James Taylor, a Texas inventor, has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Texas against Microsoft, claiming that the software giant's Windows operating systems, Office applications, and SQL database technology violate his patent entitled "Post compile optimizer for linkable object code." The patent was awarded to Taylor in 1995 and describes "a system for processing a complete object code data set, to be linked into an executable program," according to U.S. Patent and Trademark Office records. When reached at his home in Carrollton, Taylor, who filed the lawsuit without the aid of an attorney, declined to specify which aspects of Microsoft's products he believes violate his patent. He is seeking unspecified damages. Microsoft has yet to file a response in the case.
Microsoft has been lobbying for patent reforms that would make it more difficult for inventors to obtain patents on what the company believes are dubious or vaguely described innovations.
News source: InformationWeek
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