[Am-info] Important -- read it and leap

[Gene Gaines]

I am including three items.

Urge you to read them.

1) First read the forwarded email immediately below, talking
   about the legal actions  brought against Microsoft by
   InterTrust.

Then read these:

2) InterTrust statement on the Microsoft issue.

   http://www.intertrust.com/main/ip/litigation.html

3) Bios of the InterTrust management team.

   http://www.intertrust.com/main/home/index.html

These are good people, not "Ballmers".

I leap for joy.  And hope.  Ya know, something I have
thought for a long time, if honorable American technical
workers -- scientists and engineers, even entrepreneurs
-- cannot stop the Microsoft menace, we can't
realistically expect government to do it for us.

Gene Gaines
gene.gaines@gainesgroup.com


This is a forwarded message
From:  Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>
To:    ip@v2.listbox.com
Date:  Saturday, July 26, 2003, 11:14:08 AM
Subject: [IP] Microsoft's Patent Problem
=================Original message text===============


>Date: Sat, 26 Jul 2003 06:48:46 -0400
>From: "Barry L. Ritholtz" <ritholtz@optonline.net>
>Subject: Microsoft's Patent Problem
>To: Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>
>X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.552)
>X-Virus-Scanned-At: eList eXpress <http://www.elistx.com/>
>X-Spam-Status: No, hits=1.6 required=7.5 tests=MSG_ID_ADDED_BY_MTA_2
>  version=2.31
>X-Spam-Level: *
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>
>For IP
>
>The InterTrust litigation has slipped quietly into the background, but, as 
>this story makes clear, the pre-trial action ain't going so well for Bill 
>& Co.
>
>This will be interesting to watch develop . . .
>
>Regards,
>
>
>Barry L. Ritholtz
>Market Strategist
>Maxim Group
>britholtz@maximgrp.com
>(212) 895-3614
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>The Big Picture:  A blog of capital markets, geopolitics, with a dash of 
>film!
><http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/>http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/ 
>
>
>
>Microsoft's Patent Problem
>In the biggest patent case ever, the tech giant is getting trounced.
>FORTUNE,  Tuesday, July 22, 2003
>By Roger Parloff
>
><http://www.fortune.com/fortune/technology/articles/0,15114,466180,00.html>http://www.fortune.com/fortune/technology/articles/0,15114,466180,00.html
>
>
>Last month, when Microsoft announced its bellwether decision to award 
>employees restricted stock instead of options, it also made news in a 
>federal courtroom-the kind of news you keep quiet about.
>
>Microsoft suffered utter defeat at a crucial pretrial hearing in what 
>appears to be the highest-stakes patent litigation ever-one in which a 
>tiny company called InterTrust Technologies claims that 85% of Microsoft's 
>entire product line infringes its digital security patents. (See Can This 
>Man Bring Down Microsoft? 
><http://www.fortune.com/fortune/technology/articles/0,15114,400412,00.html)>http://www.fortune.com/fortune/technology/articles/0,15114,400412,00.html)
>
>
>InterTrust's engineers developed and patented what they say are key 
>inventions in two areas: so-called digital-rights management and trusted 
>systems. The technologies are essential to the digital distribution of 
>copyrighted music and movies, and to maintaining the security of 
>e-commerce in general. At its prebubble height, InterTrust (founded in 
>1990) employed 376 people and marketed its own software and hardware 
>products; today it consists mainly of a patent portfolio, 30 employees, 
>and this lawsuit. An investor group led by Sony Corp. of America and Royal 
>Philips Electronics bought the company in January for $453 million, hoping 
>to convince consumer electronics and tech companies-beginning with 
>Microsoft-of the need to license its patents.
>
>Microsoft argued in court that crucial phrases in InterTrust's patents 
>were too vague to be enforceable, and that others required such narrow 
>interpretation that they would have been hard for Microsoft to infringe. 
>But in her July 3 ruling, an Oakland judge resolved 33 of 33 disputed 
>issues against Microsoft and rebuked the company's lawyers for wasting her 
>time by promising proof that never materialized-legal vaporware, in essence.
>
>"This is simply another step in a long legal process," says a Microsoft 
>spokesman, putting the best face on it. "Microsoft will continue to defend 
>itself against what we believe are groundless and overbroad claims."
>
>As agreed before the hearing, the parties now enter a round of settlement 
>talks. Though InterTrust declines to place a pricetag on the suit, it's 
>hard to imagine the company settling now for any sum that does not have a 
>"B" in it. InterTrust claims that its inventions cover technologies that 
>Microsoft has been weaving into its Windows XP operating system, Office XP 
>Suite, Windows Media Player, Xbox videogame console, and .NET networked 
>computing platform, to name just a few. If settlement talks fail and 
>InterTrust prevails in court, it would be entitled to a court order 
>halting sales of all those products. InterTrust CEO Talal Shamoon asks 
>rhetorically, "How much would that be worth to Microsoft?"
>
>
></blockquote></x-html>

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