Flat-Screen Makers Face Patent Lawsuits in U.S.

Elitist_Phoenix writes "Reuters reports two industrial manufacturers, Guardian Industries Corp. and Honeywell International Inc., have sued dozens of companies in the global PC and video display businesses in a U.S. federal court to try to recoup royalties on liquid-crystal technology.Guardian Industries, a maker of industrial glass, and Honeywell, known for making weapons systems, assert in filings in the U.S. District Court in Delaware that their intellectual property for liquid crystal displays, used in notebook computers, TVs, and cellular phones, have been infringed."

Comments

Short summary :)

[kompiluj]

For those who don't like to read long articles. In the LCD business everybody infringes someone's patents. However, up till now, nobody has sued noone, because it would end in immediate counterclaim. Unfortunately Honeywell does not make LCD's, and this makes them invulnerable.
I think that such claims will soon open the eyes of big businesses to threat they are facing. It is not only open source that is at risk. If you produce something (e.g. Windows) and you have a lot of money (e.g. Microsoft) then you are under threat too. The patent law sword has two edges.

Re:Short summary :)

[gl4ss]

yes and this pretty much displays the stupidity of current patent laws in current world.

if you're into actually enforcing your patents it makes sense if you DON'T PRODUCE ANY PRODUCT OF YOUR OWN.

Re:Short summary :)

[kompiluj]

Thank you ;) Your summary was even shorter than mine.

They took someone else's invention in the first pl

[Ricwot]

Surely they only got the patend because the University of Dundee was too late to patent their own invention.

Re:They took someone else's invention in the first

[squiggleslash]

That's how patents work. The winner is the won who publishes first and gets the idea to the patent office.

This is why many people feel that the number of categories of things that can be patented should be as small as possible. If there are already incentives to invent in a particular sphere, there's no need for patents. In this case, it's hardware, and arguably the amount of investment needed to come up with and implement an idea is so high patents have some validity. Still sucks to be in that industry though as you suffer the risk of developing something and then finding that some guy got there first. You do the work and the investment, someone else (who, admittedly, also did the work and investment) gets to profit.

Honeywell

[duffbeer703]

Honeywell is also known for making thermostats & furnace/boiler controllers.

What is the weapons systems reference there for? (Other than to slant the article against "evil" Honeywell?

Re:Honeywell

[Mycroft_514]

Honeywell was also a computer manufacturer for many years, but almost nobody remembers that. And some of GCOS (The Honeywell OS) has come down to Linux too, thru the intermediate steps of UNIX (I'm talking interface, not stolen code here folks, don't jump on me all at once.)

Re:Honeywell

[squiggleslash]

Honeywell made the computers that featured in Billion Dollar Brain, the last Harry Palmer film. FWIW. I'm sure a few Slashdotters have watched that.

Re:Honeywell

[bluGill]

Honeywell has a long history in weapons systems. Their thermostats and furnace/boiler controllers have always paid the bills, allowing management to spend time on interesting military projects.

In Minnesota (where I live, I don't know about other areas where Honeywell has offices) Honeywell is known as a boom-bust place. They are always either hiring lots of engineers for some secret weapons system, or laying them off because the contract is up.

Re:Honeywell

[Anonymous Coward]

They also do civilian guidance systems with the same development methodology.

Re:Honeywell

[GCP]

Thanks for pointing that out. It's clearly a Slashdotism for Evil Big Corporation. See, they are suing to protect their patents, so they must be evil, and we can prove it: they are known as a Weapons Manufacturer!

People who know of Honeywell either recognize the name from all of those thermostat covers, or they remember Honeywell, the computer company from back in the mainframe era. And all of the mainframe era computer companies (worldwide, not just US) did weapons systems work, built supermarket scanners, built CRT displays, manufactured chips, wrote OSes, and countless other things.

Honeywell they got involved in a three-continent joint venture/merger/acquisition deal (it evolved thru those stages) with Japan's NEC and France's Bull, and their computer business (and most of the company) went away. The deal didn't work out very well, and Bull ended up buying out the other partners.

Re:Honeywell

[Detritus]

The original Arpanet packet switches were based on Honeywell minicomputers.

So Honeywell doesn't make/create LCDs?

[klui]

If so, then "if you can't innovate, litigate." Ass wipes.

What about the bozos at Guardian Industries Corp?

ya right....

[nilbog]

I love how everyone waits until their supposed patent is huge before making a legal move. Like, they obviously weren't doing anything with the technology, so it's good that someone else picked it up and made it useful to consumers.

The other problem I see with this is that there are TWO companies making a fuss about it - so which one owns the LCD patent for real?

I just have a hard time feeling sorry for a company who comes out saying "Oh - we have a patent on the wheel - we just forgot to do anything about it before! Now that it's worth a heap of money let's sue everyone in sight!

The solution is this. If someone hasn't done anything with their patent within say...3 years, then it's fair game. This will help things from becoming stagnant. And someone will check up on you - like they do when you're collecting unemployment - to make sure you're actually trying to do something with your patent.

The other solution (more realistic) is to not allow lawsuits so late in the game. Like, if you wait until someone else has made billions of dollars on your patent, then you should be out of luck. There should be like a 3 year time limit on suing people who are using your idea. That's reasonable, right?

Some wisdom for all of us....

[cuteseal]

"The other problem I see with this is that there are TWO companies making a fuss about it - so which one owns the LCD patent for real?"

Simple, just getteth a sword and attempt to cleave the living patent in twine, giving half to one and half to the other. The real mother should rush forward and quoth "Give the patent to the other woman, but by no means kill it".

It works. Trust me. :D

Re:Some wisdom for all of us....

[nilbog]

Well, that sounds like it would make a cool fox special!

Just seems they should solve any dispute between themselves before they start going after third parties...

Or do they own patents for two different parts of LCD technology?

Bull?

[Matt_Joyce]

Honeywell and in Honeywell Bull ?
They make computers. Or did.

Anyway, if someone had infringed on a patent I held, I'd sue, so would you, and you...and you, we all would.

These companies doing the infringing, all have well paid lawyers.

This would be a known risk, so if they are not ready for court its their own fault.

Just testing

[Anonymous Coward]

Just testing here.

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