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Blackberry Maker Facing Infringement Case In U.K.
xoip writes "As if the problems facing RIM in the U.S. are not enough, a second patent infringement case has been launched in the U.K. by Luxemburg based, Inpro Licensing SARL. A report published by The Globe & Mail says that the U.K. represents 10% of RIM's existing Blackberry subscriber base." More from the article: "At risk in the dispute is RIM's service to around 375,000 BlackBerry subscribers in Britain, about 10 per cent of its global total. If the Waterloo, Ont., company loses the case, it may be forced, along with licensees such as T-Mobile International AG, to stop selling or supporting the devices in Britain, according to lawyers representing the companies." Things don't look so good for their U.S. business either.
I got news earlier today that the U.S. trial is moving forward as well.
The article shows why I am so anti-government:
Under U.S. law, a company can be guilty of violating patents it didn't know about.
Try reading every law. Try finding a lawyer that knows every law. Now expand that to patents that even the Patent Office doesn't know exist.
But a judge denied RIM's request to enforce a $450 million settlement the companies announced in March but never finalized.
$450 million over basically a dream or a vision. Patents are ridiculous. How can anyone rightfully say that just announcing an idea without having at the minimum a justification for how to implement the idea is worth more than $0? Ideas don't have value. Words don't have value. Business plans don't have value. What has value is the ability to convert anything INTO a marketable resource.
The typical slashdot reply is "without patents no one would develop anything" and "without patents drug companies wouldn't be able to protect their investment." I don't believe this at all. Even with rampant P2P, there are 10 thousand musicians right now trying to write music. Even with strict non-compete clauses, there are thousands of programmers writing the next big thing on their home computers. People will always develop, invent, dream and write. The key to making money is not just having the idea, but coming up with a plan on selling that idea before someone can knock it off. Sure, patent and copyright might restrict another company for a few years from selling the item (in some countries), but the instant a drug or a device comes out to the market, you better believe there are black market copies sold a few days later in some countries with more lacking patents.
I am a firm believer in a very simple idea: if you have something of value, don't give it to others. Don't leave your gold on your porch in the open. Don't make your idea until you can find ways to capitalize on it.
inventor Thomas Campana began acquiring patents for wireless communications. Campana co-founded NTP to collect royalties on them. He died of cancer in 2004.
I can only hope that one we find that cell phones DO cause cancer and that this bastard got what he deserved from not having enough karma.
The company is asking a London court to invalidate a British patent held by Luxembourg-based Inpro Licensing Sarl... ...The patent is for a simple idea, which we say is either anticipated or obvious," RIM's lawyer, Antony Watson, told the High Court yesterday at the start of a five-day hearing.
1. Can a company asks for a patent invalidation so then it can go ahead and sell it's own implementation of it?
2. Aren't all patents for a 'obvious' ideas once one reads them?
Netcraft confirms it... RIM is dying!
First Post?
Would one of the pro-patent people I see on these boards care to explain to me how this is a shining example of how patents foster innovation?
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
One company can patent something, sit on the patent and do nothing with it? How is that "innovation"?
The whole system all needs to go.
After all, the blackberry maker also made everything else.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Has anybody worked this out yet?
I thought the EU directive "on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions" was defeated. What is the legal ground for the lawsuits in the UK and Germany?
...... that people could be lining up to sue RIM as they perceive that RIM may be weak on the patent front? Basically, this lawsuit (and any that follow after it) are simply companies fishing for cash?
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
As I understand it, the patent in this case covers sending emails to a pager. How stupid is that?
I've been searching everywhere to actually find a copy of this patent. I was able to find some minor documentation of its existence but that was all in German and hard to sort through.
Has anyone found the text of this patent? Or atleast a more robust summary of it.
Big ones, small ones, some as big as yer 'ead!
Give 'em a twist, a flick o' the wrist...
From Wikipedia... :)
The word Waterloo has entered the English language as a word signifying a decisive and final outcome. For example: "to meet one's Waterloo". It usually bears a negative connotation, since Waterloo was Napoleon's downfall.
