U.S. Patent No. 5,787,449 is a "conceptual" patent, meaning the patent is issued by the patent office based on very general ideas. These general patents are like booby traps waiting to damage startup companies developing new software. They threaten to stifle software innovation, and are a rapidly growing threat to the industry.

The court ruled that Microsoft violated i4i patents by allowing users of Microsoft Word to create custom XML documents, which was deemed to be infringing on a patent issued to i4i in 1998.

i4i chairman Loudon Owen proclaimed the rightness of the ruling. Their product "x4o" enables users to create XML documents in Word, and their claim was that Microsoft used their patented technology to create the same capability in MS Word.

It is nearly impossible to feel sympathetic toward Microsoft, which has been slapped by courts many times in the past 30 years for a variety of questionable business practices. The software giant has indicated that it is ready to pursue multiple options in response to the ruling:

• it may pay i4i a license fee as long as it's software contains offending code
• it may release a version of Microsoft Word that does not have the ability to create custom XML documents
• it may fight the validity of the patent in appeals court on September 23, 2009
• it issued a request for a stay of the ruling on the grounds that it would lose a lot of money and that it's customers would suffer

None of these assertions really tackle the important issue, that patents like this should never be issued. Why wouldn't Microsoft assert that a patent issued on such general principles is invalid?

The reason may not be obvious. I suspect that Microsoft is willing to deal with a "minor" (to them) annoyance that will only cost them a monetary settlement. Redmond has been stockpiling a reserve of conceptual patents on its own. It may see itself able to extract far more from competitors than will be extracted from them.

Rather than do the right thing, and help the industry stop these harmful conceptual patents, Microsoft is likely to pay a short term license fee, swap out some code, and move on.

The patent claims the rights to separating markup codes from content in documents.

This patent was issued after substantial work was done around the world by collaborative groups on XML, SGML and HTML using style sheets and other methods of separating codes from content. Many people believe that the patent was issued in spite of being based on prior art. This means that the information in the patent was publicly available before the patent was issued. The judge ruled that the patent was valid, however.

I have strongly advocated revamping our patent laws to prevent patents being issued based on loose software "concepts" like this. Rather than protecting innovation, as patent laws are intended to do, these conceptual patents prevent companies from innovating, and are granted to individuals who are not required to show specific techniques that could be improved upon with subsequent patents.

It is time to change our software patent laws before it turns into a lottery system for people who can afford to bury the system with general patent filings. Some would contend that this has already happened.

So my 6 gig machine was sitting there with only 3 gig of memory available, since XP Pro only can see 3 gig. I really wanted to get the full use of the machine, so when Windows 7 trials started, I downloaded it and ran the install. The first release locked up without even getting to the splash screen. About a month later, another release got to the splash screen and then locked up. No worries, it's beta software. What should I do to get full use of the machine, though?

I downloaded 64 bit Ubuntu Linux, and it worked like a charm. I've had experience over the years with Linux, and I found Ubuntu to be a real joy. Linux takes a little bit of curiosity, tweaking and googling, but for me it was worth it to have a full-powered machine able to run lots of apps. Linux is not a "no-brainer." Some people just should not use it, and we all know who they are. Others though, really ought to give it a try. With web access to Google Docs, Firefox browsers, many email options, tons of open source applications, and Open Office, it certainly suits my needs.

So I was content with my beefy machine and its beefy operating system for a few months when I decided to rent a Blu-Ray movie and give it a spin. I rented the movie and tweaked and tried and googled like crazy, but couldn't get the movie to play.

I discovered to my horror that the people who control the digital rights to Blu-Ray decided not to allow any Linux users to play their movies. This is, presumably, to prevent people from finding out what the encryption schemes are and pirating the films.

Now comes the best part. The way to play a Blu-Ray movie on Linux is published on multiple websites, following the decryption techniques first released in January 2007. It involves copying the files onto a hard drive, downloading freely available encryption keys, and decrypting the files on a hard drive.

Now all of this seemed like way too much trouble for me, so I rebooted to the old XP partition on my machine and ran the movie player that came with the Blu-Ray drive. It was frustrating to have to go back to Windows to watch a movie, but it worked.

