Update: Response to BlueJ Patent Issues
* Update: fixed wrong hyperlink
On Friday, an alert reader emailed me about a new article by Michael Kölling, the creator of BlueJ, about a patent issued by Microsoft for features in Object Test Bench that are comparable to BlueJ's Object Bench. I'll post the full "anatomy of a firedrill" some time later, but for now we can officially say that the patent application was a mistake and one that should not have happened. To fix this, Microsoft will be removing the patent application in question. Our sincere apologies to Michael Kölling and the BlueJ community.
In addition, our Product Unit Manager is investigating how this happened to begin...Again my apologies to Michael, but I'm glad in the end we did the right thing.
Comments
Anonymous
January 28, 2007
Er, the real URL should be: http://www.bluej.org/mrt/?p=21 And as to the patent, OBVIOUSLY Microsoft withdraw the application, there was no other possible response! You can't patent something that has already been developed elsewhere (whether the feature was "copied" from BlueJ is another matter, of course, and totally irrelevant.)Anonymous
January 28, 2007
I'm glad that the patent application is being withdrawn. Large businesses don't always do what seems right or obvious, so it's especially pleasing when they do.Anonymous
January 28, 2007
How do a "mistake" like that happen in the first place? Michael Kölling's original article shows a side by side comparison of the two and the Object Test Bench seems to be a direct, feature-by-feature copy of the BlueJ design. Not that there is anything wrong with doing that of course. But how do this kind of stuff get patented? Doesn't anyone review these patent claims? And if they do, don't they talk to the development team to make sure there are no prior art issues. Or perhaps Microsoft doesn't care about patenting existing technologies? Obviously, a better quality control is needed here.Anonymous
January 28, 2007
I'm really glad that this has been resolved quickly and cleanly.Anonymous
January 28, 2007
Thank you for doing the right thing.Anonymous
January 28, 2007
If you give due diligence to the search for "prior art", it saves a whole lot of problems. There seems to be a lot of patents in the technology arena (and not just from Microsoft, there's a lot of culprits) where prior art exists and is only a couple of web searches away. If the Slashdot (et al) crowd can find them quickly, patent submitters shouldn't struggle to uncover them.Anonymous
January 28, 2007
ya, what if this hadn't got a ton of publicity.... Would Microsoft have still done the "right thing"? HahaAnonymous
January 29, 2007
Good to hear that. However, what happened, happened. Even that Microsoft did the right thing now, this small issue will be used to proof that software patents are dangerous on other places on the earth. It's clear that Microsoft gets good ideas from other products. Open source products do the same. At the end it's a good thing for both and that's what open source people proclaim: the open source conclusion is that software patents are dangerous because knowledge is free. It's a sad fact that Microsoft proof that software patents can be dangeous for the small ones. I hope Microsoft does a "lessions learned" out of this. Some actions could be to have a look at the own internal patenting-process: proof the own product history before patenting it. The patent index is not a good place to start...Anonymous
January 29, 2007
Kudos for doing the right thing.Anonymous
January 29, 2007
Please post the results of your investigation, in order to assure the rest of the world that you have followed through. Whether justified or not, many people don't trust Microsoft. And this news has already made Slashdot. We don't ask that you name individuals; we ask only that you assure us that corrective actions have been made to assure that this sort of mistake happens less frequently in the future. Thanks.Anonymous
January 29, 2007
Good job! And the community is thankful Microsoft did the right thing.Anonymous
January 29, 2007
BlueJ is a tool for teaching OO programming in Java that is very well regarded in the CS education community. Microsoft added a similar feature to Visual Studio, didn't give credit to the BlueJ inventors, and filed a patent application. Not the way toAnonymous
January 29, 2007
I applaud you for admitting where you are wrong and doing steps to correct it. But Microsoft sure seems patent happy lately...lest we forget the RSS flare up. Are you guys being pushed to submit applications?Anonymous
January 29, 2007
Just a little "mistake" .... Just like that invasion of Iraq. The powerful never lie, they only "misspeak". Microsoft is not unethical, they just make "mistakes"... OOOPs!....Anonymous
January 29, 2007
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January 29, 2007
These days most large companies view patents as a defensive measure. There are "Patent trolls" out there - companies that exist only to buy up patents with the goal of finding a large company with deep pockets to pay them off. Large companies tend to trade or cross-license patents with other companies - large and small - in a sort of mutual defense treaty. IBM of course has more patents than anyone probably at least in part because there are such a large target.Anonymous
January 29, 2007
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January 29, 2007
this is great news. i personally think that software patents are ridiculous, and too much of this nonsense has been going around. the software patents should be trashed. nscrouplous companies have been getting away with thier lies. they should be punished, and so also the companies sponsoring companies like SCO.Anonymous
January 29, 2007
I know that there was a blog mentioning that the BlueJ technology was borrowed from Professor Kollig for visual studio, but is there any public acknowledgement beyond that blog that technology used in Visual Studio originally came from him? It seems very shady that a company that is founded on invention and innovation is not giving credit where credit is due, especially when the idea did not belong to anyone even connected with your company. In its most broadest sense, it might actually be doing the company a favor by publicly recognizing those who actually created the ideas.Anonymous
