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Sendo Sues Orange for Patent Infringement
captnjameskirk writes "RCR Wireless News is reporting that Sendo is suing European carrier Orange for patent infringement involving the circuit board design within the phones. As the article points out, Sendo also sued Microsoft for allegedly stealing their technology for use in the Smartphone OS." Back in January, we also had some more information on the case between Sendo and Microsoft.
Sendo has tech sharing agreement with MS.
Orange has tech sharing agreement with MS.
MS hands over Sendo tech to Orange holds back obligations to Sendo.
Sendo gives up on it's own phone with MS software due to above.
Sendo sues Orange for patent infringement.
So this is n't your average money grabbing patent suit.
Mobile-phone upstart Sendo lashed out with another lawsuit...
Doesn't that sound a little like biased reporting to anybody else? ...lashed out... another lawsuit..?
Certainly does to me. The Register's coverage of the story is more neutral:-
Sendo sues Orange over MS SPV smartphone IP .Actually, this wasn't. They had an agreement with MS to take this product to market. Unfortunately they signed a contract with a suicide clause which indicated that if they went under, MS got all their goods. Of course, Microsoft was supposed to pay them to keep them from going under...
So naturally Microsoft didn't pay them, they went under, MS took their stuff, and Sendo sued MS over breach of contract.
Now, at this point, the rights to the technology should be up in the air. If Microsoft broke the terms of the contract by not paying Sendo, then the contract is void and the IP is still Sendo's. But Microsoft, being the arrogant bastard it is, didn't wait for the lawsuit to end, and assumed that they could dole out the big bucks to make sure the suit ended in their favor. So they gave Sendo's IP to Orange to take Sendo's product to market.
So, yes, this is a case of "I will sue anyone who does what my patent describes", but for once, they're justified in biting back.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
It would have to raise an awful lot of money to do NEthing effectively. An average patent costs $5-6k, so if you are going to be filing patents to protect "free technology", then you are going to be burning through money very quickly. It's generally much more cost effective to place discoveries in the public domain, the old fashioned way. /. about bad patents which should not have been issued by USPTO in the first place. Well, those patents are just pieces of paper until someone violates them (say, by making a One-Click Purchasing website ala the infamous Amazon patent). So, what usually happens is the person who violates the improper patent gets sued, and often they do not have the money to defend themselves, and thus the improper patent stands. This is where the ATLU comes in. They provide legal defense for those people who are doing actual innovation, and even the playing field. The hard part, of course, is deciding which cases are proper to help defend. I sure wouldn't want the ATLU helping someone violating one of my patents.
However, there might be a different use of such a FPF - call it the "American Technological Liberties Union". I'm picking that moniker for a reason: we have had a zillion postings to
(Disclaimer: I am a patent holder)