Isn't it ironic that the movie industry would enforce a policy that prevents honest people from legally renting or purchasing their movies and watching them on their computers with legal equipment?

Some old-timers may recall that the same battle was fought over the "secret" DVD format, which was not available on Linux until the coding scheme was so widely available that it was a joke to try to keep people from viewing DVD movies in Linux.

People are boycotting Blu-Ray because of it's steadfast refusal to allow players to run on Linux, in spite of the encryption keys and copying procedures being publicly available on the Internet, and hacks being freely available. It seems they would rather have people copying their movies than viewing them as intended.

People who I've talked to find it fascinating and foolish, yet perfectly in line with other decisions the recording and movie industries have made for the past 15 years.

Even though I love them and use them regularly, I have to admit that the current features in the Google Docs programs have some weaknesses. The interface is clumsy in some respects and it is difficult to format and print wide multi-column documents, for example. These are the kinds of things that should improve over time. These issues certainly haven't stopped me and my colleagues from using it to brainstorm collaboratively from remote locations. It can be an incredibly uplifting experience.

Meanwhile, Microsoft announced that it will release Microsoft Office 2010 with features that will allow web-based collaboration. One person commented that this would "squash Google Docs like a bug." Let's look closely at what the competitive positions of these two giants might really mean in the marketplace.

Microsoft could have offered collaboration capability in MS Office anytime in the last 10 years, since the Internet has become ubiquitous. Collaboration might never have appeared if it weren't for competition in the marketplace from Google Docs. Office productivity software has not had any real competition for many years, resulting in slow (or arguably "no") innovation.

Google Docs can be created or edited free of charge to anyone who has a Google account, and the documents can be viewed by anyone who is invited to see them. This is good for Google, because it builds their brand and gets page views.

A model like that doesn't work for Microsoft, who wants to:

• sell copies of Microsoft Office
• cater to corporate customers
• maintain barriers to entry that keep customers from switching document formats

It appears that Microsoft will offer a server capability in the Office offering that will enable customers to store documents on their own servers and access them from the web. This is exactly the kind of thing that large corporations will like, because they want their documents stored locally to address security concerns, and they have the staff to maintain web servers. Presumably, the Office product would have a built-in copy of IIS for the low-end clients who want to share documents from their desktops.

Google Docs will continue to appeal to small customers who:

• like free stuff
• don't have to install any software
• can easily get their colleagues to collaborate, even outside firewalls

One of the dirty little secrets that Microsoft doesn't want known is that the number of Microsoft Office installations goes down with every new release. This is because the features have not proved valuable enough for customers to upgrade previous installations. Corporations are growing tired of the annual maintenance fees in troubled economic times and some are switching to Open Office. The market share of open source and free service offerings like Google Docs will grow as long as they provide value to customers.

Loyal Microsoft Office fans will be fans forever, but it is clear that Microsoft's office productivity market share is shrinking. It is likely that continued competition from these other sources will force Microsoft to innovate and compete, which will be good for consumers. In terms of the "cloud," Microsoft isn't there yet, and won't be there successfully if they continue to cling to the software licensing revenue model.

In that article I posed the idea that the ability to patent a software concept, such as "sending electronic messages from a hand-held device" or "emphasizing a number on a web page by putting a box around it" is stifling innovation. The thinking is that people and groups are getting patents issued on general concepts without implementing them and by giving only sparse implementation details. Later, when someone actually manages to create a product that is profitable, patent trolls appear and ask for significant financial settlements.

A University of California at Irvine and University of Kansas study was published on July 16 showing the results of a simulation designed to test the effects of patent laws in general.

The study simulates "a traditional patent system; a “commons” system, in which no patent protection is available; or a system with both patents and open-source protection." The team, led by Bill Tomlinson of UC Irvine’s Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Sciences and Andrew Torrance of the University of Kansas School of Law, concluded that patent systems may discourage innovation.

They developed an online game simulating the U.S. patent system, and conducted the study using first year law students. The results were published in The Columbia Science & Technology Law Review under the title Patents and the Regress of Useful Arts and concludes that there is no statistical difference between intellectual property approaches.

