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Five PC Vendors Face Patent Lawsuit
Combuchan writes "This article from internetnews.com caught my attention: While Linux lawsuits gobble up the IT community's mindshare, a lesser-known legal action is being fought seeking billions of dollars from five PC vendors. Patriot Scientific, a small, San Diego-based seller of embedded microprocessors for automotive and scientific applications, is suing Sony, Fujitu, Matsushita, Toshiba, and NEC, alleging infringement of a Patriot patent for what it calls 'fundamental microprocessor technology.'"
Look, who has the clout in congress to get the patent mess cleaned up? Big companies. Thus, the fastest way to clean it up, have big companies get harassed with expensive lawsuits like this. A lot. If Intel, Microsoft, IBM, etc., waste enough money fighting stupid patents (note - I know nothing about the Patriot patents, they may or may not be stupid), then you can bet that things will change.
Just a thought. Of course, laws would probably change in a way that makes it harder for anobody to sue big companies, but leave it just as easy for big companies to patent "one click instead of two to buy an item" type idiocy, but we can hope, can't we?
Had anyone else not heard about this company before today?
these guys are idiots. Here's the patent:
San Diego, CA - August 7, 2003 - - Patriot Scientific Corporation (OTCBB:PTSC) developer of key microprocessor technologies and scalable Java solutions for mobile products, today announced that it has received an additional patent for fundamental microprocessor technology currently in widespread use. United States Patent #6,598,148 B1 has been granted for PTSC's variable speed clock acceleration technology for RISC and CISC processors. The patented technology not only bolsters PTSC's licensable microprocessor IP portfolio, but further strengthens the company's patent rights.
Future patent grants are expected that will further expand PTSC's rights within these fundamental technologies.
Jim Turley, editor of Silicon-Insider and previous editor of Microprocessor Report and a member of the company's Scientific Advisory Board, said, "After analyzing PTSC's patent, I'm certainly impressed with its range of coverage, basically representing the dominant means of accelerating internal microprocessor clock speeds."
Jeff Wallin, president and CEO of PTSC stated, "This is an important patent grant as it further validates our early innovation of key processing technologies that are ensconced in our IP portfolio. It not only gives our customers an extra measure of certainty in terms of our virginity and the technology but it substantially strengthens the validity and scope of our patent enforcement efforts."
Because of the breadth of the company's patent portfolio coupled with the size of the market benefiting from the company's protected technologies, the company is pursuing an intellectual property compliance program targeted at hundreds of companies using microprocessors with internal capabilities greater than 120 KHz. This is estimated to be in excess of a $200 billion market. Beatie and Osborn LLP, one of America's most prestigious law firms, represents the company's licensing and enforcement objectives.
Does any company actually have a business plan that isn't based around suing people any more?
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
It seems the only people making serious money from high tech are the lawyers.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
Here is the official patent from the USPTO. It was originally filed in 1998, but IC's have been around much longer than that, so I'm sure there's some prior art somewhere. This next quote could almost have come from the depths of the SCO complex:
Kinda sounds like Rambus and look where they've gone.
Amigori
"The quality of life is determined by its activites."--Aristotle
When the patent is approved is not as important as when it was filed, which in this case appears to be 1998. Moves the date-to-beat back a little, but I don't think it's enough to save this joke of a patent.
Although Patriot has plans to move forward with its 32-bit processors and application-specific integrated circuits, Wallin said that product revenues were currently "negligible."
"Our main focus is the IP [intellectual property] business now," he said.
Gee, this really reminds me of someone... can't think of the name...
Intel should outsource their legal team to a foreign country. Just imagine a team of high priced lawyers with heavy accents all using the wookie defense! They'd unstoppable!
From the parent: "we need to have some kind of IP court that determines whether or not a certain idea/algorithm/process deserves a patent to begin with. If not, no patent."
Isn't that precisely what the patent office is supposed to do? The problem is that they are inundated with so many requests that they don't have the resources (or desire for that matter) to adequately analyze and process each application.