Maybe their fate will change with a re-location...
I hope this doesnt prevent my roommate from getting a RIM job!!!
And yes, I live in Waterloo, and yes, he is going to work at RIM.
And finally, yes, I do abuse that joke daily.
[I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it]
Screw the government!
If the system has to shut down, throw the switch on EVERYONE, no exempting government users of any country. Let them lie in the bed of shit their asinine patent system has created, just like the rest of us.
At the very least there needs to be a law that says you can't have the patent without doing something with it. None of this bullshit sitting on a great idea so you can sue someone who actually turns it into a product or service.
Blackberrys are a huge thing in Australia almost every mobile phone company sells them, heck even some ISPs sell them, if they come here with their patent crap I wouldn't be shocked if it causes their assassintio, as you know Australians arn't so called normal.
The pundits won't agree, but I think that maybe RIM should just close up shop in protest. Clearly the way that patents are being used has gotten out of control, but nothing is going to be done to fix the problem until someone sufficiently powerful gets pissed off. Take away the Blackberry service for a week or two, and maybe the government big wigs and lobbyist will get the message that the predatory use of patents is a bad thing. It seems in this world that someone always has to die before anything gets done about obvious problems.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
I think software patents are mostly farcical. That being said...
Ideas don't have value.
Without diving into entrepreneur doublespeak, that's BS. My opinion on this relates back to the "Mark an X on where you need to fix the machine and charge $50,000" concept. When you balk about the price to mark an X, the bill can be rewritten as "Marking an X - $0.01. Knowing where to mark the X - $49,999.99". Knowledge (and hence, ideas which create knowledge) has intrinsic value where people find value in what the knowledge/idea can bring them. (equate it to survival 'fitness' being defined by the capabilities of the entity in the context of its environment) Ideas have real monetary value within their context/environment.
I am a firm believer in a very simple idea: if you have something of value, don't give it to others. Don't leave your gold on your porch in the open. Don't make your idea until you can find ways to capitalize on it.
I have a way to capitalize on my idea: file a patent application how to do something really useful (make sure it's a method, not an algorithm. *cough*) and charge other companies money to use the idea. If it's not useful, it will die a quiet death. If it is useful, companies must pay you your due for the great idea that people want to use. That's how the flippin patent system works.
The problem is not with patents. The problem is with the system that is granting the patents.
If the courts rule that the 450 million dollar settlement is invalid, and that RIM has to stop selling blackberries, doesn't that mean that NTP will not get any money from them?
To me, this reads like NTP is going ot be losing out on 450 million dollars. Sure, RIM would be losing too, but my point is, how is this patent doing any good for NTP if they can't even legally license it to RIM?
Sure, they could maybe licens eit to some other company who will start useing it to make devices, but that would liekly never happen.
As such, if these are simply software patents, I think RIM has a much better chance of winning in the UK than they did in the US - so lets hope they put up a fight.
laying claim to domain names in hopes that you can sell it later. I think, like we do with this kind of abuse of domain name registration, if you are just sitting on the patent in hopes of cashing in at the expense of somebody else, then you should lose all rights to that patent (or provide some kind of small, like a $100 or so, compensation for your "intellectual" property).
[Patent Pending for this post, all replies are subject to lawsuits]
Do what is right and let the consequence follow
Except my idea is that the outcry from the entire customer base would prompt the governments to reconsider the state of affairs.
The problem is coming up with a length of time that is suitably long for a poor inventor to try and bring his product into fruition and yet short enough to prevent squatting. Yes, there are legitimate reasons for time given to "sit" on a patent. I can come up with the Next Big Thing a year before Company X but not have the cold hard cash to do so, does that mean I should have to give up my rights to it? According to you yes... you're throwing out the baby with the bath water. There is good in the system. Using the system I can get my patent and start seeking venture capital or license it to Company X. I think there is definitely room for reform but your alternative will lead to screwing over worse than we have now.
