AvantGo Gets a Patent

AnElder writes: "Yahoo's Daily News Technology section is carrying a story reporting that AvantGo has received a patent for its synchronization technology. And here's an excerpt: "In legal jargon, AvantGo said the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had issued it patent No. 6,341,316 covering the system, method and computer program product for synchronizing content between a server and a client." Why didn't I think of this?" In all fairness, the patent doesn't seem to be as bad as many that have been issued. It cites many other patents as references (which helps ensure that AvantGo is doing something *different*), and is rather specific about the process - I would expect that there are many ways to "synchronize" data that wouldn't run into this patent.

Comments

Just a bit of experience...

[mystery_bowler]

While I was in college I did a co-op with a company that makes software to sync a certain popular PDA with Office. At the time, the company was really small and there were established competitors who were a lot larger than my employer. They, too, had a patent on a particular algorithm of synchronization, but we my bosses (one of whom was the developer of our software) weren't concerned. Our software was so much faster than theirs, the algorithm couldn't possibly be the same.

Imagine our surpise when our biggest competitor sent a "cease-and-desist" letter claiming we infringed on their patents. My bosses denied it, of course, but our competitor would have none of it. They had to see our code for themselves to verify that we weren't in violation of their patents. I don't quite remember exactly how it was resolved - I left soon after this became a big issue - but I'm sure it had something to do with my employer striking a deal with the manufacturer of the PDA.

Anyway, where I'm going with this is that, sure it might not seem like having this patent is a bad thing or over-reaching. And, used responsibly, it's probably not. But don't be surprised to see AvantGo try to get the drop on a potential competitor if they can use this patent as leverage.