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Supreme Court spurns RIM
l2718 writes "NTP has just won the latest round in its court battle against Research in Motion (makers of the Blackberry). Today's
Order List from the US Supreme Court includes a denial of certiorary for RIM's appeal. This follows the Circuit Court of Appeals' denial of review en banc we have covered previously. As sometimes happens, the court nevertheless accepted amicus curiae briefs from several groups, including Intel and the Canadian government." The potential impact of this may mean the shutdown of Blackberry's network. I hope the crackberry addicts have lots of methadone onhand.
RIM has already stated that they have a technology workaround that does not infringe the "patents." When the injunction comes down, they'll patch the software and go about their merry business. NTP will make another motion, and it will be boxed around by the courts for a few more years. Hopefully, by which time, the USPTO will invalidate the bogus patents upon which NTP bases their claims.
[ashamed]
Perhaps it would be bad time to ask for a RIM job.
*rimshot*
[/ashamed]
And they said zombies weren't real!
They can have my Blackberry when they pry it from my cold, dead hands. I think I'm getting Blackberry thumb so I hope that's soon. Ouch... It hurts.
Firefox 2.0 - Spell Rightly.
What are the alternatives to the BlackBerry?
And I don't mean "roll your own" setups, but full fledged enterprise level products.
RIM can't be the only company that offers such a service.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
RIM will settle out of court and things will go on as usual.
How else are you going to check your email on the toilet, attending a mandatory meeting or driving at 90 mph?
*RIMshot*
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Regardless of the outcome, the end result is still wasted resources. Years of legal action costs quite a bit. Even just the financial resources, let alone the time, wasted on such endeavours could be better put towards technical research. At least then we'd have something productive to show in the end.
While many claim that patents strive to increase the efficiency of the market, it is quite clear they do not. Indeed, the resources funneled off to deal with this legal battle could have actually been used for useful means. Anyone who strives for an efficient market cannot condone this sort of wasteful behaviour.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
The stock is only down 2.5%, so I suspect the alternative will be offered by RIM themselves.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
I don't understand why NTP has a case at all. I thought the USPTO announced that it would rule against NTP's patents.
m -to-give-support/
http://www.engadget.com/2005/12/20/uspto-calls-ri
I believe that the USPTO hasn't ruled yet, but given that they've announced that they will rule in favor of RIM, I don't know how NTP could enforce an injuction against RIM.
The thing that irritates me the most is this attitude that the patent system just needs "some adjusting", rather than accepting that the entire foundation of patent is a fraud to begin with, and all patents are inherently evil because all patents are a coercive restriction on how people can use inventions (for insert cute sounding justifications here). The bad tree bears bad fruit. Yes, it really is that simple, it only takes the tinist ammount of study to understand that creation and invnetion will continue at their pace if patents go to hell where they belong. Why do people so desperately cling to such a filed system?
Sadly, I have been hoping for RIM to fail. The reason why is know that people do not change things until a massive, irrational event occurs in a system before people will attempt to fix it.
The judges have been ruling correctly. Regardless of whether or not the Patent Office should not granted the patents or it plans to over turn the patents is and should be irrelevant. The patents HAVE been granted and the courts are obligated to protect them. It's like making up rules for a game and then in the middle deciding which rules are and are not going to be enforced. At best it makes the game an irritation, at worse it makes it unplayable. The Patent Office has got this idea that it can "do over" anything it wants so it grants over 90% of the crap that flows through. The courts are obligated to protect the crap, as per law; otherwise, the courts would BE the Patent Office, if they decided what was and was not a real patent.
Bel, the mostly sane.. "Of course I can't see anything! I'm standing on the shoulders of idiots." -- Me
How many people involved in ru[ni]ning the patent system use Blackberries, and thus would be fscked over should this case force them to shut the network down?
that this actually could kill RIM.
The potential impact of this may mean the shutdown of Blackberry's network.
Surely this would not mean that the Blackberry network would be shutdown? Am I naive to think that this would instead mean that RIM's value would decend constantly, nobody would want to buy them EXCEPT for NTP, who would buy them at rock bottom prices and then aquire the network and most importantly the customer base (ie. high pressure money pipe) which goes with it?
"The" law seems to be grossly manipulated by good actors (plaintiffs, lawyers, attorneys, barristers, witnesses, etc) who work it for nothing but money. It seems that rather than seeing themselves needing to defend their property, they instead see opportunity to take someone elses "in the name of defending their own".