January 29, 2007
I am among the "anything-but-MicroSoft" crowd. But kudos on doing the right thing. I am sure you will be getting some well-deserved +ve press on /. and the like too.Anonymous
January 29, 2007
"These days most large companies view patents as a defensive measure. " Yes - defending revenue streams if traditional dominance starts to wane. Large companies offer incentives to submit tonnes of bogus or trivial patents because a large patent chest assures shareholders that they always have something to fall back on. Today's "defensive patents" become tomorrow's aggressive, sue-happy patent trolls, so don't imagine Microsoft to be the innocent in this case.Anonymous
January 29, 2007
"the patent application was a mistake" I'm sure they way Microsoft sees it, the only mistake was getting caught.Anonymous
January 29, 2007
Um, it's easy for Microsoft to get a patent if it issues the patent -- I think danielfe meant to say that [the PTO] issued the patent TO Microsoft.Anonymous
January 29, 2007
its times like this I think that maybe Microsoft are not lucifer's minions after allAnonymous
January 29, 2007
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January 29, 2007
I find it extremely worrying that Microsoft can apparently go through all the hoops and jumps of writing up and submitting a patent "by accident". How many other Microsoft patents that are out there are actually "accidents" which shouldn't have been submitted at all?Anonymous
January 29, 2007
BlueJ is an educational IDE for teaching object-oriented programming and Java to beginners. The full article details how Microsoft knowingly copied core functionality from BlueJ and planned to patent it as their own "invention". After blatantly coAnonymous
January 29, 2007
If the names of the individuals claiming inventorship are public record, which they will be, then those names should be repeated in connection with this incident. Corporations do not claim inventions for patent; individuals do. Individuals under employ might then only transfer rights and ownership to a corporation. As I understand it, under penalty of law those claiming inventorship must disclose in advance all knowledge related to prior art and patentability. It might be worth speculating that Microsoft, in supporting such patent applications without adequate internal vetting or review, and given its market position and previous judgements, makes itself vulnerable to an award of punative damages in the event of a successful suit.Anonymous
January 29, 2007
Well done. Plus ten points for retracting the application. Minus several million for applying for it in the first place. Either this was deliberate, or the new-feature-deciding people don't talk to the new-feature-patenting people. In either case MS shouldn't look very far to find out why people hate it so much - either you're blatantly ripping off other people's ideas and claiming them as your own, or you're simply patenting everything in sight without bothering to ensure you actually invented it - either a deliberate thief or just so intellectually corrupt and careless it's almost as bad. So, again: well done for knowing when to fold, but really... really... sort this out, eh?Anonymous
January 29, 2007
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January 29, 2007
"How many other Microsoft patents that are out there are actually "accidents" which shouldn't have been submitted at all?" The notorious "IsNot" application, the RSS feed syndication applications, the Enlightenment pager patent(s)... Spend any time looking at some of the hundreds of thousands of software patents in the PO databases and you soon begin to feel sick and angry. I wouldn't want to single out Microsoft though.This sort of thing is normal for software patents and always has been.Anonymous
January 29, 2007
Please make sure somebody is fired over this.Anonymous
January 29, 2007
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January 29, 2007
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January 29, 2007
@ Have Patented The individuals, claiming to be the "inventors" are known. They are indeed named in the patent application, so this information is on public record: http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220060101406%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20060101406&RS=DN/20060101406 While we are at it, the patent application of what some people claim looks much like jGRASP's viewer is here: http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220050246690%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20050246690&RS=DN/20050246690Anonymous
January 29, 2007
Everyone here assumes that Microsoft has some internal coordination. Vista might say otherwise. How reasonable is it that a person not on the development team said, "Hey, that's cool. Can we patent that?"Anonymous
January 29, 2007
Quoting Kyle: 'Everyone here assumes that Microsoft has some internal coordination. Vista might say otherwise. How reasonable is it that a person not on the development team said, "Hey, that's cool. Can we patent that?" '
As others have pointed out, the names of the INVENTORS have to be on the patent application. Think about it. Either the "inventors" (i.e. the Visual Studio developers in question) knew about this patent application or they didn't. If they knew about it, then they are liars, for they surely knew that the BlueJ-like functionality was not original. If they didn't know about, then the person(s) who wrote the application are negligent, for signing the names of others on a patent application without consulting them. A third alternative is that the "inventors" named in the patent application are not even the same people who coded the functionality. In that case, someone is STILL lying. Am I missing any alternatives? Seems to me that however you slice it, someone is lying, negligent or both.