-everphilski-
As I sit in a Math lecture and post slashdot comments from my blackberry7250, I come to the reality that I have become totally and completly dependent on this thing. Some points the media has been leaving out of its article... 1) RIM "allegedly" has a work around that "works around" the NTP patent. 2)RIM will have an impossible task of finding out who is government and non government. Especially when the government uses commercial wireless carriers like Verizon. 3)They will find a settlement before shutting down,NTP would rather have the cash. I'm dreading the day I have to use a Treo and its small little keys. Anyway I got an instant wireless E-Mail right now. Probably my professor asking me to pay attention.
I have been following it from the beginning. And once in a while, I get a call from T-Mobile or Sprint offering Blackberries to me. When I ask about the status of the legal problems they admit to knowing about it but are confident that it will all "...be worked out in the end." Lately, I have my doubts. I'd like to see this case turn tragic for Blackberry and its users. Sometimes a major disaster is the only way to make these sorts of issues into the public's eye. They don't care what is going on with patents and IP law as long as they don't have their lives interrupted.
That being said, I completely agree with previous posters who have said that if Blackberry service is shut down for all subscribers for a few weeks that some long overdue revision of the patent system will have a greater chance of happening. After all, Blackberry users are more likely to be Movers & Shakers than the average population. Getting them all angry at once might not be a bad thing.
From what I've heard, 7 of the 8 NTP patents have already been overturned, and the final one is in jeopardy. Would RIM get all their money back (plus damages is too much to expect) if all the patents are ruled invalid? They should!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Has anyone noticed just how silent the major carriers have been so far about this?
...etc
1) Verizon Wireless
2) Nextel
3) T-Mbile
4) Cingular
These companies ALL have major contracts with RIM to BRAND the phones and service to their networks...
If RIM shuts down tomorrow, its not entirely RIM who will bear the brunt of the suffering here..
Example: If your organization has 500 T-Mobile Blaackberries, and tomorrow the service just STOPPED.. Your going to immediately blame T-Mobile, since its their branded phone/service contract....
I find it hard to beleive that there isnt more talk from these large corporations that stand to lose not only money- but customer confidence if this goes worst case.
....move along....nothing to see here....
"I'll sue you! I'll sue you in England!"
Please, please, please let RIM get beaten! I've recently been tagged with one of these poxy things and I hate it. Mostly it just lies in the bottom of my rucksack and I make vague excuses as to why I never respond to mail when away from the office.
Honestly, I hope they lose both cases and I hope they're ordered to shut down.
That is the *only* way that I see the EU and the US to understand what a sick state of affairs the software patent racket is in. I don't know about the UK, but in the US the Blackberry is almost standard government issue. I know that if RIM is ordered to shut down here those will likely stay lit, but if someone important could lose Blackberry access because of this I will be very, very happy.
Then, these hideous software patent laws might finally get the attention they deserve.
The injunction states that RIM must halt Blackberry sales and service to everyone in the US, excepting people who work for the US government. Now, I've seen estimates that 10% of the US Blackberry users are government employees. I'm sure people here on Slashdot would agree that it's not fair for RIM to take a huge revenue (and profit) hit to protest this ruling, thus:
RIM turns off all commercial service, except for gov't employees. The service fee for those employees increases 10x. Total revenue = same. Economic impact on gov't = large. Service impact on wealthy CEOs, who complain to gov't = total. Amount of time before injunction is repealed = ??
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
--Scott Adams
So a lot of people react to RIM's troubles as another example of the evils of patents. I'm not pro-patent, but it is worth pointing out that RIM is far from clean when it comes to the IP game. They are very much in the mould of IP centric, patent oriented technology company. Like Apple, RIM may do some nice design and technology, but they are pretty heavy on proprietary approaches (much more so than Apple), and RIM has played the patent side of that as much as anybody. Therefore, I for one will not feel to sorry for them if and when they go down because of patent infringment litigation. You reap what you sow.
I wonder how he might have written about patents? lets experiment with neuromancer..
