Microsoft tried to patent studying evolution
Aug 21, 2009, 20:34 (10 Talkback[s])
[ Thanks to Howard
Owen for this link. ]
"Given the existence of prior art, patent applications
that lay claim to widely used methods should be shot down during
their application process, but that hasn't stopped even big
companies from trying, or the Patent Office for granting them.
Microsoft's seen both sides of this problem recently, as it was
granted one patent for storing formatting information in XML files,
and faced a damaging injunction for violating someone else's patent
on the same general thing.
"In a bit of awkward timing, it was recently discovered that,
two years ago, Microsoft filed a patent for clustering
phylogenetics methods, which have existed for years, and are
currently in use by just about anyone who does evolutionary
biology. The filing has been compared to attempting to patent
multiplication tables, and has the phylogenetics community on
edge."
Complete Story
Related Stories:
- Microsoft Trial Misconduct Cost $40 Million(Aug 15, 2009)
- Oh My Word – How Patently Stupid(Aug 14, 2009)
- US firm sues Twitter over patents(Aug 06, 2009)
- Comes Antitrust: Microsoft’s Attack Plan on GNU/Linux and Today’s Lessons(Aug 04, 2009)
- Patents, Video, and an Open Internet(Aug 03, 2009)
- Patent reformer becomes troll, sues defunct OSS company(Jul 30, 2009)
- When Three Tribes Go To War(Jul 30, 2009)
- SFLC: Microsoft violated the GPL
(Jul 29, 2009)
