Over 20 Companies Sued over OS Patent

Microsoft, Symantec, and 20 other companies have been named in a patent infringement lawsuit by a small Texas firm.  Information Protection and Authentication of Texas (IPAT) was granted two patents in the mid-90’s over systems for governing application and data permissions, and ensuring application integrity.  IPAT is looking for an injunction against the named companies as well as damages, reports Ars Technica.

The patent in question was granted in May 1995, and was a continuation of a previous patent filed in May 1994.  The former patent is titled “Computer system security method and apparatus having program authorization information data structures,” and it describes a system of authorization and permissions when executing applications and processing user data.  As the patent describes:

[A system monitor] limits the ability of a program about to be executed to the use of predefined resources.  The system monitor builds a data structure including a set of authorities defining that which a program is permitted to do and/or that which the program is precluded from doing.

IPAT purchased these patents from their listed inventor, Addison M. Fischer.  The complaint was originally filed on December 30, 2008, and a response from the defendants is still forthcoming.