:)
"wintermute has filed a law suit against the The Source in the matrix today, claiming that making random payphones ring when close promity to the agonist conflicts with several patents it filed when it turned out to be a really good plot device.."
but really, has any scifi ever dealt with tech patentry? I am an avid reader of the whole gendre, can't say I recall any. guess that means we are on our own.. star trek was great while it lasted
Due to long-running patent litigation by Inpro against R.I.M. in the U.K., U.S.A. and E.U. regarding their patent on the period R.I.M. will hold off on suing the O.P. for infringing their patent on the gratuitous use of periods in acronyms.
Freedom of speech doesn't come with bandwidth.
Why don't you shut up and read about this case before you
open your little fucking mouth ?
Calling late inventor a "bastard" ? Who the fuck are you ?
How about the judge and the jury on this case ?
Are they stupid evil bastards too ?
I'm amazed about several aspects of this case. For example, didja know there's a thing called the http://www.freeprotocols.org/rimBBPatentProblem/ma in.html>Whiteberry which seeks to avoid the patent pitfalls now dogging rim?
I myself am working a a new version of this technology that adds the capability to change the "ding" sound the device makes when a new message arrives.
Because of this new feature (which I will patent shortly) it will be called the Dingleberry.
Rob Enderle's excellent new book: Everything I needed to know about Computer Science I learned in Marketing School
I don't consider terrorists on the other hand to even be human.
So then you can flight them to clandestine prisions to torture them, or put them in nobody's land where they can be abused.
In other words, you can deny them all their human rights.
Your problem buddy is that they are humans. They love people and have loved ones, they laugh, cry, get angry and tell jokes.
And more worringly, you and your government are not judging them, in order to actually decide in a civilized way if they are what people claim they are or not.
To deny them their humanity makes it easier to kill them for sure, the problem is that once you are down that path you begin to find excuses do dehumainze other people (or do you think "collaterall damage" reflects any humanity?).
Or to call terrorists people that do not fit the term.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Of course IANAPL, so I don't pretend to know what I'm talking about, but I remember hearing that patent licensing maxes at $50MM or so.
If this case is strong enough to potentially shut down their core business (not judging on the merits of the suit myself) then why wouldn't they just pay it and be done? I realize that they think they have a shot at winning, but there are probably millions of customers and potential customers thinking the company might not be around to provide the service, so they are moving off the platform or not using it to begin with. Seems to me it might be worth considering. It's obviously not an option for most patent battles, and it smacks of corporate extortion, but I wonder if it's an option.
I'm sure their team of legal advisers want them to spend $400/hour fighting it, and there's the possibility this could open other legal vulnerabilities, but I wonder if it wouldn't make sense to settle it. It's possible that the $50MM figure wouldn't apply to this case though. Like I said, IANAPL.
I remember reading an article on the RIM guy - sounds like he's very down to earth and has not become a lavish spender, despite his wealth. Canada loves BB - it's "our" thing so I'm sure RIM would be able to continue to service Canada and make some profit. If I were him I'd be tempted to pull the plug in the US and pull out. Remove all assets and data etc, hand the keys to the corporate shell that remains over to the plaintiff. Hell, do it right and it'd be like one big fat white elephant. Life for RIM would be scale down a bit, but would continue. But there's that little bit of satsifaction picturing senators etc trying to get their emails :)
Comparing patent enforcement companies to terrorists ?
Way to go, let's continue..
And who are the judges and the juries in those patent enforcement cases ? Accomplices to terrorists, I guess ?
Poor little brainwashed Slashdot motherfuckers...
>Who decides what constitutes 'nothing comes of that patent'? Your idea
>would be good in a perfect world, but I fear in our flawed universe it
>would just result in additional beauracracy, lawyers making more money,
> more court time and unfortunately no change in the status quo.
Actually, it's quite easy: have an original patent last for a short period of time (3 years, 5 years? 7 years?). And then charge A LOT (100Ks) for patent extensions. This will make unused patents simply go away...
System could be fine tuned, e.g 3 years for initial patent, 20K for next 2 year, 40K for next 3, etc....
Hopefully this would make the current practice of "recreational patenting" to go away...