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
Treo, the new ones are based off of Windows Mobile and are pretty slick. Verizon has been pushing them:
http://www.mobilemag.com/content/100/353/C5864/
I used to work in electronics retail in Vancouver. Rogers launched RIM service back in 1997 (I think it was 1997) and all managers were given demo RIM units to use. It became quite common among managers to jokingly ask each other to "RIM me". The Rogers area sales reps were not happy when that term caught on around work. They though it was "disrpectful". Whatever. It was funny to hear one manager yell to another manager, "RIM me with the inventory levels on [insert product], will you?" Ah, the good old days of retail.
Surely that should be metha-phone?
Any sufficiently advanced man is indistinguishable from God
Since I know practically zip about this litigation and these patent issues, the first place I went after reading the headline was to google for a briefing. Here, I found the following:
NTP, which has no employees, convinced a jury in Spencer's Richmond, Virginia, courtroom in 2002 that Research In Motion had infringed patents related to wireless e-mail.
I know the assininity (is that a word?) of this has been phrased and rephrased many times in many discussions, but... WTF?!? Aren't patents supposed to protect inventors/innovators? I may be jumping to conclusions about NTP, but how can a company that exists solely to litigate patent-infringers get away with what it does?
I envision a land where there are "justices" appointed because they are "just", and "judge" based on the heart behind a simpler code of "justice," rather than human turing machines stripped of the power to truly judge, trying to apply an ugly and endless stream of spaghetti-legislation to human, nonlinear situations?
Did such an idealized system of law ever exist? May it yet? I don't know, but the more I learn about politics and legislation the more similarities I see between the modern process of developing laws and the process of developing software... I don't doubt that there are some legislators who would, if given a machine with the ability, replace human judges altogether in favor of a more predictible expert system.
Tangent? Yes. Rant? Yes. Tinfoil hat? Maybe. Relevant? You decide.
That joke was in bad taste.
br Ayohhhh!
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
'nuff said.
www.good.com
What exactly is the Blackberry service? What does this mean for Sprint/Nextel customers?
Many folks in my office have Blackberry phones with the Nextel 2-way service, but our service is provided through Nextel. As far as I know, we are billed directly by Nextel and don't have a "Blackberry service", which leads me to believe that the Blackberry service in question here isn't exactly what I think it is.
Long signatures suck.
There are really only two other Enterprise solutions for wireless e-mail. One is a Good Link server and a compatible mobile device running a Good Link client (PPC, Palm or a BB). The other is an Exchange 2003 SP2 server and Windows Mobile 5 device.
or the headline woulda read:
Supreme Court spurns RIM, Jobs
>> I know the assininity (is that a word?)
I believe the word you are looking for is "asshattery."
Well - this is going to sound like a Naive solution so I'll toss it out to see where the holes are.
Encript all traffic. Then the DCMA and DRM laws kick in and it is illegal for anyone to attempt to read the communications. IE - even the ATTEMPT to read is illegal.
Then you can do what you want - route the packets through Canadian Servers - or Nigerian - or whereever you like. Keep the servers secure and under constant guard.
End of issue.
This will leave the end users open I suppose. But then NTP will have to find cooperating end users and this might be considered entrapment.
The USPTO has issued preliminary rulings that all five of NTP's patents in question are invalid and is set to issue a final ruling very soon. What happens then? Can RIM sue NTP for attempting to enforce invalid patents? Can RIM sue the USPTO for incompetence? I don't have much sympathy for RIM, regardless. They had ample opportunity to settle with NTP and they squandered it. Which raises another question, what would have happened if RIM had settled and the USPTO issues their final ruling that all of NTP's patents are invalid? Would RIM get their money back?
This entire fiasco is a poster child for how patents can discourage inovation and work against business interests. They're very much like nuclear weapons, if you don't have them you want them or end up doing the bidding of others and if you do have them you there is a sort of tacit agreement not to use them against another weapons holder.
So someone please tell me why RIM isn't suing the USPTO. They granted the patents and are now admitting they shouldn't have. The cost to RIM because of this 'goof' is huge.
Isn't there some sort of negligence of duty tort which can be brought against the US government here?
As a Canadian, I'm so happy that your leaders enforce ridiculous patents on Canadian businesses. I'm also glad that your leaders violate NAFTA when it comes to softwood lumber. Thanks!
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
05-763 RESEARCH IN MOTION, LTD. V. NTP, INC. The motion of Intel Corporation for leave to file a brief as amicus curiae is granted. The motion of Canadian Chamber of Commerce, et al. for leave to file a brief as amici curiae is granted. The motion of Government of Canada for leave to file a brief as amicus curiae is granted. The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied.
In the course of every project, it will become necessary to shoot the scientists and begin production.
Why should blackberry consumers pay a %50 tax on the companies legal defense from a counter company that doesn't make anything only buys patents to sue people?
Do they even make any products at all? They are a patent purchasing firm that just hires lawyers to buy patents and sue people and pass the money onto us the consumer.
