Microsoft Sued Over Windows 8 Live Tiles
Microsoft's legal team put to work on Windows 8-related patent infringement lawsuits.
SurfCast claims that it invented the Live Tiles used in Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8. As a result, the company claims that it is entitled to damages.
SurfCast refers to a patent that it was awarded in 2004 that describes an approach of self-updating content. The patent focuses its technology on connected PDAs as well as WAP phones. Microsoft said that it will prove that the lawsuit has no merit.
It is unclear how much of a case Surfcast really has, but the technology approaches are similar and rely on a communication framework between client devices and servers that store data. The difference is that Surfcast refers to its own servers as data store, while Microsoft's patent refers to general servers and not specifically its own to retrieve the data for updating the tiles. In fact, if Microsoft talks in its Live Tile patent about Microsoft servers, the company may be in hot water. If not, this case can be handled by interns.
Of course, the validity of Surfcast's patent could be questioned as well. The technology is very reminiscent of push-content technology that was aggressively (and unsuccessfully) promoted by Internet startup Pointcast in the late 1990s.
I am going to sue every youngster who born on same day as me and have same name just because I did this first! Had to choose another day you losers!
Because Apple and Google use static icons, not live tiles. Just a thought.
Yay!
More like they will just buy out SurfCast.
They had like what,. A Developer Preview,. a Consumer Preview and a Release Preview,.. to notice that MS might be infringing there patents and then they just watched it get on sale so that they could milk MS!!! They're the worst!!!!
They can't even use the "Metro" name for their app style anymore because a German retailer decided to wait until a couple months prior to release to issue a trademark warning to Microsoft.
All these features and trademark names [Live Tiles and "Metro" Apps] have been common knowledge among the industry since Windows Phone 7 released way back in November 2010.
Seems like other companies are strategically waiting to sue when it will hurt Microsoft most: right at release of their flagship product, Windows 8.
Intellectual property law sure seems like a rather cold calculating dirty business.
Microsoft has tried the same before, I just see it as payback time for bad habits and using GPL code without releasing patches and include the GPL license with a product.
]Go to their Contact Page and send them a nasty email.
They may have done that in the past,. but that doesn't merit Surfcast to redo it,. they have more than enough time to warn MS about this, they knew MS would release it,. waiting for MS to finalize and sell the product is a clear sign that they simply want to file damages and thus receive payments when they could have stop MS from selling it in the first place.