Microsoft abandons IDE patent application
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(InfoWorld) - Citing a mistaken filing, Microsoft has abandoned a patent application for technology in its Visual Studio software development platform that originated outside the company, a Microsoft representative said on Tuesday. The application involved Microsoft's implementation of the BlueJ developer environment, which the company calls "Object Test Bench," said the representative, who attributed the company's response to an InfoWorld press inquiry on the subject to Jason Matusow, Microsoft's senior directory of IP and interoperability. "Microsoft mistakenly filed for a patent on a technology included in components of Visual Studio 2005 that was based upon an academic project to help individuals grasp introductory concepts of software programming through pictorial representation of code," the representative said. The company had been notified by Michael KÃ¶lling, the creator of BlueJ, that the patent application covered technology substantially similar to his project. BlueJ is an IDE for teaching object-oriented programming and Java to beginners, according to KÃ¶lling's blog. "Microsoft agrees with Professor KÃ¶lling, and in keeping with the companyâs standards for quality patent filings, [it is] expressly abandoning the patent application with the USPTO (United States Patent & Trademark Office) through normal procedures," the company said. KÃ¶lling could not be reached for comment on Tuesday. But in his blog, he raised the question of whether Microsoft's patent application would be denied because it was based on "prior art," which is technology that already existed. "While I am sure we would have had a good case to file for prior art, and while it is likely that this would have stopped the application, I really have better things to do with my time," he wrote. In a blog entry last Friday, KÃ¶lling had expressed fears that the patent application could destroy BlueJ.
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The Internet Engineering Task Force has nixed Microsoft&#39;s Sender ID proposal because of patent concerns. By Thomas Claburn. The Internet Engineering Task Force, an international standards organization, has
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The US Patent and Trademark Office has preliminarily rejected a Microsoft patent on a system for recognizing computer files, a victory for &quot;open source&quot; advocates
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft forced a popular alternative to Windows Update off the Internet today, sending the maker of AutoPatcher cease-and-desist e-mail. The free utility has been removed from its download site. Microsoft did not give a reason for the move, which came more than four years after AutoPatcher debuted. "Today we received an e-mail from Microsoft requesting the immediate take-down of the download page, which of course means that AutoPatcher is probably history," said Antonis Kaladis, the 20-year-old Greek college student and author of the program. "As much as we disagree, we can do very little, and although the download page is merely a collection of mirrors, we took the download page down." AutoPatcher, which was in version 5.6, let users collect Windows hotfixes and security patches from Microsoft's update services, then package them so they could be applied to multiple machines, or reused multiple times on a single PC. It was especially popular among people who frequently reformatted drives or those who did informal tech support for friends and family or in a small business. Each month, the current set of Windows' -- and as of this month, Office's as well -- updates and hotfixes would be added to the packages. The program supported Windows 2000, XP, Vista, and Server 2003. This month, Kaladis and his team of volunteers added support for Office XP 2003 and 2007. The Microsoft take-down e-mail was posted to the Neowin.net forum that AutoPatcher used for its user support. "Microsoft has received information that the domain listed above [www.autopatcher.com/downloads/], which appears to be on servers under your control, is offering unlicensed copies of, or is engaged in other unauthorized activities relating to copyrighted works published by Microsoft," the e-mail read. "We hereby give notice of these activities to you and request that you take expeditious action to remove or disable access to the material described above, and thereby prevent the illegal reproduction and distribution of this software via your company's network," it continued after listing various versions of Windows and Office. The e-mail was signed by a Peter Anaman, a Microsoft Internet investigator. Users of AutoPatcher were, not surprisingly, hot. "I cannot believe that Microsoft did this," Andrew Lucas said in a response to Kaladis' posting of the news. "You are providing a service Microsoft refuses to do. It has now been over 3 years since Microsoft released SP2 for XP." "The end of AutoPatcher is the end of my use of any Windows product, period," swore a user identified only as KMan. Other users -- lots of others -- literally swore at Microsoft in the comments attached to Kaladis' post or on the Neowin forum. More than a few however, took a more c'est la guerre approach to AutoPatcher's demise. "I don't get why everyone is so annoyed, I'm shocked AutoPatcher was allowed to continue for so long in the first place. Is anyone really surprised by this?" asked a user calling himself kudos in a post to Neowin. Microsoft has dealt similar cease-and-desist orders to other patch-related Web sites or services in the past. In April, it leaned on Hotfix.net, whose operator, Ethan Allen, had posted more than 100 hotfixes he expected would be part of Vista SP1. Coincidentally, Vista SP1 was talked up by Microsoft today. Allen also complied by yanking the download. Microsoft did not respond to a request for comment. Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.
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Microsoft might be forced to stop selling its top software products in South Korea as a result of a patent-infringement ruling made over the weekend against the company.
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With Office 2007 radically reorganizing the way users think and work with applications, today, Microsoft announced a royalty-free licensing program for developers who want to make use of Office's new, distinctive style. If you're wondering whether there are strings attached...wonder no more.
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&quot;The Software Patent Directive has been withdrawn from the Agenda of the Agricultural Council. Poland&#39;s Minister of Information Society and Technology, Wlodzimierz Marcinski, made a powerful statement at the
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Yesterday, Microsoft announced DreamSpark â an ironic name, since it actually lays bare Microsoft's worst nightmare: that more and more of tomorrow's programmers are growing up using free software for their studies, which means that as they move out into the world, there will be less and less demand for Microsoft's tools, and even fewer programs written for its platforms. read more
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Microsoft may have to pull its Office suite from the shelves in South Korea as a result of losing a patent lawsuit in that country, according to published reports.ADVERTISEMENTNEW IT SERVICES FROM IBM: EASIER TO BUY AND IMPLEMENTDiscover a simpler, more cost-effective way to get the solutions your company needs to grow more flexible and efficient.
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In a preliminary ruling, the government rejected Microsoft&#39;s 1996 patent on technology for saving files on computers using easy-to-remember names.
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All for one A community driven project for Ruby source code to run natively on Microsoft's .NET framework has shut down, faced by progress from an official Microsoft effort.â¦Learn &amp; Contribute, Live &amp; Online - The Register Debates Green Computing
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Company won't assert patents related to 35 Web services specs--a move designed to ease developers' legal concerns.
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Sun Microsystems plans to discontinue its Sun Java Studio Enterprise and Sun Java Studio Creator developer tools and encourage users to move to the NetBeans IDE.
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TechWeb - The Defense Ministry of Singapore, the latest government agency to spurn Microsoft for open source, said this week that it's turning to the OpenOffice application suite rather than updating Microsoft Office.
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Microsoft has cancelled its fall developer conference, citing inconvenient timing for the show in light of the launch of important new infrastructure and developer-platform products.
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Microsoft has lost a patent battle in South Korea concerning input mode technology in its Office software. The decision could force the Redmond company to halt sales of the popular productivity suite in that country, but it is fighting back.
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Unless you use it to sue Computer giant IBM is handing over a portfolio of intellectual property to any other developers that want to use it in the name of furthering interoperability and open standards.â¦