This study did not directly address the issues related to software innovation and the way that software patents are handled in the patent office. Groups such as the Free Software Foundation are working to eliminate all patent protections for software under the assertion that it is costly, wasteful, and stifle innovation.

Many see this as a Google vs. Microsoft competition, and are applying their personal biases to the evaluation of how it will end. It isn't a simple situation, though. A battle of titans is not likely to be a war of attrition, but rather a high-stakes game where the placement of the chips on the table may make a huge difference.

Many remember the OS's of the past, many of which had very promising features but failed for a variety of reasons. Some may recall VAX VMS, Amiga, and Metaphor's object oriented system that was bought by IBM. Some of these OS's were under-capitalized and too far ahead of their time, like Amiga and Metaphor. Others were not sufficiently competitive. OS/2 was supported by IBM but still missed the threshold of marketability.

OS/2 is an interesting example of a good OS that did not survive. There are some ATM applications that still run it but it is essentially dead. Some of the notable milestones in the history of OS/2 are as follows:

• IBM hires Microsoft to create the OS of the future, OS/2, aimed at servers and large PC's
• Microsoft works to create it's own OS targeted for small and middle-tier PC's, Windows 3.0, followed quickly by version 3.1, "the one that worked"
• Microsoft delivers OS/2 1.2 to IBM, which is written in 286 assembler, and is difficult or nearly impossible to upgrade to the new 386 chips
• IBM severs relations with Microsoft on the OS front and develops OS/2 2.0 from scratch
• IBM still continues to profitably sell PC's which have Microsoft Windows installed on them
• IBM releases OS/2 v 2.0 and 3.0, as Microsoft releases Windows NT

In a civil action by the Department of Justice and the state of New York, Microsoft was found to have used predatory practices to prevent OS/2 and other operating systems from having a market share by charging computer hardware manufacturers for the Windows OS even if their machines did not have Windows installed. See the court's finding of facts in the case.

Technical discussions of the OS/2 features and shortcomings are diminished by the fact that business practices prevented computers from being sold with the promising IBM OS. One could argue that these practices held back early versions of Linux, as well.

Ok, flash forward, back to the present day: Chrome OS vs. Windows. If the playing field had been level between Windows and OS/2, it might be argued that Windows was making a good bet by betting on "lower-end" hardware. Recall that OS/2 was aimed at higher-end servers and PC's, and because of that, it was somewhat less ubiquitous. Vista recently made the same platform targeting mistake, among many many tragic Vista mistakes, by having restrictive hardware requirements. Windows 7 intends to address some of these problems, but Chrome OS is targeted at notebook PC's and a lower-end hardware platform.

Microsoft has been down-playing lower-end notebook PC's and is favoring more expensive PC's that will favor Windows 7. My instincts tell me that lower-end notebook PC's will have a growth curve that will make them very popular and will allow new features to be added to them, causing a strongly positive growth niche to be created. Microsoft, by comparison, is now aiming for the higher end computers that would be favored by gamers and software developers.

Based on these considerations, I would predict the following:

• Chrome OS will gain a foothold that will not be easily forced out because of Google's size and strength and the fact that they are not in the hardware business
• Microsoft will respond to the challenge by developing a competing offering for the low-end computing platforms
• Google has placed a bet on a very strong opening in the marketplace, and may be able to capitalize it very well, as they have in other areas

In his speech, Grove compared the current trading of patents as commodities to speculative financial instruments like derivatives. Companies Grove called "non-practicing entities" buy up patents and then wait to sue people who start companies using the innovations named in the patents. Grove called such people "patent trolls." Grove quoted Thomas Jefferson and asked if the current system meets the test of helping the public as it was intended.

Not surprisingly, Grove was summarily condemned by groups of patent attorneys like Dr. Alexander Poltorak, Chairman of AIPR and CEO of General Patent Corporation, who said

"Likening patents to financial derivatives like credit swaps that brought about the financial meltdown and global recession is at best irresponsible and at worst self-serving. It’s like yelling ‘fire’ in a crowded auditorium. It gets people’s attention by inciting fear and panic. Intel is one of a handful of companies that advocate weaker patents and are pushing for significant changes in our patent law.”

