Re: Crosspost - Gates attempts to patent everything software

[Lokesh Setia <lsetia78@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Sudhir,

Care to find out the facts before posting such news?

This news got much publicity because it was located on this URL:
http://www.cnn.com@sci-tech@3520040376/new_010325/alert/breakingnews.html

People thought it was on CNN site, but it is not.  (notice the
carefully spoofed up URL).  In fact, this URL is probably not even a
legal one, and some browsers can't open it up.

You never know what M$ can do, but this is something just too much :)

Regards,
Lokesh.

Sudhir Gandotra wrote:

> Gates attempts to patent everything software
> March 30, 2001
> Web posted at: 11:53 a.m. EST (1653 GMT) CNN
> At a press conference beamed live to Microsoft shareholders around
> the globe, Bill Gates announces the company's patenting of the binary
> system.
> REDMOND, WA--In what CEO Bill Gates called "an unfortunate but
> necessary step to protect our intellectual property from theft and
> exploitation by competitors," the Microsoft Corporation patented the
> numbers one and zero.
> With the patent, Microsoft's rivals are prohibited from manufacturing
> or selling products containing zeroes and ones--the mathematical
> building blocks of all computer languages and programs--unless a royalty
> fee
> of 10 cents per digit used is paid to the software giant.
> "Microsoft has been using the binary system of ones and zeroes ever
> since
> its inception in 1975," Gates told reporters. "For years, in the
> interest
> of the overall health of the computer industry, we permitted the free
> and unfettered use of our proprietary numeric systems. However, changing
> marketplace conditions and the increasingly predatory practices of
> certain
> competitors now leave us with no choice but to seek compensation for the
> use of our numerals."
> A number of major Silicon Valley players, including Apple Computer,
> Netscape and Sun Microsystems, said they will challenge the Microsoft
> patent as monopolistic and anti-competitive, claiming that the
> 10-cent-per-digit licensing fee would bankrupt them instantly.
> "While, technically, Java is a complex system of algorithms used to
> create a platform-independent programming environment, it is, at its
> core,
> just a string of trillions of ones and zeroes," said Sun Microsystems
> CEO
> Scott McNealy, whose company created the Java programming environment
> used
> in many Internet applications. "The licensing fees we'd have to pay
> Microsoft every day would be approximately 327,000 times the total net
> worth
> of this company."
> "If this patent holds up in federal court, Apple will have no choice but
> to convert to analog," said Apple interim CEO Steve Jobs, "and I have
> serious doubts whether this company would be able to remain competitive
> selling pedal-operated computers running software off vinyl LPs."
> As a result of the Microsoft patent, many other companies have begun
> radically revising their product lines: Database manufacturer Oracle
> has embarked on a crash program to develop "an abacus for the next
> millennium." Novell, whose communications and networking systems are
> also
> subject to Microsoft licensing fees, is working with top chemists on a
> chemical-based message-transmission system. Hewlett-Packard is
> developing
> a revolutionary new hydrogen-powered printer.
> Despite the swarm of protest, Gates is standing his ground, maintaining
> that ones and zeroes are the undisputed property of Microsoft.
> "We will vigorously enforce our patents of these numbers, as they are
> legally ours," Gates said. "Among Microsoft's vast historical archives
> are Sanskrit cuneiform tablets from 1800 B.C. clearly showing ones and a
> symbol known as 'sunya,' or nothing. We also own: papyrus scrolls
> written
> by Pythagoras himself in which he explains the idea of singular
> notation,
> or 'one'; early tracts by Mohammed ibn Musa al Kwarizimi explaining the
> concept of al-sifr, or 'the cipher'; original mathematical manuscripts
> by
> Heisenberg, Einstein and Planck; and a signed first-edition copy of
> Jean-Paul Sartre's Being And Nothingness. Should the need arise,
> Microsoft
> will have no difficulty proving to the Justice Department or anyone else
> that we own the rights to these numbers."
> Overheard: "Gates' salary also has lots of zeroes. He's the richest man
> in
> the world, and is about to get a lot richer."
> According to experts, the full ramifications of Microsoft's patenting
> of one and zero have yet to be realized.
> "Because all integers and natural numbers derive from one and zero,
> Microsoft may, by extension, lay claim to ownership of all mathematics
> and logic systems, including Euclidean geometry, pulleys and levers,
> gravity, and the basic Newtonian principles of motion, as well as the
> concepts of existence and nonexistence," Yale University theoretical
> mathematics
> professor J. Edmund Lattimore said. "In other words, pretty much
> everything."
> Lattimore said that the only mathematical constructs of which Microsoft
> may not be able to claim ownership are infinity and transcendental
> numbers
> like pi. Microsoft lawyers are expected to file liens on infinity and pi
> this week.
> Microsoft has not yet announced whether it will charge a user fee to
> individuals who wish to program using such mathematically rooted
> functions
> as addition and subtraction.
> In an address beamed live to billions of people around the globe
> Monday, Gates expressed confidence that his company's latest move will,
> ultimately, benefit all humankind.
> "Think of this as a partnership," Gates said. "Like the ones and zeroes
> of
> the binary code itself, we must all work together to make the promise
> of the computer revolution a reality. As the world's largest software
> company, Microsoft is the zeros. And you, the millions of consumers who
> use our products, are the ones."
> 

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