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Engineer Loses SSL Patent Case against RSA and VeriSign

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the intellectual-property-lines dept.

MeanMF writes "eWeek reports that a jury has ruled in favor of the defendants in a patent infringement lawsuit brought by an electrical engineer who clamed rights to a technology used in the SSL protocol. Not only did he lose the case, but next week the jury will rule on whether his patents are valid at all."

8 of 152 comments (clear)

  1. Patents by evilmonkey_666 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I was always under the impression that patents cannot be inforced if the holder sits back and allows their technology to be used and adopted, only to decide that they want royalties years later, when people have come to rely on it.

    This, I thought was illegal. Owners of patents have an obligation to tell people that they are using licensed technology, and that they have a right to charge a fee.

    --


    - PS. This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R where eliminated.
  2. why did the other 3 settle? by scorilo · · Score: 3, Interesting
    What I don't understand is why did the other 3 settle? Just how big do you have to be to dispute the validity of a patent?

    Perhaps patents are becoming the scare factors that derivatives used to be (and still are), where even professionals working in the field can claim in court that they don't understand what's going on and get away with it...

    --
    "One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that ones work is terribly important." -BRussell
  3. Good. by Rev.LoveJoy · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Not to take joy in the bludgeoning of the little guy, but this dude is a squatter. Patents should expire if you don't do anything with them for 2 years.

    Ohhh, ohhh, I've got this really good idea, but rather than do something with it (that involves risk!) I'll just patent it and sit around until some big company does something close enough that I can sue them.

    Our legal and "intellectual property" (poverty?) system supports this - that's the news and that's the thing we should work to change.

    Cheers,
    -- RLJ

    1. Re:Good. by DickBreath · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I think a lot of you anti-intellectual property rights people don't really understand how important IP rights are to capitalistic societies. To me, it is anti-property rights and that is scary.

      No doubt people said something similar when the printing press was invented.


      I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but I'll venture a more serious reply.

      Switching gears to a different argument. Being against patent abuse does not mean one is against intellectual property. Being against patent abuse, being in favor of patent reform does not make one against proprietary rights or against property.

      Nonetheless, I still think we should really examine just what 'intellectual property' really is.

      A patent needs 3 things to qualify. (1) novelty -- it is new and novel, (2) non-obviousness, it is not some idea that anyone would have thought of such as 1 click shopping, (3) I have forgotten the third requirement. Rigtht now an idea no matter how stupid can get patented in spite of the requirements. Maybe a requirement should be added that the idea is NOT a trivial improvement to something already existing.

      --

      I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
    2. Re:Good. by Rev.LoveJoy · · Score: 2, Interesting
      The problem is that how do you define "do anything with them for 2 years."

      Does that mean successfully market? Have someone pay to use it? Actively market it? Continue development?

      See what I mean?

      No, no, I understand your point exactly. Admittedly, what I posted was much more reaction than it was a full exploration of my thoughts on the subject of IP and your very pertinent question.

      What is acceptable as "development of a patent" in order to ensure the holder's retention of said patent's rights? That's a very tricky question, but I think it is that question that we should be debating, rather then playing whack a mole with squatter cases and cases in which prior art clearly exists but was not brouht to light at the time of issuance.

      Clearly, I do not perceive myself as an IP socialist; I place great value on the importance of intellectual property in our information driven society. Unlike others, I think we need to make changes to existing patent law and practice in order to fine tune for the times.

      Cheers,
      -- RLJ

  4. Re:Don't mean to cum off trollish by josh+crawley · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ---if Microsoft figured out how to implement Google's page rank system

    OH Come now.. We all know that Google uses the Pigeon Rank system.

    I've said that we should ignore software patents UNTIL all the crap in the system is worked out. We still end up with a few garbage non-software patents...

    But how do you prove non-intuitive to a non-computer geek? XOR was 'patented' a while back (in the eighties) as a way of coloring/moving the mouse. The company who got that patent then went to computer expos and simply blackmailed damn near everybody who said they had a gui (and had that negative mouse style).

    We need to DISREGARD ALL SOFTWARE PATENTS until this mess is fixed. And yes, that means going through the patent papers and making projects that infringe upon them.

  5. Re:IE can't view MNG by nuntius · · Score: 2, Interesting

    > Thus, to reach the largest audiences, web sites will still serve animated advertisement banners as GIF instead of MNG.

    So... you're arguing for dropping GIF support, right?

    Brilliant! even more effective than Junkbuster. ;)

  6. Here's the patent, and it isn't as BS as you think by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    A transaction system is disclosed wherein, when a transaction, document or thing needs to be authenticated, information associated with one or more of the parties involved is coded together to produce a joint code. This joint code is then utilized to code information relevant to the transaction, document or record, in order to produce a variable authentication number (VAN) at the initiation of the transaction. This VAN is thereafter associated with the transaction and is recorded on the document or thing, along with the original information that was coded. During subsequent stages of the transaction, only parties capable of reconstructing the joint code will be able to uncode the VAN properly in order to re-derive the information. The joint code serves to authenticate the parties, and the comparison of the re-derived information against the information recorded on the document serves to authenticate the accuracy of that information.

    Heres the link

    I'm not a lawyer, and I'm not an expert on encryption, but this doesn't sound like a bs patent to me. is it possible that a legitimate inventor got screwed trying to press his claim on a corportation that just doesn't want to pay people for what they've rightfully created?