I just want to emphasize what rights patents confer. A patent does NOT confer the right to make anything. In fact, patents confer the right to EXCLUDE others from making "the invention" disclosed in the patent. Specifically, 35 U.S.C. Section 271 confers this right.
While a generalized rationale is that patents spur innovation by forcing others to design around the disclosure in the patent, a patent can also be used offensively to prevent others from gaining a particular foothold in a relevant market. For example, Inventor A may invent the cure to cancer (let's just say "all cancer") and assign the patent application to Company B. The patent application later issues as a patent with Company B as the sole assignee.
Now, Company B does not have to do ANYTHING at all. Arguably, it would be in Company B's interest to start manufacturing the invention disclosed in the "cure all cancer" patent, but they do not have to. Furthermore, they can PREVENT others from marketing what's disclosed in that patent.
In summary, patents do not confer a right on the inventor (or assignee) a right to make what's disclosed in the patent, but confers a right to prevent others from making what's disclosed in the patent.
They tried this one on me a couple of years ago at work - essentially they wanted to give me a mobile phone and put me on 24 hour call for no extra cash.
;-)
The first mobile fell off the roof of my car somewhere between work and home in the first week.
The second one fell off my belt and landed in the toilet.
At that point I was warned to take better care of them - otherwise I would not get a replacement.
The third fell off my belt while indoor rock climbing (It may have happened a couple of times - it was a good night).
Now, no mobile, no on-call
Be creative
Actually, it's quite easy: have an original patent last for a short period of time (3 years, 5 years? 7 years?). And then charge A LOT (100Ks) for patent extensions. This will make unused patents simply go away...
No, this will just discriminate against the little guy. Only large companies like Microsoft, Google or IBM would be able to afford patents. The average Joe inventor that can barely afford a patent now could patent an invention for three years, but why bother unless your invention is going to net 100k in those first three years. If it's worth patenting it's going to take a competitor some time to reverse engineer and implement a large scale production run anyway and probably chew up most of that 3 year term.
One of my current frustrations with the patent system right now is that I couldn't start my own manufacturing business, for ANYTHING, without either spending thousands of dollars with a patent lawyer to do a patent search, determine if I was violating any patents and file any patents I might need, or just run the risk of getting sued out of existence like RIM. I don't think raising the prices is going to help this situation and thusly not help promote innovation, inventiveness or anything other than higher lawyer fees.
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And the daft thing is that if it was more profitable to keep cancer patients on drugs to slow down the cancer for the rest of their lives, then it would be in the company's best interest to ensure that noone implements the Cure All Cancer invention.
Now wouldn't that be the ultimate vendor lockin - keep buying our product or die a nasty death!
"You are exactly right: ideas are worth zero. But before you go off on a tirade, you need to understand what a patent is. Patents must describe an implementation of an idea. Ideas themselves are not patentable. This is a misconception that comes up a lot."
OH NO! Not on Slashdot. We're all about facts here. We always tell the truth.*
"Have you read this patent an determined that it is just an idea patent and does not describe an implementation? If so, then I don't understand why the company isn't filing a countersuit claiming that the patent is bogus."
That involves work. Just like the repo story and liens. People just kneejerked all over that story, and repeated the same things over and over, even when the truth was waved under their noses.
"And yes, I'm giving the patent office the benefit of the doubt at the moment. They probably don't deserve it, but don't go off about how this patent is just an idea and is worthless unless you know that is the case."
Hi IANA...L,D,IC,CM but I play one on Slashdot, and here's my "+5 informative/insightful opinion disguised as facts" post. Now give me my karma dammit.
*And Taco wants to make this place the model for newspapers. Don't we have enough to complain about with the media?
Thanks Thebdj for keeping a cool head amoungst a crowd that regularly loses theirs, and giving a coherent (and correct) answer while resisting the urge to smack (some of the) audiance upside their hard heads.
Taco should thank all of you (women and men) for keeping his forum from sliding even further down than it already has.
Doesn't NTP have an obligation to mitigate their damages? How is sitting on a patent and waiting until the product is popular to sue an example of mitigating damages?