TAEUS & Microsoft Beget PatentBooks
TAEUS has had a long and colorful history with Microsoft. For nearly four decades, beginning in the early 1990s, TAEUS has investigated Microsoft for patent infringement. In fact, the TAEUS history with Microsoft was PatentBooks genesis.
Unisys, via its Burroughs acquisition, developed the Lempel, Ziv, Welch (LZW) patented technology to deal with submarine sonar reports. Submarine sonar reports usually contain nothing until the sonar pings an object once in a while. All that data needed to be compressed before it was recorded.
Hard drive data could also be optimized via data compression. In 1994, TAEUS reverse-engineered the Microsoft DoubleSpace software algorithm and proved it used the LZW patent.
Also in 1994, AT&T thought that the new Microsoft Windows 3.1 used one or more of their patents. TAEUS analyzed Windows 3.1 and proved that Microsoft indeed was using AT&T patents in Windows 3.1.
In the mid-2000s, much of the world’s software industry complained that the instructions Microsoft provided to industry to write compatible code did not work. TAEUS Europe Ltd. (TEL), located in the United Kingdom, was paid €9 million by the European Commission (EC) from 2006-2009 to reverse engineer the entire Windows operating system, proving that the instructions Microsoft provided did not work. The EC subsequently fined Microsoft €1 billion.
By this time, Microsoft knew TAEUS. Microsoft executive management invited TAEUS to a meeting in Redmond, WA, and asked us to work with them, rather than against them. We agreed, provided we did not have pre-existing conflicts. Brad Smith, now Vice Chair and President of Microsoft, did not attend that meeting. Brad suggested Microsoft not contract with TAEUS until the EC matter died down.
In the meantime, Intel called Microsoft. Intel asked if we had any issues working against Microsoft. At that time, TAEUS did not, and Intel hired TAEUS. In 30 days, TAEUS delivered 33 claim charts versus Microsoft, as the first of many, many litigation-ready claim charts we produced for Intel over the next two years.
Before Intel approached Microsoft with the TAEUS claim charts, Microsoft contacted TAEUS, asking to investigate Intel. TAEUS was conflicted out.
This major unfortunate conflict was the initial impetus to create PatentBooks. Every company in the world uses other companies’ patents. Sir Isaac Newton is credited with saying, “I see farther than others because I stand on the shoulders of giants.”
PatentBooks enables smooth, nearly effortless licensing of all patents used in a commercially successful product or service.