Thank goodness for Grove standing up to point out problems with the current system, but I think that the argument between these two is somewhat superficial. The trading of patents on financial markets is not the problem, the fact that patents are issued which are conceptual is the problem.

I would suggest that the system of awarding patents has become so weak that the whole process is in danger of becoming counter-productive to its intent to stimulate innovation.

Take for example Patent Number 6785865. This patent was awarded to Microsoft for having the tab key navigate between hyperlinks in a browser while navigating a web page. The patent application was filed in March of 1997, and awarded August 31, 2004.

The problem with this patent, and there are dozens of examples like this, is that it was integrated into many browsers at the time that the application was filed, including Lynx, Netscape and others. Such a technology is known as a "prior art". According to the law, if an invention is a prior art, the patent is invalid. Many such patents are issued because the patent office is under-funded and under-staffed. When this happens, the guy with the biggest lawyers can win through intimidation, courtroom maneuvering, or a war of financial attrition.

Patent number 7231590 was issued to Microsoft (I am not intending to pick on them, but the examples are easy to find) for visually highlighting numeric information on a web page, such as changing the color or putting a box around it. Issuance of patents of this type is dangerous both because of the prior art issue, but also because the patent is "conceptual" rather than "technical."

When Robert Fulton patented various aspects of the steam engine, inventors were expected to show how the invention would be made. Other inventors could improve upon the invention and apply for patents that improve on the original design. This process awarded the original inventor with protection and also stimulated innovation.

A patent that is issued based on what I call a "conceptual idea" does not allow innovation, it stifles it. You may have an opportunity to design a radical new accounting system that delivers documents to clients electronically, and guess who might show up for a piece of the action?

Some people cite this problem and advocate eliminating all patents in the software industry. I disagree with such extreme measures, but I think we should deeply consider adequately funding the patent office, and updating their procedures so that concepts such as "sending messages electronically" cannot be patented.

Meanwhile, if you are starting a software company, hold on to your money until someone shows up to sue you for using a concept someone may have patented as a general idea in the early nineties.

Who needs a new search engine, when Microsoft, Google and Yahoo scramble to list all the websites you ever want to visit? There may be different reasons to use search engines:

1. to find a website
2. to get an article with detailed information on a topic
3. to get some quick information on a topic

The first kind of search yields a list of websites, some of which you may not want to visit at all. Searches can result in a mix of real content and fake pages that are created by people to generate traffic and ad revenue. The fake pages are useless and waste everyone's time.

Even if these fake pages were removed, a list of millions of web pages which have a word or phrase appearing on them is useful when you wish to find a news article, instructions from a user manual, etc. For those of you who have time on your hands, page through the google pages. At one time, you could not go past about the 78th page of website listings or so. I haven't checked recently (I wrote a computer program to do it).

The second kind of search is what you need when you are researching or creating material for a presentation. This is where Wikipedia comes in. Wikipedia is fantastic for finding information on things like women aviators in history and other topics where detailed information is needed to deepen one's knowledge.

Wolframalpha fills a niche that helps when you need a quick explanation of a word or concept. It also does mathematical calculations and quite a few other functions.

If we search Google, it reports that it knows about 3,980,000 websites which have the word "phenomenology" on them. If you click on the selection for "definition" it takes you to an entry on Answers.com which gives a definition and quotes a number of dictionary sources and encyclopedias with their entries for the word.

The Wikipedia entry first gives what they call a "disambiguation" page, that helps identify different ways the term might be used so users can be directed to the appropriate choice. Each of the entries, in the case of the word "phenomenology", are quite extensive and complete. This works very well for individuals with particular needs.

Entering the word into Wolframalpha gives a clean, concise answer that may be just right for what someone may need in a number of situations.

Will Wolframalpha change our brains? Maybe not. It does fill a niche that may help people be more productive, which is a good thing. It is refreshing at a time when a lot of web marketplace entries are playing "me too" and "catchup" that a company has taken a different track, offered a new paradigm, and offered something that will help people in a unique way.