Musings on patents and copyrights
The story: i4i sued Microsoft for patent infringement in Word 2003 and later versions. The feature in question was “custom XML.”
i4i wins lawsuit, Microsoft fined $290 million, and Microsoft is told they cannot sell Word 2007 with the custom XML feature beginning January 11.
Microsoft appeals lawsuit and loses on appeal.
Microsoft then issues a patch stripping Word and other Office programs of custom XML editing capabilities; the injunction is circumvented.
End of story? Perhaps. But let’s take a look at copyright and patents.
Many things are copyrighted – books, software, movies, music … In the case of software, it means the copyrighted code cannot be copied, translated, or rearranged. If you want to achieve the same result, you have to write the code from scratch. You ARE allowed to “copy” the idea – just not the way it was implemented.
In the case of patents, the innovation itself is protected. This effectively says that the idea is protected. Many software companies own patents, including Microsoft – they have a ton of them, some of which apply to portions of Linux code.
Here’s how it works: Amazon has patented “1-click.” While it would be easy for someone to write different code to accomplish a 1-click, since it is patented you cannot do that even if you do it in a different way.
Is this type of protection appropriate? The philosophical question then is if software should be allowed to be patented – or is copyright enough protection?
