House passes bill to curb patent trolls

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill meant to discourage so-called patent trolls from filing multiple infringement lawsuits or demanding licensing deals over the objections of some groups representing small inventors. The Innovation Act, which passed Thursday by a 325-91 vote, has the support of several large U.S. technology companies as well as advocacy groups Public Knowledge and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The bill now heads to the U.S. Senate for action. Despite the lopsided vote, some lawmakers said the bill favors large companies at the expense of small inventors. "This is a gift to the giant conglomerates that can already push you down," said Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, a Texas Democrat. With the bill, Congress is "attacking the little guy," added Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican. Still, several tech groups applauded the bill's passage. The legislation "should send a powerful message to patent trolls that their continued abuse of the patent system and extortion of American businesses will not be tolerated," the Internet Association, representing Google, Facebook, Amazon.com, eBay and Yahoo, said in a statement. The Innovation Act, sponsored by Representative Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican, targets businesses that use patent licensing and lawsuits as their primary source of revenue. Critics blame these patent assertion entities (PAEs), often called patent trolls, for a growing number of patent infringement lawsuits in U.S. courts and a flood of patent settlement demand letters. The bill would require plaintiffs in patent infringement lawsuits to identify the patents and claims infringed in initial court filings, in an effort to reduce complaints about PAEs filing lawsuits with vague patent claims. The bill would also allow judges to require that losing plaintiffs pay defendants' court fees. In addition, the bill would allow courts to delay massive discovery requests from patent infringement plaintiffs until the patent claims have been interpreted by the court, and it would allow manufacturers and suppliers to intervene in patent litigation against their customers. In recent years, some PAEs have targeted end users of technologies that allegedly infringe their patents in an effort to collect more patent license fees or court awards. Several groups representing inventors, venture capitalists and U.S. colleges have opposed the bill, with some saying that it has been rushed through Congress in about a month. This week, inventor Dean Kamen, founder of Deka Research and Development, spoke out against the bill. "The patent system has been a main driver of keeping the U.S. economy ahead of the rest of the world since this country was formed," he said during a press briefing. "Any bill that tinkers with the main engine of innovation ought be looked at very, very carefully and not whipped along." The bill would "dramatically increase the barriers" for small inventors to protect their intellectual property, he added.. . . . . . . . . . . .

Developers slowly rising to Microsoft's Surface

Microsoft's Surface touch computer may be generating more oohs and ahs than some of the company's other recent technologies, but the product has yet to generate rabid interest among programmers. A year and half after Microsoft released Surface, just 250 companies are developing applications for the touch system, Microsoft officials revealed during its Professional Developers Conference 2009 (PDC09) held here this week. Some 5,000 copies of its free Software Development Kit (SDK) for Surface have been downloaded, they added. Compare that with the 100,000 iPhone SDKs that were downloaded in the four days after its launch on March 6, 2008.. . . . . . . . . . Some observers question whether such a comparison is valid -- deployment of the $12,500 to $15,000 Surface tabletop PC is limited mostly to hotels, health clinics, banks and other customer-facing businesses looking for a new spin on the computerized kiosk. The Surface's April 2008 launch came amid a massive economic downturn that still has businesses shy about investing in new technology, leading to a chicken-and-egg situation where developers are holding off developing Surface apps until the economy improves. Brad Carpenter, general manager of Microsoft's Surface team, said he remains patient. "For interest to scale out takes time," he said in an interview at PDC this week. "There are more and more apps every day. So we feel like we are making progress." He pointed out that Microsoft now has 250 Surface partner companies, up from 180 six months ago and 60 a year ago. Similarly, the 5,000 SDK downloads is more than 3 times the 1,500 six months ago, and up sixteenfold from 300 a year ago. To accelerate development of applications for Surface, Microsoft announced that the Surface SDK is now available without charge to all developers. The SDK was previously available free only to members of the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN). Microsoft noted that the SDK includes a simulator that lets developers see how their programs would run on a conventional PC. It lets users plug in multiple USB mice to simulate how multi-touch technologies work. The SDK runs on Vista today, but Microsoft said the next version will be based on Windows 7. With adequate hardware, Windows 7 offers multi-touch capabilities. Carpenter declined to say when the next version will be available. Microsoft disclosed that it is also integrating the touch and object-recognition controls for Surface into the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) version 4. That version of the WPF graphics subsystem is due in 2010. WPF support should help developers more easily create Surface-enabled apps, Carpenter said, as well as make Surface applications run similarly to Windows 7 touch-enabled software. Carpenter said that the Surface is now available in 18 countries, including 16 in Europe. New customers include Hard Rock Cafe, Barclays Bank and mobile operator Vodafone, which has deployed Surfaces in 62 retail stores to provide customer service. Surface's stumbling blocks also continue to be its high price and bulkiness. Microsoft is working on a less-expensive version of Surface which will likely be thinner and wall-mountable, like an LCD television, said Carpenter. The technical difficulty would be packing cameras behind the touchscreen to enable object recognition capabilities, as well as the PC hardware -- an Intel Core 2 Duo processor mounted on a desktop motherboard. But, Carpenter said, "I definitely believe it's do-able." However, when asked whether future Surface versions would enable in-air gestures like the Xbox 360's Project Natal, Carpenter sounded less optimistic. "We are mostly focused on touch. In-air gestures is not something we are enabling yet," he said. Carpenter wouldn't talk about the cost of new Surface versions, but did say a new version should be coming soon. "Our goal was to have a consumer version of the Surface in two to four years. We are on track for that," he said.

