Assignment 2 for this week

For my second post, I will further talk about obviousness of the patent cases.
The purpose of a virtual private network is to establish a secure, tunneled route between two points in an IP network(betanews).

The company called VirneX went one step further with VPN. This company called it Tunneled Agile Routing Protocol. The communication between VPN hosts are encrypted at on level, but routing information is hidden behind a second level. 
The purpose was to hide who was sharing is and what route its taking to get there in addition to hiding what's being shared or talked about.

Microsoft, on the other hand, implemented its own VPN technology. It built a VPN for phone network. To make internet work more like a phone, like people using a telephone console to be able to pick up the phone and dial. They argued that they shouldn't have to go to some dialog box and log in. Avoiding this option was exactly what VirnetX stated that Microsoft infringed.

Microsoft argued that the whole point of VPN was to establish secure and anonymous communication between two points. Therefore, the VirnetX's idea of inventing addition of anonymity was ridiculous because it's already there. Microsoft also argued that judge look up glossary to find the whole definition of VPN.

In the end, it became a confusion after confusion. It was all down to Judge's and Jurys' interpretation of VPN after looking up glossary and hearing from both sides. In the end, the Jury determined that Microsoft infringed on VirnetX's patents. The reason was because Microsoft wanted to patent this exact idea previously, but found out VirnetX already made it so they were denied. Also, Microsoft couldn't persuade the jury or the judge that VirnetX's VPN technology was so obvious that it was already covered by glossary definition. Also, trying to invent the same technology previously hurt Microsoft here big time.
The basis of the denial was prior art, which was existence of patent issued to VirnetX.

After looking at so many cases and articles relating to obviousness, it's clearly subjective. If Microsoft didn't file the patent before, they could have gotten away with it. I feel this is one of the major problem that exists in patent.

http://betanews.com/2010/03/17/microsoft-loses-another-jury-verdict-this-time-over-obviousness-of-vpn-patent/