I think the IP court you suggest would be subject to exactly the same problem, but with the added detriment of procedure in our never-ending legal process.
Though I haven't read the patent in question, it's possible that Intel's work in the 90s reflects prior art - but the patent office doesn't have time to find out one way or the other.
How many roads must a man walk down? 42.
I think what would help more than patent reform though is tort reform. For one, making the losing party pay is a start. Also, finding a way to reduce lawsuits or using arbitration more often will contribute significantly. Reforming the patent system would be nice too though.
US businesses that currently accept chip and PIN/signature
Considering that even all the huge companies have business models based around patents. At least, I assume they do, considering that IBM has ~25,000 active patents (Including a record of about 3,400 awarded in 2001), and numbers I've heard for other huge companies are also astronomical.
To these companies, owning lots of patents on lots of sometimes crazy things is a way of protecting their turf and a good way of putting potential competitors out of business. If they try to tighten up U.S. patent law, they'll only be making their job harder. Besides, I imagine that the amount of money they lose off most these lawsuits is chicken-scratch compared to their coffers.
The claims enumerated in patent 6,598,148 describe nothing more than an SMP system where the cache ram takes up at least 51% of the core and where the clock is variable. This is nothing unique and any idiot trained in the arts would have seen it as a trivial invention (SMP, variable clock, and large caches have all existed for quite some time) and therefore not worthy of a patent. Furthermore I don't see where Intel or their clients could be violating it except for the speed throttling overheat protection in the P4 and family processors. I know it's been said many times before but as far as the IT industry is concerned the USPTO needs to be scrapped or seriously funded because the way things work now are NOT acceptable, it's too easy for a bogus, stupid, or overbroad patent to slip through.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Yes, they'll change so only big companies can file stupid patents. :-)
no patent numbers were given. Here is a list of microprocessor related patents assigned to Patriot Scientific:
6,598,148 High performance microprocessor having variable speed system clock
5,809,336 High performance microprocessor having variable speed system clock
5,784,584 High performance microprocessor using instructions that operate within instruction groups
5,659,703 Microprocessor system with hierarchical stack and method of operation
All of these patents appear to be divisional patents of another patent:
5,440,749 High performance, low cost microprocessor architecture
which was filed in August of 1989 (for the most part, this date should be taken to be the effective priority date of all the above applications) and assigned to Nanotronics Corporation.
Please remember that titles, abstracts, and descriptions from the patent mean nothing legally. The only section which has any legal weight is the claims, so please don't start complaining about old microprocessors as "prior art" unless they actually do the same thing as is stated in the claims.
"I have a porkchop, you have a porkchop. I have a veal, you have a veal".
Patriot's provocative plan
I think that I have finally realized the missing part of this infamous formula:
1. Do X
2. ????
3. Profit.
The missing variable has been right in front of our eyes all along. It's sue everybody.
NJ Local Music Scene
Pay attention to who they are suing. Japanese companies are famous for folding at the least sign of litigation (remember Rambus, anyone?) thus a likely first target to raise capital to start suing others. It would be rather nice if the Japanese sent some Yakuza over to negotiate.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Seller sues vendors for microprocessor patent infringement. Not news.
Seller wins lawsuit against vendors for microprocessor infringement. News.
Let me know how it turns out.
For big companies, the current patent system is great: big companies have big patent portfolios that they cross-license. So, they don't generally have to worry about each other. That arrangement keeps new competitors out of the market. And patent application and prosecution costs are high enough that the number of stupid patents filed and prosecuted by small companies are negligible in comparison. Occasionally, something like this slips through. But by and large, stupid patents are filed by the big companies themselves and then cross-licensed in an arrangement that helps big companies.
Because the manufacturers are more likely to settle. The producer of the OEM parts, whose entire business is based on the technology, is more or less obliged to put up a hell of fight.
These suits, although not legally, are basically extortionate. Nobody wants to actually go to trial, least of all the company bringing forth the claim. Said company just wants someone to mail money to their post office box in order that they be left alone.