Worse the money used to win the case will now be used to obtain other patents so they can SUE even more people and pass the cost on to us.
What service are they providing the economy? What resource are they providing us? They shouldn't exist at all according to classic economics as they dont server society its need. Its classic socialism right there as they are a government mandated monopoly on the patents they own. Just plain stupid.
Its just another reason to ban patents all together and stick with copyrights.
Now everyone has to suffer to make some CEO happy and their shareholders.
http://saveie6.com/
umm.. I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or ignorant.
if you're not familiar with the facts of the case, here you go:
RIM is a Canadian Company that sells the blackBerry in Canada and the US.
RIM has a patent on the way an e-mail is sent in Canada.
Their server that does this stuff is in Canada.
All e-mails sent are routed to their server in Canada.
NTP is a company that just collects patents.
NTP has a US patent on the stuff that RIM does.
They have not put any money into research and do not have a product.
They do not employ anyone.
Please tell me what is this innovation that you're talking about. Anyone can dream of flying cars and robots taking over the world, and Hollywood has clearly shown us that. But it takes more than just a dream to create a product, it takes hours of research, $$'s and commitment to actually make it work. RIM has created a product and employes a lot of ppl, NTP hasn't put any money into research and doesn't employ anyone, they don't even have a product. So why would you support them?
... and no, I don't mean his IQ or his ethics.
If the patents are valid, then the patent-holder should be able to get relief from an infringer in the courts. The patents are assumed valid. So rather than wait for the PTO to get around to ruling on whether the patents really are valid, the judge is avoiding "justice delayed" by moving the case forward.
But the PTO seems to think that the patents may not be valid.
But the judge can't rule based on the "maybe" that is all that he's gotten from the PTO so far.
Now, it would be reasonable for the judge to say, given that there is still question about the validity of the patents, and given that the patent holder does not have a competing business that will be injured by competition from RIM/Blackberry, and given how much RIM's business would be injured by an injunction, the balance favors waiting for the PTO to rule on the validity and taking things from there. But it isn't as cut and dried as all the techies are making it sound, because it isn't cut and dried that the patents are garbage, and even if it is, it isn't certain what the PTO will rule. This creates a very sticky mess for the judge.
I work in a large DOD shop (US Department of Defense) My boss just asked for a contingency plan to migrate hundreds of BlackBerry users to other devices... I.E. IPAQ's with Microsoft Outlook mobile access. Although I'm not complaining, I'm an hourly worker... this is an impact on our shop.
I think you miss a level of complexity in economics here. Patents exist not to protect inventors, but to give them a monetary incentive to innovate: we (the people) promise them a limited monopoly in return for a disclosure of their invention. I say nothing about the merits of the patents in the instant lawsuit since I haven't read them.
Now there are different ways a patent-holding inventor can make money off his monopoly. Remeber -- the inventor is good at inventing things, but not necessarily at the business end of things, at marketing, or at using patent law to protect the monopoly he's supposed to have. Therefore, one way for the inventor to make money from his monopoly without being a businessman or a lawyer is to sell the rights for the invention. Along the way it's important to remember that money today is worth more than money tomorrow.
For example, a venture capitalist might buy the rights for the patent and make a product. The inventor gets money up front (before any units are sold!), and everyone is happy. The risk was shared (the inventor took the risk that the research won't get far enough to be patentable; the venture capitalist that there will be no product or that it will fail), and the same is true for the income. The capitalist moved moeny from the future to the present for the inventor, and this is also worth something. You should compare both the risk assumption and the financing issues of this scenario with the one where the inventor goes to the bank, gets a loan, and tries to develop and market the product himself.
Elsewhere, someone else is selling a product which infringes on the patents held by our inventor. He has no way of profiting from his past work on the invention unless he can effectuate the monopoly we promised him by suing the patent infringers. However, our inventor is not a lawyer. As in the case above, he probably doesn't have the capital to invest in a lawsuit. So one way for him to make money off his investment is to sell the patent to the lawyer. This way he gets the money up front, while the lawyer agrees to pay for the legal costs and takes the risk that the lawsuit will fail. That's no different from the case above.
Think of the transaction as follows: you want a lawyer to defend your patent, but you don't have the cash to pay the lawyer. You therefore pay the lawyer with the rights to the patent itself. Of course you expect the patent to be worth more than the laywer's fees, so the lawyer has to pay you back up front for the difference. Again compare this with the scenario where the inventor takes a loan to pay the lawyer. What happens if the lawsuit fails?
Everyone knows that the UP Patent System is in dire need of reform. Punishing an innovator like RIM and rewarding patent trolls like NTP only results in less innvovation and encourages more litigation. Litigation alone will not make the US more competitive.
