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Another NTP Patent Invalidated
darkmeridian writes "Bloomberg reports that the PTO has granted a non-final rejection of a third NTP patent asserted against Research in Motion in the Blackberry litigation. Five patents have been asserted against RIM, and only one of the three rejected has been found to be valid and infringed. Yet this development helps RIM as it seeks to avoid an injunction against operation of the Blackberry network pending appeal."
IAAPL (i'm actually a patent lawyer). anyway, while this is certainly good news for RIM, yay! go RIM, the patent has not been invalidated. as the article points out, this is one step in the process of the PTO rereviewing the NTP patents. NTP will have an opportunity to respond to these and potentially overcome these rejections.
These patent procedures are really impossible to understand. There are so many confusing patents that no one, not even the PTO, can wade through them all. Is it fraudulent for companies to try to take advantage of the legal use of force that patents offer?
There's no solution to this government atrocity except complete dismantling. Before I was a believer in anarchocapitalism, I thought the best solution was to file a patent and immediately pay a tax on sales, a tax that increments every year until the company releases the rights. I see taxation as theft, so I don't support that process anymore.
My solution? Obfuscation. There is nothing that truly needs a patent (not even prescription drug research once you consider the high ost of regulations). Items that are revolutionary can be protected, temporarily, by hiding the process. The more a competitor wants to knock off your product, the more they'll need to invest to figure it out.
Let's forget even protecting secrets. Thousands of competing patents cover competitive products, but the patented features don't sell the product. What sells it? Ease of use, marketing, quality, safety and support. The patented portion supports very little in terms of sales.
Some Korean bootlegger released a $50 iPod knockoff already. It is a piece of junk. Apple has little to fear because their name sells product based on people's past experiences.
Just like long term quality content gets your website into a high position in the search engines, the same is true of products and services. Use competitiveness instead of force to earn your future.
In other words, they're parasuits.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
It seems to me you could get around the RIM situation by doing the following:
1. find the oldest net-based email-solution you can and use the source without any modifications whatsoever. (better yet use the binary if possible)
2. build a layer on top of it to interact with what is now a local app. It should be possible to use specific screen-grabbing, techniques, etc., that have been in existence for ages to avoid yet more patents.
3. wait for NTP to explain how you infringe their patent using source code that was written back in the dark-ages of the net.
Of course I have not read the actual patent (why should I when it will only give me a headache and someone else here will sum it up eventually), but it should be critical until the patent system changes to find ways to get a JURY to understand what is the difference between one technology and another. If all the patent does is take e-mail and "do it over the cell network", then it should be obvious to everybody (except a JURY it seems) that the application is the SAME (and by actually using an old application you can perhaps make your point), but SOMETHING ELSE is different. The cellular wireless network. And therefore, unless the patent covers the invention of a cellular wireless network, they should perhaps have the book thrown at them for various reasons I will not mention.
Retailers, grocery stores provide a clear value add (a.k.a. service): They *make the products accessible* to a broader marketplace of customers with shipping, inventory, marketing, establishment of quality name, et cetera et cetera.
Now compare that to NTP. They provide *no value add*. No work, no service, no accessibility, no publishing. If on the other hand, they make the ideas accessible to those who would like to license them, *that* would be a value add.
As far as I can tell, NTP simply held some patents (silently) until they saw a company that had done its own research and actually did the work to build a profitable business. *Then* they jumped on RIM's "infringement" of "their intellectual property".
I consider this to be the equivalent of a company like NTP staking out a legal but private claim for a piece of land in the middle of a public place, unmarked. Someone comes along and sets up a fruit stand in what they think, incorrectly, is legal open place. After investing effort in building their business, NTP comes along and says that the fruit-stand builders owe them 3 years in back rent.
The issues here are twins: 1) NTP didn't say anything to anybody about "their" ideas. 2) They waited until RIM had invested *big money* in their infrastructure, not knowing about the virtual landmine.
Classically, patents existed to enable the patent-holders to receive a return on their research investment and to get the ideas out into the world to serve as bases for conteinued economic development. NTP's behavior is exemplary of an economically abuse of the patent system.
It's worth noting that patent language is so impenetrable, and the numbers of patents so massive, that it (the patent system as it stands today) probably can no longer serve its original purpose. As a developer, how do verify that
a) my code doesn't infringe one of hundreds of thousands of software patents
b) If I discover that some element of my work happens to be patented by someone else, can I license it for a price that doesn't eliminate the remaining shreds of margin that I still have?
We would be much better off with no patent system.
No, you would likely have died young because no private enterprise would have had the financial incentive to develop vaccines to protect you from childhood diseases.
If someone makes a product and someone else copies that product then whoever supports their product the best and adds the most innovation will win and the other company will die off.
Do you understand how much work goes into the hundreds of failed chemicals before the one safe and effective drug is found? Do you understand how much work goes into proving to regulators (or, in a libertopia, to insurer associations) that the chemical is in fact safe and effective for diagnosing, treating, or preventing a disease? Or do you have some plan to compensate drug companies for research and development other than a temporary right to exclude third parties from producing the chemical?
On the other hand, I might agree with patent term discrimination based on industry, with drugs being awarded a longer term of exclusivity than algorithms.
Ever wonder why it's so rare that anybody with any influence over the patent system pays any attention to the rants and raves of Slashdot, free software, open source, etc.? It's because these groups very rarely, if ever, have a clue what they're talking about.
Before you reply to flame me, think about what the word "marginalized" really means. By refusing or not bothering to become educated on the issue of patents, a huge majority of Slashdot's readship marginalizes itself and renders its thoughts and opinions irrelevant.
"Non-final rejection" equals "invalidated"? That's a joke, right? Surely the article is a troll. Nobody with any self respect would seriously submit that as a story unless they were pulling a prank on Slashdot's editors.
Yet this development helps RIM as it seeks to avoid an injunction against operation of the Blackberry network pending appeal.
The judge in the case seems pretty reluctant to listen to RIM when it comes to the re-examinations going on before the PTO. The judge might still institute an injunction and that could force RIM to settle. This is particularly bad because if all the patents are invalidated then there would be no reason to have an injunction or a settlement and would cost RIM a lot of money. I think that if the judge does order the injunction RIM will go ahead and continue to appeal the process and prevent the injunction as long as possible.
The judge also refused to await for a decision in the MercExchange v. eBay case currently before SCOTUS that pertains to injunctions. RIM is still challenging to SCOTUS that they are not infringing because their routers are maintained in Canada and they are a Canadian company. Their argument may have some merit and it could just stop the whole case in its tracks. RIM has and will keep trying to avoid the injunction as long as possible, until the PTO cases go final or until SCOTUS makes a ruling in eBay case or decide to hear their case on jurisdiction.
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."