Bright LCD Patent Dispute

pcp_ip writes "Honeywell filed suit Wednesday against 34 companies (including, Apple, Dell, Sony, Kodak, Fuji et al.) for infringment of patent 5,280,371. The patent for "a directional diffuser for a liquid crystal display" was filed on January 1994 and enables "a display to produce a brighter image without requiring additional power." Honeywell is looking for an injunction to prevent the defendants from continuing to infringe its patent, and for "damages adequate to compensate them for Defendants infringement." So much for LCD prices coming down! Where's OLED when you need it?"

Comments

But...

[ivan256]

Apple and Dell don't even make LCD panels... All they do OEM panels from various manufacturers and put them in a plastic housing with some accessory electronics...

Surely it would be the manufacturer that's infringing, right?

Re:But...

[kidgenius]

Probably not, since you are merely a reseller. Notice how Best Buy, CompUSA, etc. are not included?

Hall of Fame

[bstadil]

How many companies initiating "major" Patent INfringement cases can you name?

How are they doing in the market place!

I can think of SCO, Kodak, Unisys and now Honeywell. I will venture all is not well at the little Honey

Re:Hall of Fame

[back_pages]

This is exactly what patents are supposed to prevent. Why are you guys giving them so much crap for doing something about it?

What's more is that the patent at issue here has fewer than 6 claims, they are written in clear English, the entire application is fewer than 20 pages, and it is directed toward a physical, tangible invention.

To answer your question, because the Slashdot groupthink regarding patents is completely reTARded. There is no basis in fact, there is no interest in learning the facts, and the moderation system rewards the stubbornly retarded while burying anybody with a clue. This post contains actual facts I learned by looking at the patent - let's see how it gets moderated, eh?

Valid patent for once

[eagl]

Maybe I'm going against the grain here, but I am pleased to see a patent for an actual physical implementation of a technology being defended, instead of all the bogus so-called "software patents" we've been hearing about for the last few years. Some patents are quite reasonable and legit, but with all the st00pid bogus patents getting all the press lately even legit patents are getting a bad rap.

Kudos for Honeywell, a company you don't hear about throwing it's weight around all the time, defending a patent that describes a process and physical implementation that actually DOES something. If they'd patented a method for vertical alignment of viewing sensors in front of a display apparatus to maximize contrast and enhance look-angle (ie. the up-down adjustment on your office chair), then we'd have reason to throw rotten fruit, but this patent seems to be a legitimate technological concept.

Give them a break... Rightous patents should be defended rigorously or there is no incentive to do core research. Don't let the flood of worthless patents or the incompetence of the patent examiners destroy the legitimate use of the patent system.

Re:Karma for Kodak

[dougmc]

To be fair, Kodak probably learned about patents first hand when Polaroid sued them (and won $900 million). Then, to add insult to injury, since Kodak couldn't make film for their instant cameras anymore, they had to spend about $500 million more dollars paying off those who had bought them.

Ouch.

Though I expect that Sun will ultimately prevail when they appeal this case. Still, the only real winners when patents get involved are the lawyers.

Re:Unobvious?

[sexylicious]

1) They've been using this idea for YEARS. (I'm pretty sure of this.)

2) Just because it's obvious after the fact of their filing doesn't negate the fact that they filed first and therefore were the "innovators" for the idea.

Re:Yet another example of patent BS.

[micromoog]

The "obvious" solution to the brightness problem is brighter lightbulbs, not an array of lenses and other optics.

Ever looked inside a flashlight?

Re:Unobvious?

[kidgenius]

Ever think that these companies didn't come up with the "original" idea either? What if Honeywell developed and patented this idea. Then, they write a paper that is published in many tech journals. Now imagine that all of these other companies look at this paper and say "hey, let's try to do something like that and hope we don't get caught." How do you think LG & Samsung knew about this technology so they could license it?

Also, what if instead of reading those tech magazines, the small companies trying to compete against Samsung & LG realized that they both use a similar method, and concluded (incorrectly) that is was something that did not have a patent, because both major LCD companies had this technology in use. Honeywell is definately not the first name in consumer LCDs. Wouldn't surprise me in the least that some other companies copied this design under the false assumption that it was not a patented idea.

Innovation

[Ender Ryan]

Furthermore, everyone I know who had one of Kodak's instant cameras thought they were much, much better than Poloroid.

So much for innovation, eh?

And now, Kodak sues Sun similarly. The abused becomes another abuser. The circle continues.

Notice who's NOT on the list?

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM. Why? Probably because IBM has so many patents up the wazoo that to sue it for patent infringement will almost certainly result in a countersuit for twice as much for twice as many patents. What's the moral of the story? The best defence against idiotic patents is to have more idiotic patents than everyone else.

Perception of technology I dont understand

[evil_one666]

As a software engineer, I have no clue about the technology involved in making an LCD screen brighter without using extra power, but the idea dazzles me and my first reaction was that this company SHOULD uphold its patent basically because I dont understand how it works.

It struck me that I NEVER agree with any of the software patents that are proposed by various entities, because I generally have a deep understanding of how the relevant technology operates.

This is why I understand why it is so difficult to educate laymen of the dangers of software patents. I too am swayed by aruments for patents if I am impressed by technology I dont understand

Apple may have some leverage ...

[adzoox]

If I am not mistaken ... Apple has made investments in the LCD lines of Samsung and LG Philips (through Chi Mei Electronics)

If I am also not mistaken this included sharing patent and development knowledge between Apple and said companies.

Since Apple may move to OLED or another technology and be involved in it's creation, enhancement and deployment - maybe they could offer Honeywell a piece of that pie to be "dropped" from litigation.

Otherwise - I think Honeywell is unjustly going after the computer makers because they are simply OEM and ODM from essentially 4 main conglomerates: Samsung, Sharp, LG Philips, Mitsubishi - there are smaller players in abundance but these four control about 80% of the market.

Re:Wrong!

[SagSaw]

I can think of two reforms that might work better and be more practical than forbidding that a paten be knowingly infringed:

First, patent applications are currently kept secret for 18 months following the date of application. (IANAL, so I may be a bit off on this). My suggestion is to keep patent applications and patents themselves secret for 18 months following application. If somebody else "invents" the same thing during that 18 month period, that should be considered proof that the content of the patent is obvious and non-innovative.

Second, don't allow patents that are simply a unique combination of existing inventions. That way, you couldn't simply patent using Widget A and Widget B together. If an "invention" is required to use Widget A and Widget B in combination, that invention could be patented.

I recently ran accross a patent at work from one of our competitors (expired BTW). Basically, it patented printing a particular type of potentiometer (already invented) onto a flexible film (already invented). Nothing in the claim indicates that anything new needed to be invented to use the two in combination. As a result, I really have a hard time imaging how the public received any benifit from what the inventor disclosed in the patent. If the inventor had to invent a material, process, etc. in order to print a potentiometer onto a flexible film, those inventions are the patent system should allow.

Likewise, if Widget A and Widget B can be used togther to do something that isn't possible with existing inventions, you could patent the use of Widget A and Widget B together to accomplish that goal. In the above case, printing the potentionmeter on a flexible film allows the potentiometer to fit in a smaller volume, and could be used to improve the linearity of a rotary potentiometer by arranging the potentiometer in a configuration that wouldn't work if the potentiometer were printed on a rigit substrate. (BTW, how one might arrange the potentiometer to achieve this advantage isn't mentioned in the patent)