Anonymous
January 29, 2007
Patents as defensive measure... I can very well understand that -given the way that the current patent system works- any corporation needs to have loads of patents as a defensive measure. I'd like to think that the only use of them is that if a corporation applies for (and is granted) a patent, this is merely to prevent a patent troll from suing a company for royalties concerning the implementation of the patented methodology. Unfortunately, large corporations seem (I admit, this could be a wrong observation) to use patents to have some leverage in negotiations by promising not to sue over the use of a certain patent. If a corporation is truly committed to use patents as a defensive measure, what would be the major objections against handing over awarded patents to an independent patent holding organization. This organization would have 'preventing patent trolls from suing' as a primary objective. One of the ways it could do this is by explicitly allowing anyone to use the patented methodology. This would mean that anyone can use the methodology (including the corporation that applied for the patent) without having to fear for being sued over it. IANAL, but the organization that could be fit for purpose in this matter could be ODSL (linux foundation nowadays). Yeah, yeah, I know, linux is the other side. I am just trying to make the point on defensive patents, not trying to evangelize that MS should simply make their source freely available and all that. Perhaps people inside MS (including legal teams) could have a look at what IBM did with (a small portion of) their patents and decide which patents are truly for defensive purposes only and could be a candidate for transfer those to a 3rd party that ensures anyone can use the methodologies.Anonymous
January 29, 2007
It; quite possible the inventors had never heard nor seen BlueJ, and genuinely thought they had a novel nonobvious, indeed fabuolus, concept. Heck, I myself learned OO with smalltalk-80 in the late 80s, and had never heard of BlueJ until this little flare-up.Anonymous
January 29, 2007
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January 29, 2007
It's patents like this that Ballmer alludes to Linux infringing. The free software community does something neat. Microsoft files a fraudulent patent on it. Microsoft then spreads FUD about the free competitors. One down, due to the publicity it received. Thousands more already filed and granted.Anonymous
January 29, 2007
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January 29, 2007
"You can't patent something that has already been developed elsewhere" In practice, you can. Patent examiners don't have time to conduct very much of a search for prior art. Often they are paid based on the amount of patents they pass, so they have a strong disincentive for dismissing a patent. Once Microsoft had the patent, it would be up to any party they sued to research the prior art and defent themselves in an expensive court case. The BlueJ folks couldn't have afforded something like that. So it's not a trivial issue. Microsoft did the right thing.Anonymous
January 29, 2007
This is good news. I hope Microsoft will continue this respectful attitude towards other patent applications that might be faulty.Anonymous
January 29, 2007
Well, it shows that community does matter. And OSS is having more and more impact on everything. Even MS heard them.Anonymous
January 30, 2007
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January 30, 2007
For a follow-up article on this see: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Burnette/?p=246 . Dan referred me to Microsoft's Jason Matusow, who talked to me at length about the details Monday night. I believe the patent filed was not the one that was intended, though it is a little troubling that it took so long to catch the mistake.Anonymous
January 30, 2007
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January 30, 2007
What worries me MUCH more is this - for this one patent application that was noticed by the community, how many more times has Microsoft taken others' ideas and done exactly the same thing without anyone even noticing?Anonymous
January 30, 2007
So Dan, are you going to give proper attribution to Michael Kölling in Visual Studio 2005 and any other products where you might be using this or a similar feature? And are you going to release the source to OTB so we can verify that it is not a copy of BlueJ's Object Bench?Anonymous
January 30, 2007
Thanks for doing the right thing. I spent a couple years at IBM, whose lawyers would patent oxygen and water and copyright your DNA sequence to make you pay royalties, if they thought that they could get away with it. So I don't have to work hard to imagine how pre-scandal objections were brushed aside by people gunning for their next promotion. I hope that the "someones" responsible are held accountable and that heads roll accordingly. I like BlueJ for some things, so I want to see those folks keep up their excellent work. Thanks for backing off and letting them get back to what they do best.Anonymous
January 30, 2007
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January 31, 2007
I'd like to add my congratulations to those posted by others here. You were caught with your hand deep in the cookie jar. After pictures were widely published of you with your mouths stuffed full of cookies, you sheepishly handed back the jar. Very admirable. Very upstanding. How incredibly noble of you. We should all teach our children to act just as morally as you have. /sarcasmAnonymous
February 03, 2007
Well, thanks for doing the right thing and stopping this patent application dead in its tracks. That being said, I once tried to ask His Billness Bill Gates this question. That is, the patent system had been established for a purpose, namely to publish details of inventions so that when the patents' monopoly was finished (in 17 - 20 years time) the invention could fuel more inventions and more progress, so didn't the FSF's GPL fulfill the requirements of publication with attribution, and thus of fueling progressive development of the idea and the development of new ideas, in a much more satisfactory way than software patents did? Predictably askbill@microsoft.com wasn't connected to answerquestion@microsoft.com . (Ie, he never answered ;)Anonymous
February 05, 2007
I was just doing a bit of catchup reading and noticed a post on Dan Fernandez's blog about a recentlyAnonymous
February 12, 2007
What do people mean by doing the right thing by MS? Either MS gets the patent and the whole community realizes how the patent system is utterly flawed ... Or MS does not get it and have to publicly recognize they are a bunch of copycats ... and BlueJ gets the publicity it deserves ... So, removing the application is nothing close to The Right Thing(tm)Anonymous
February 15, 2007
disgusting !! you guys never hesitate to rob even a blind beggarAnonymous
August 20, 2007
I don't even know what to say, that's...I'm speechless.