If you disagree, please tell us why you believe "email over wireless" is not an obvious invention.
Yes, read the fucking articles about this particular case, my dear little retarded friend.
NTP is not a patent buying outfit - it was founded by an engineer who
actually built and demonstrated techology prototypes back in 80's and early 90's.
He died of cancer last year.
If you, my little moron, work on something for 5 years, build some prototype technology, patent it and then something bad happens to you, e.g. you get cancer and die, do you want some large corporation just start using your patented technology for free, just because you are sick and cannot build it yourself on scale ?
Think about it for a while, my little slashdot moron !
NTP, which has no employees, convinced a jury in Spencer's Richmond, Virginia, courtroom in 2002 that Research In Motion had infringed patents related to wireless e-mail.
"Convinced a jury"? No offense to the layperson, but most people wouldn't understand this stuff, and with laypeople on a jury like this, mistakes are bound to happen. The US needs a system to make sure that in civil trials like this, the jury is educated enough (either by selecting only people who would understand this, or by having a neutral "jury-education" part).
According to more litterature there's no real way it will .. that's yet to see.
shut doewn. There is a law that at least for the USG the service cannot be shut down.
Emergency services and government relying on it there's something about their service
being not affected.
For the rest of their users though
There are plenty of alternatives.
If you want something that "just works", get a Danger Hiptop from T-Mobile: it's cheaper and a lot nicer than the Blackberry ever was.
Otherwise, the Palm Treos are the obvious choice. Use IMAP for mail, with the new mail notification extension and you get all the Blackberry features and a lot more.
Finally, the Nokia communicators look nice, although I haven't used one regularly. The bluetooth-only model looked like a nice compromise between power and size; there'll probably be an updated version soon that gives you 802.11 in the small form factor as well. Again, IMAP is the way to go for mail.
To really blow your mind, you need to know that all of NTP's patents have recently been invalidated by the patent office. So not only does a patent shed win against a company that actually makes something, but with bogus patents to boot.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
I think the primary problem with the patent system is that the patent holder is not required to be actively commercializing the patent to keep it. That is what patents are for -- to give innovators some time to make money before the copycats get in the game. Patents for companies like NTP or SCO should be void simply for the reason that they did not seriously try to make their own products based on their patents. Waiting for someone else to do the work and then suing is just stupid.
What happens if the lawsuit fails?
Then either the inventor should have bothered to see if the patent actually was infringed, or checked to make sure the patent was actually valid before starting to throw lawyers around. I have no sympathy for anyone who runs into financial problems suing someone over bogus patents or any other bogus lawsuit.
Not to nitpick, but I think it's spelled "certiorari" not "certiorary"
Change your name to Homer Junior! Your friends can call you Hoju
I'm getting the impression that the patent system should be put down at all costs, including armed bloody rebellion. This crap is supposed to benefit society at large, and it doesn't.
Well, when you get up to NJ I suggest you step it up, or you'll be mincemeat on the Turnpike!
"Did such an idealized system of law ever exist? May it yet?"
Point the first: HAH! Yeah right.
Point the second: As long as there are lawyers, and money to be made from complicated laws, no.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
So what is your "just" standard of behavior? Where and how will you draw the line that separates "legal" from "illegal", or "just" from "unjust" if you prefer... otherwise you don't have justice, you have "my opinion, along with this hammer, beats your opinion".
You lost me right when you rung in the "human turing machines" who don't "truly" judge vs. "human, nonlinear situations" argument -- stripped of its aspirant verbiage, that argument is the moral equivalent of being told "no" and subsequently throwing a tantrum. It also shows a lack of understanding of the judge's role in our legal system.
I believe that the code of laws we already have -- in all its flawed glory -- is our best attempt yet to codify "justice". The reason it's become so convoluted and contradictory is that, in response to our attempt to keep people from weaseling out of what "justice" would dictate (by creating rules that approximate what our definition of "justice" is in a given situation), we have promoted the development of smarter weasels.
NTP is a patent holding company. It has shareholders and a board, and their sole purpose is to acquire patents that may be enforceable. That is, find a company that has a product, see if there is a patent existing, purchase it, then sue said company.
Alternatively, monitor a technology trend, and purchase a patent with the expectation that the trend will soon realize an innovation, let someone else shoulder the development cost, then sue them if it is a success.
Any way you look at it, its a predatory business model that lets people extort money from 'real' business. NTP does not develop technology. They acquire and extort supposed intellectual rights.
This is worse when you have international companies, that can have a patent in their justistiction, but don't do the due dilligence when attempting to access a US market.
NTP has no claim on RIM internationally. RIM will be hurt, but won't fail. The only people hurt are US based Blackberry users, and the only people that gain are the NTP shareholders.
