back to article Microsoft, Oracle sued: Tech duo accused of trampling DB patents

The University of Tennessee Research Foundation (UTRF) and Saint Matthew Research (SMR) on Tuesday filed lawsuits against Microsoft and Oracle alleging the infringement of database patents. The UTRF exists to commercialize intellectual property arising from research at the University of Tennessee; SMR is a California-based …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    Begun...

    ... the quest for more money has.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    DB

    DB = Deutsche Bahn

    .. = DataBase

    MB isnot MegaBit

  3. bombastic bob Silver badge
    FAIL

    universities are patent trolls now?

    I have to wonder about the motivations behind this...

    All of these patents apply to storing DNA information, from what I can gather (a generic database is not covered by this). To get a patent, you have to be SPECIFIC about your invention, whether it's a physical device, algorithm, or whatever. In short, a blanket "for loop" patent would be denied on the basis of it being trivial and generic. "Use of a for loop to calculate prime numbers" might be patentable since it's a specific unique usage for a specific application. But patents that are trivially obvious, or 'too generic' or 'too vague' shouldn't be granted, but apparently are granted anyway [I've seen a few].

    These trivially obvious, generic, and/or vague patents are the ones the patent trolls EXPLOIT in order to extract money in the form of punitive damages and legal costs.

    So after a short amount of overview on this, I'd say the university is IN THE WRONG, unless Micro-shaft and Oracle are *specifically* working on a DNA database and are blatantly violating their patent for some reason...

    (which I doubt)

    1. Joe 35

      Re: universities are patent trolls now?

      "To get a patent, you have to be SPECIFIC about your invention.."

      Not in the US you don't.

  4. Strahd Ivarius Silver badge
    Trollface

    Again a patent of the type...

    ... something more or less trivial done with a computer instead of humans?

  5. Field Marshal Von Krakenfart
    Trollface

    US Patent No. 8,099,733

    "The patterns and clusters enable the stored data to be partitioned into subsets of roughly equal size." " resulting in a database tree that is balanced, meaning that all paths or branches through the tree have roughly the same length"

    Hmmmm.... sounds like IMS to me..... Do IBM know about this?

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