul says he owns the World Wide Web even though there weren't any browsers or ideas for browsers back then.

Mike,

I'm in no way defending what Paul Allen is doing but you obviously know nothing about intellectual property law. Trademarks and Patents are for completely different things. They already "filled out some forms" to get the patents now being defended. Trademarks are for protecting a brand, patents are for protecting inventions. Nobody needs to be fired, unlike you they know that the appropriate website is uspto.gov.

Perhaps Allen will be willing to drop his suit if all of those companies don't go after him for being the co-founder of one of the biggest idea stealing companies in the history of the country. Microsoft never came up with one original idea. Oh wait, I forgot Clippy the paperclip from MS Office. Allen is a toolbag and should be ridden out of court.

Maybe if he was so interested in protecting their IP, he should have trademarked it at the time that it was being created. It would be akin to Pixar doing work on specific digital camera technology, then walking away from it and coming back 12 years later and saying "hey we made that, but we forgot to trademark it, so now we want our money after you've done all the work marketing and perfecting it". Of course in the case of Pixar, they're smart and don't pull crap like this.

We can't say the same of Mr. Allen and his 'group'. Seems like someone there needs to be fired and he should get someone that knows how to operate a computer to visit www.loc.gov and start filling out some forms and substantiating every claim going forward.

Mike

Nobody can work the legal/political angles like Paul Allen - these things are at the core of everything he does. The Microsoft way.

In defense of Mr. Allen, he ONLY has $13.5 Billion, and that doesn't go as far these days, and he probably needs to scrape up some more money to pay for his medical bills.

its ironic how MS ripped off Apple GUI but Allen is suing for this. lol.