Once one person buys a "license" they can then use this to spread FUD that said purchase "proves" their case. See SCO/Sun/Microsoft.
One possible defense approach is to argue that since the parts are purchased you are not the primary litigant at law. Plaintiff must first prove their case against the manufaturer of the part before you can be held liable for infringement. You may or may not be financially liable, but it isn't your job to defend the IP if you are not its genesis. If the argument is accepted by the judge this does not dismiss the case, but holds it in abeyance until the primary claim is settled.
Then the plaintiff must decide if they want to go up against the big gun or not. If they do not then the pending case will eventually be dismissed. If they do then at least the smaller fish has the big one as its ally, and if the big one prevails than the orginal suit may be dismissed as groundless.
If big fish loses then the settlement may be held to have sufficiently compensated the plaintiff and the suit against the smaller fish may be dismissed so long as they no longer infringe. Which they're not likely to do because the OEM source will have licensed the technology in order to continue to sell it.
While all of this is going on the legal issues become a bigger and bigger tarball encompassing more and more companies who are more and more likely to just settle and get it the bloody hell over with.
It's basically stealing the nerdy kid's lunch money.
KFG
It is "if you can't beat them, sue them.
Fight Spammers!
Please examine US Patent #4,791,886, titled "Manner in which to relieve the American Judicial System from pointless lawsuits 3B", written by me. Specifically, I refer you to page 1,136 of the document which sets out the detonation of a thermonuclear device as the best way to destroy the office. I would also point out that three of the words in sentence #11 in the second paragraph also end with the letter G, just like in your post.
This is a serious infringement of my patent. Hire yourself a good lawyer buddy cause you're gonna get it.
Am I the only one who heard Roxette to sing "I'm gonna get blitzed for some sex"?
I don't know when the first Pentium came out with an on-chip clock, but that's probably not important anyway. I doubt if the patent is on the idea of an on-chip clock -- they can hardly claim to be the first people to have invented the concept of component integration! More likely they're claiming to have invented a design or manufacturing technique... oh well, might as well go look it up.
Yup, here's the 1995 patent application. It's too complicated for me, but they seem be claiming that their design manages to produce a steady clock signal even as temperature fluctuations play holy hell with the oscillations that produce the clock signal. Assuming I haven't totally mangled the concept, and that they really did think of this first, that's a pretty significant invention. It's certainly not on the same level as these business-process and software patents that we all love to hate.
I think that you guys are getting the wrong idea here. This is about CPUs geared for embedded application. All of the targets have their own RISC CPU products, or license CPU technology for their own products from other companies.
/ m /3 /homepage2.htm/ news/article.php /2212821i ndex.php?S ubject=Home
Here are some examples.
http://www.fme.fujitsu.com/products/micro/32bit
http://www.toshiba-electronics.com.hk/eng/syste
http://siliconvalley.internet.com
http://www.necelam.com/microprocessors/
Beyond these guys, there are even more companies that have similar products. Hitachi's Super-H line comes to mind.
It is also important to note that dependent claims (for example, a claim that starts like "The apparatus of claim 1") contain every limitation of the claims that they depend on.
Techincally, for something to be prior art, the only requirement is that it have existed prior to the filing of the application. For something to be considered good prior art, then it will have to read on the claims in some way.
Good prior art can read on all, or some of the features of a single claim depending on which statute it is being used under. For prior art under 35 USC 102, the prior art must have (at least) every feature of the claims. For prior art under 35 USC 103 a single prior art reference does not have to have every feature of the claims, however it must be combined with additional references which have the missing features and give motivation to add the missing features into the first reference to acheive the system (method, apparatus, etc..) of a single claim.
"I have a porkchop, you have a porkchop. I have a veal, you have a veal".