All about Windows RT, the OS behind a Microsoft tablet

The Internet began boisterously buzzing last week that Microsoft will unveil its own tablet later today, perhaps one powered by Windows RT, the offshoot of Windows 8. On Monday, the speculation grew even more adamant, with the New York Times claiming that Microsoft sources told it that the company will indeed introduce its own tablet, and that the device would run Windows RT. While Microsoft has aggressively touted Windows 8 with scores of blog posts spelling out often picayune details of the upcoming operating system, the company has been relatively quiet about Windows RT, the all-mobile OS destined for tablets. How is Windows RT different from its better-known cousin? Why did Microsoft create two versions when Windows 8 also boasts some of the same features and relies, at least in part, on the same design motif and user interface (UI)? Questions, questions, questions. And because there's a growing chance Microsoft will make a landmark move -- it's never directly competed with its PC- or tablet-making partners -- we have some answers. Where do I buy Windows RT? You don't. Not separately, anyway, as Windows has been sold for decades. Windows RT is OEM-only -- OEM, for "original equipment manufacturer" is simply a computer maker, like Dell or Hewlett-Packard or Lenovo -- and the OS can't be purchased by individuals or Microsoft's corporate customers. Instead, it is pre-installed on devices, most likely tablets, although Microsoft has been trumpeting a claim that at some point, low-cost, power-miserly notebooks will also run the OS. The rumored tablet that Microsoft is to unveil later today would run Windows RT, making Microsoft its own OEM for the first time ever for a computer or computer-like device. So Windows RT is the same as Windows 8? No, it's not. They're two separate lines of Windows, and to delve into family history, cousins at best -- maybe once removed. Think of it this way: Windows RT is to Windows 8 as Apple's iOS is to OS X. The two within each pair clearly have a shared history, some shared code, but are distinct operating systems designed for different classes of devices, and run on completely different, and incompatible, processor platforms.. . . . . . . . . . Both OS X and Windows 8 run on Intel's x86/64 processor architecture, while iOS and Windows RT work only on devices with ARM-licensed CPUs. So I'm guessing that apps designed for Windows 8 -- or older version of Windows -- won't run in Windows RT. You are correct. Programs designed for Windows 8, the operating system that runs on devices powered by Intel's x86/64 processors, will not only not run on Windows RT, they're not even allowed to try. With a few exceptions..., because there are always exceptions. Analyst credits Surface sell-out to Microsoft swinging conservative Best Buy does what Microsoft won't: Takes Surface tablets in trade Deja vu all over again: Microsoft warns of Surface 2 sell-out Microsoft steers same strategic course in Surface do-over Dumping a Surface? eBay averages double the return of a buyback vendor Microsoft's Surface to be under revenue microscope Microsoft's most loyal users ask for Surface trade-in program Microsoft takes second swing at tablets with new Surface 2 lineup Microsoft sticks to guns, will unveil refreshed Surface on Sept. 23 Surface channel distribution tempo shows Microsoft lacks Plan B after sales debacle More on Surface