I think it would be short sighted to think this is a PTO issue and failure. Someone, likely a US based competitor to RIM, is likely waiting in the side lines, expecting benefit from the disruption. All you need to do is see who NTP licensed to and you will find companies lobbying to introduce what could also be considered an import tax... so its not just the PTO or courts; its a trade issue (in my opinion.)
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
Patents exist not to protect inventors, but to give them a monetary incentive to innovate ... Now there are different ways a patent-holding inventor can make money off his monopoly...
You raise some insightful and well thought-out points. I applaud your hypothetical venture capitalist for having the ethics to support an inventor with a legitimate claim, and to contribute to society in general by using his resources to help said inventor's idea materialize.
I believe what frustrates me personally about the patent system is not that it is flawed in principle (which it may or may not be), but that the dense system which surrounds it (of law, lawyers, malicious venture-capitalists and non-inventors without the spine to make their idea (which may or may not be unique and innovative) happen) is pieced together in such a way that heinous abuses are rampant and profitable.
I love your example, but examples of such a benevolently creative use of the system are scarce (if they indeed exist) whereas examples of corporate entities using the system to ruin inventors abound... The story of Philo Farnsworth and the scanning tube comes to mind, not to mention the relatively recent problems with patenting software in general.
It seems that when we complain about the patent system we're really complaining about The System, and when we complain about that we're really complaining about human nature.
In my case, I really hate these sorts of patents, this is why I would really love to see this case made into an example of the evil in the current system. In order to make this RIM-NTP situation into an example, RIM is going to have to be forced to shut down and cause pain to a number of people. If enough pain is caused to the right people somebody in power just might realize that there is a problem.
The selective logic here always fascinates me. No one complains that the coercion of the local police to give a beat down to the person who vandalizes, steals and/or uses your property without permission is "evil." Perhaps we should just say "gosh, tough luck, free market forces and all" when someone steals all your property and deprives you of your means to make a living from the resources you've invested years of your life into building... or is it only "evil" when the force of law is used by someone with a lot more property to lose than you?
Yeah, and all the US universities are trolls and parasites too:
they hold many "paper patents" and collect royalties on them, while not manufacturing anything by default...
The law must equally apply to everybody, my little mentally-challenged friend...
Too bad. I think RIM has a case given that their servers are ex-USA. Of course, the USA too often thinks it owns the whole world when it comes to patent and copyright enforcement -- and I'm a USA citizen saying this.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I do not think people claim that patents exist to increase the efficiency of the market. In fact, it could be very pursuasively argued that they lead to a less efficient market, at least for a short period of time.
Patents are granted for a similar reason to copyright: to promote the science and arts. How can creating inefficient monopolies do this, you ask? Easy: incentives. There are two important parts to the incentives that benefit society overall.
Let's say you're a business. You're reasonably sure that with $1.5 billion USD and 5 years of time you could have an AIDS vaccine. Most of the cost of these medicines is in the *research*, not the production of the actual serum. Without patent protection, once you have a serum, tens of companies around the world will analyze it and duplicate it in short time. They will undercut your price, since they don't have that $1.5B investment to pay off. As a result, businesses will not undertake such endeavors because market efficiency will make them unprofitable! Is that the world you want? Patents allow risky investments to pay off.
The other alternative is to attempt to keep all research & developments closely guarded secrets. Now, perhaps one medical company distributes the SARS vaccine, AIDS, and avian flu. Nobody else knows how the stuff works or how to produce it. Development as a whole in society slows because, if you want to make money, you can't share your scientific developments with anyone. Every company must invent the wheel over and over again, because they cannot work together. Is *that* the world you want? Patents induce monopolies to share their research.
In the former case, patents allow developing this $1.5B AIDS vaccine to make smart business sense because you *know* you'll earn it back. In the latter case, scientific progress as a whole in the world is improved because, once someone has that AIDS vaccine, they must publish a specification of how it works (that's the patent) in order to protect their business. Then, everyone else can learn from their techniques and perhaps a different group applies it to cancer.
That is a world I am happy with. Businesses may undertake science, earn profit from research, and everyone else learns their results and methods.
Now, whether the patent office is correctly granting patents is an entirely separate issue. Patents should be granted justly, not frivolously. But that does not mean the idea of patents is broken. Perhaps you may wish to suggest shorter patent lifespans, higher burden of proof, etc.
The patent owner has never made or manufactured anything but the dump they left in the toilet this morning.
I know since those bozos threatened to sue me for violating one of "their" streaming media patents. Of course along with said threat was an invitation to license "their" technology for a fee.
"The patent system locks out collaberation"
Nice use of the weasel phrase "locks out", but facts just don't support you.