Patent No. 6,598,148,
appears to be a divisional patent from patent No. 5,982,231, filed in 1989. In summary, the invention describes a CPU using both stack and register-based instructions which interfaces directly to DRAM memory over 32 shared address and data lines. Memory accesses are minimized by using mainly stack-based instructions and accessing memory in fast page mode. The invention is designed to minimize cost, fitting just tens of thousands of transistors into a 44-pin package, while delivering approximately 20 MIPS performance. While none of the design elements by themselves are new or unique, the particular combination chosen seems to fit the definition of a real invention that was not in existence before 1989.
The features which seem to relate to its claims of variable speed are the use of an on-board ring oscillator to drive the system clock, and memory cycle timing which automatically adjusts to the loading seen from attached memory devices. Using an on-board ring oscillator means that the system clock can be driven by a device built with process parameters identical to other devices on the chip. If CPU transistors are a little slow on a batch of chips, the ring oscillator transistors will be similarly slow and the chips will continue to work at a slower but reliable speed.
It's just not clear to me how Patriot Scientific can claim that companies like Intel are infringing on their patent. Is it because Intel's products contain technology which also happens to appear in their invention, but which they themselves did not invent? None of the individual technologies used in the Patriot device originated with them, and it appears that only the specific combination of those technologies described in the patent application would have qualified it for approval. However, the patent claims are written in such a way as to seemingly describe a much broader range of CPU designs, many examples of which were certainly in existence before even the original patent application by Patriot was filed.
I've seen it stated that the claims are the only important part of a patent. That seems to be the big problem with this particular patent. What happens when a legitimate invention is granted a patent with overly broad claims? Some patents are written with claims that include a range of claims, some very specific and some very broad, on the assumption that it's better to aim for as much as possible and settle for what you can get. This particular patent seems to have only broad claims. Does that make it easier or harder to try and overturn?
If someone steals a TV, then goes and sells it to a resale shop, do we consider the owner of the resale shop to be a TV thief?
Then why the FUCK do we hold the reseller of a product they neither designed nor manufactured liable for patent infringement?
If there were any sense at all to the American legal system, there wouldn't be this stupid tangle of a case because it would never make it to a judge - the court's clerk would be allowed to immediately burn the motion and sprinkle its ashes in whatever drug and cleaning agent cocktail the company's lawyer was drinking at the time.
The patent application is very specific about using a ring oscillator to control the processor clock. Most processors use PLL (phase locked loop) devices to control their clock frequency.
Typically only asynchronous CPUs are clocked by free-running ring oscillators. Almost all CPUs on the market, including embedded CPUs, are synchronous designs and they come in fixed speed grades, which makes PLL clocking very attractive.
Even with PLLs you can vary the clock speed, e.g. when you detect that the chip is too hot or when the work load is low the CPU clock can be scaled down in discrete steps.
A ring oscillator provides a non-discrete (continue) frequency range, but on the downside its clock frequency is very unstable compared to PLLs, which is bad for synchronous designs.
There is also prior art: the early MIPS processor implementations had a free running multiplier, which operated as fast as the silicon would allow, even though the rest of the CPU was clocked at a fixed frequency.
In summary: this patent is not worth a lot.
I tried submitting this last week when I saw the article in the Union Tribune because the rhetoric coming from Patriot sounds disgustingly like the crap spewing from SCO.
Here are some choice quotes from the article:
"It would suggest that every PC manufactured after 1994 or 1995 is benefiting from this technology," Wallin said. As the company put it in a recent news release, "It is now time for Patriot Scientific and its shareholders to be properly remunerated."
Wallin added, "This sounds terrible, but we intend to get around to everybody."
Intel is taking action already. They have filed suit against Patriot to prevent Patriot from threatening them.
At least, I assume they do, considering that IBM has ~25,000 active patents
Don't assume anything. Companys like IBM file "defensive" patents all the time just to keep from being sued by little guys.
About 75% of the patent nightmares we've seen lately are from the tech bubble where high end companys go down the toilet. The decades of defensive patents become the best hope for survival and a new wave of patent lawsutes washes over the landscape.
I'm sure the surviving tech giants are sick and tired of not only having to file new patents but also for being sued by former giants who couldn't survive.
I don't actually exist.