Please post a link to the part of patent law that "locks out" collaboration. While you're fruitlessly searching, you'll realize you made that entire line of reasoning up, if you haven't already been forced into that conclusion.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
I could try and argue again why patents are not property at all, but I already did that much more elloquently here ....
If you think that is a clear conflict of interest, I have a good voting algorithm for you:
The IPCC has purposely engineered a massive scientific fraud.
I have no sympathy for anyone who files bogus lawsuits, but not every lawsuit is bogus. And just because you are right, doesn't mean you'll win. Especially if you are a small investor suing a big company. They can hire top-notch lawyers, jury-selection advisors and expert witnesses. At the end the case will be decided by a jury of random people who have no idea about science, "obviousness" or engineering, and after the trial they can drag the appeals for years and years. Note that they can do all that independently of they merits of their case. I hate the US legal landscape, but for now it is the way it is, and as long as patent litigation is really expensive, small inventors will need seriuos financing to protect their patents.
Short answer, no. You basically cannot sue the Government or a Government agency directly. It has soverign immunity under the Constitution from most civil suits.
wow, thank you.
I find that utterly amazing. Up here in in the Great White North (Canada) people can and do sue the government. There have been several wrongful murder convictions and there was the whole Native schools thing for which the federal government did have to deliver financial compensation.
I am generally critical about the Americans predisposition to sue. However, not being able to sue an authority which misused it's power, (however well intentioned) is quite scary.
Considering the purpose of tort law (as I understand it) is to compensate for injustice, not to punish, I think it shows yet another way in which Americans are less free than other democracies. Their Government is actually allowed to abuse its own people.
millions of weary thumbs rejoice...
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
So what is your "just" standard of behavior?
... we have promoted the development of smarter weasels.
Unfortunately I don't have a flawless answer to that problem, but if I did I'd certainly try to do something with it. I do not believe, however, that the answer is having thousands and thousands of pages of code so thick that it takes a professional to tell what's legal and what isn't.
stripped of its aspirant verbiage, that argument is the moral equivalent of being told "no" and subsequently throwing a tantrum.
Yes, I do feel helplessly enraged by The System. When enough adults throw a tantrum at once, it's called revolution.
It also shows a lack of understanding of the judge's role in our legal system.
A judge in our legal system is supposed to take the role of [a] an interpreter who [b] applies the law fairly. Because of the aforementioned problem of the law being as complex as it is, in practice a judge must be a lawyer first, and [a] may hinder his ability to do [b].
in response to our attempt to keep people from weaseling out of what "justice" would dictate
The judge's role, IMHO, should be to sniff out those weasels and provide a ruling based on the clear intent of a much (by several orders of magnitude) simpler code of law. By requiring a judge to apply the law literally (a law characterized with definitions upon unintuitive definitions), we encourage the weasels.
Excellent proposal ! Very clever.
...
So, when you, my little slashbot bastard, die for some reason, your wife and children should be left with nothing but your debts...
All your patents and copyrights must be immediately terminated !
The logical continuation of this thought would be to make sure that you die as soon as possible, preferably right after your patent application or copyrighted work is published...
There are so many ways to achieve this
I guess each patent holder would then need to hire armed bodyguards just to walk around the block.
What a world full of idiots like you.
I detect a largely pro-RIM, anti-NTP crowd here. There are a lot of misconceptions being touted on this board, which makes me think few of you have actually bothered to look at the facts...
First, as far as I can tell, the NTP patents are valid. The original inventor Thomas Campana did, indeed invent and demonstrate the first wireless email solution. Campana built prototypes to demonstrate the proof-of-concept and filed for and received patents. He did everything he was supposed to do, from a patent perspective. He was unable to market-ize the solution because there was not sufficient infrastructure, at the time, to support a market. Campana notified a number of companies, including RIM that he held the patents on the invention and was looking for support to product-ize.
RIM, like most companies, ignored this notification. Unlike most others, RIM went on to build a product based on Campana's invention and then refused to pay him royalties. Campana started to try and litigate, however he didn't have enough money or energy because he was suffering from cancer. He co-founded NTP with a lawyer friend to follow through with the litigation.
The reason that the US patent office is reconsidering the patents has nothing to do with the validity of the patents and everything to do with political pressure from the Canadian and US governments, as well as a number of large corporate investors that have a lot to lose. Politics!
Campana has already lost. He died of cancer, never receiving the monies or credit that he was due.
NTP continues to fight the battle as a matter of principle. The are not simply some law firm trying to get rich off of someone else's ideas. They are trying to force RIM to do the right thing and to send out a warning that being big doesn't entitle a company to steal.
People are so eager to believe that it's always the lawyers that that are evil. Unfortunately, in our zeal to blame the lawyers, we sometimes find ourselves on the wrong side of the fight! Sometimes the lawyers do fight real injustices.
ps
I'm not a lawyer - I'm an engineer, so my bias is in favor of Thomas Campana and anyone wanting to protect their original inventions!
...any more than a drivers license.
However, it is safe to say that what patents protect if not actual property, certainly is the product of the use of a great deal of property. What they protect against is the effective theft of those spent resources, without such protection the incentive to expend those resources would be drastically reduced.
At the very least, there is something there to discuss rather than just throwing the entire idea out the window, no matter how "eloquent" you think the description of that act is.
When I checked before some idjot had modded this to a troll. I see we have some good moderators though.
Yes - this post does express the sentiment many canadians feel about the anarchy that seems to exist in the USA. I have read that 2/3 of the world's lawyers practice in the USA. Lawsuits like this do seem to illustrate how parasitic they can be.
The USA long ago crossed the line where they ceased to me a nation goverened by laws so much as a nation shapped by litigation.
Frankly, a trial by a jury of your peers can only happen in a case like this when the jury is a mixture of patent lawyers and software engineers. Seriously.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
To make your points for you, I'll take a closer look at the case of NTP. In principle, they are fulfulling an important economic function: buying obscure patents and filing infringement lawsuits based on them make them money, but also makes money for the inventors from whom the patents were bought (who probably can't afford to sue RIM!). Also, there's strength in numbers -- and it's possible that NTP bought patents from several inventors, who probably won't have filed suit together otherwise.
The reason this feels wrong to you (and me) is that it's likely that NTP paid the inventors much less that what they are about to make from the lawsuit. This says nothing about NTP (who are simply trying to profit from the system as much as possible), but tell us a lot about the system. What this tell us is that the most important ingredient in the lawsuit was provided by NTP, or in other words, that you can lawyering $100m out of a patent is easier than developing a product worth $100m from it. In my opinion this comes from two deplorable problems in the USA:
There are really only two other Enterprise solutions for wireless e-mail. One is a Good Link server and a compatible mobile device running a Good Link client (PPC, Palm or a BB). The other is an Exchange 2003 SP2 server and Windows Mobile 5 device.
Does either of them offer the same ' always-up-to-date' push feature for E-Mail that RIM+Blackberry does? The last time I looked Exchange didn't offer push service but even so Exchange+WindowsMobile still doesa an admirable job at keeping me connected, even on VPN connections over GPRS. Push e-mail is the main attraction of the RIM setup. Not that I want to trash start a flamewar by trashing RIM, Blackberry seems to have gathered a religious following in some quarters, but a determined and innovative competitor could do alot better.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Ouch! And I thought I had a bad rap. At least my karma's better than yours.
Patents are easy to get. It seems that what I'd call "obvious" and what the USPTO and the courts are calling "obvious" are very different. Perhaps that's because I'm a mathematician but I'm not so sure. If your creative genius was to combine already-existing devices A and B together the way there were designed (many examples of this in the car industry), then you aren't creative enough to get monopoly on this. If your grand idea is to have a computer do what a person did before (think most e-commerce patents), then the patent office should say "duh" and send you home. Also, extending patent protection to things like "business methods" is getting silly. If you can make good money off it directly (think most "business methods"), you don't need patent protection to develop it! And we have yet to reach software patents.
I've heard that the main problem with the patent system granting "obvious" patents is that companies have sued, and won, when the patent office denied a patent. Thus, we have various courts essentially legislating what "obvious" is. From this, we have reached a point where it is impossible if not illegal (in this case refering to the courts imposing what obvious is) to deny a patent in almost all cases.
One thing more about what you say when someone combines two previously existing items and patents the result. If I take A and B and combine them, and they are performing the exact same roles as before, but the result is something no one ever thought of before, a patent should be granted. A new form of electric motor would be one historical example. Several processes for creating better silicon chips are another (where the process for creating the silicon chips is patentable, not the patenting of silicon chips in general). Although, the photolithography technique was probably patented and is a good example of taking existing things and puting them together.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
The truth doesn't matter in the law. No matter what RIM does, NTP will file a new motion. This is all posturing before a final settlement, or until USPTO throws out the patents. Even then NTP will just keep appealing. This dispute won't be settled for many years or until all the money disappears and there is nothing worth fighting about.
When RIM and NTP lawyers first met many years ago to discuss patent infringement situation, RIM offered NTP zero, yes, that's right, zero compensation for using their patents.
Obviously, as Don Stout said in some interview, such a generous offer is
unacceptable to anybody.
Now RIM is going to pay a lot more than zero..
Good lesson for other corporate free-riders out there...
Aren't you aware that the US economy depends largely on the work of lawyers, and people who scrub toilets for lawyers? The never-ending legal fight can only propel the US ecomony upwad and onward.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
Although they have some workarounds, I think it's because it's a Canadian company that they're being refused the review.
[%] Cingular Ringtones
Just like I prefer my software to be written by those educated/skilled in programming.
I know it is fashionable to bash lawyers but calling a legislative body consisting of those versed in the law a 'conflict of interest' is overboard in my opinion.
Hey, you, retarded slashbot code writers...
= unpack('H*',$_);$_=`echo 16dio\U$k"SK$/SM$n\EsN0p[lN*1| dc`;s/\W//g;$_=pack('H*',/((..)*)$/)
M sKsN0[lN*1lK[d2%Sa2/d0<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/d sM0<J]dsJxp"|dc`"
Keep writing your shit, you don't need patents, copyright is all you need..
Unlike code writing monkeys, real software engineers need software patents to protect some original algorithm ideas from "clean room" re-implementation by free-riding bastards.
Want examples ?
Version 1:
-export-a-crypto-system-sig -RSA-3-lines-PERL
#!/bin/perl -sp0777i<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<j]dsj
$/
lK[d2%Sa2/d0$^Ixp"
Version 2:
"print pack"C*",split/\D+/,`echo "16iII*o\U@{$/=$z;[(pop,pop,unpack"H*",<>
)]}\Es
By the way, version 1 does exactly the same thing as version 2 - RSA encryption, in case you haven't noticed...
There is also Sproqit Technologies http://www.sproqit.com/ which works with both Palm and Windows devices. It uses a different approach and does not infringe on the NTP patents.
An important thing to remember is that the patent system is supposed to promote innovation. The USPTO's case against NTP so far pretty much demonstrates that Campana wasn't the first person to come up with the "inventions" claimed in his patents. A good synopsis of the evidence can be found on the discussion page of the blackberry entry in wikipedia. Here is an excerpt:
"During reexaminations, the USPTO built detailed cases against NTP patent claims developed largely from information contained in other U.S. patents. The USPTO found that U.S. patent 5,159,592 by inventor Charles E. Perkins, assigned to IBM, anticipated many claims in the NTP patents and was filed earlier than any of them. NTP has apparently been unable to show to the satisfaction of the USPTO that its inventions were documented or demonstrated before the Perkins patent held by IBM was filed.
The October 26, 1990, date claimed for ESA's [the prior owner of NTP's patents] demonstration to AT&T could be significant, because the Perkins patent application was filed October 29, 1990. However, according to the Telefind memo, what was demonstrated then was a "wireless modem to download data and messages" and not the more complex system of e-mail processing and routing that is described in the patents under review.
U.S. patent 5,278,955 deals with e-mail processing and cites an article from 1989 by Richard D. Verjinski entitled, "PHASE, a portable host access system environment," published in an IEEE proceedings. The USPTO found Verjinski's article anticipated many NTP patent claims.
Besides the Perkins patent and the Verjinski article, the USPTO found several other prior publications describing techniques claimed in NTP patents, including a RIM patent and documents published by Norwegian Telecommunications in 1986 and 1989. For many of the NTP patent claims it now proposes to reject the USPTO cites multiple prior disclosures.
Until recent years U.S. patent applications were not published. NTP inventors would have been unable to learn about the Perkins patent application when they applied for the first three of the eight patents now being reexamined. However, the Verjinski article was published before any NTP patent application, and the Perkins patent had been published before applications for the last five NTP patents were filed.
The USPTO has assembled substantial evidence that critical NTP patent claims are invalid. Despite persistent attempts by RIM to intervene in the reexaminations, the USPTO has generally built its own cases without accepting arguments advanced by RIM. So far the USPTO has not explained why the NTP claims now being rejected were instead accepted when the NTP patent applications were originally examined.
NTP has made some adjustments in response to the USPTO findings but is attempting to justify and maintain most if not all of its claims. If the USPTO follows through with final actions rejecting any claims not conceded or adjusted by NTP, NTP has available to it both administrative and court appeals, likely to take many years."
...so soverign immunity doesn't hold up there. Local govts are usually legal entities called "municipal corporations" in most states anyway and subject to a distinct set of laws different from the state or feds.
"I sure prefer my laws to be written by those educated/skilled in law (lawyers)."
This results in laws written in "lawyer" and in many cases requiring a lawyer to interpret. I don't see how laws written by educated people could be worse. Laws should be understood by most people. There are cases where laws have to complex but relatively few.
I don't know about all of you, but I feel that if you're going to legally "own" a patent...that you have to show that you are trying to use it. Basically, you can't just sit on an idea/patent until someone else comes up with it on their own, then swoop on in and sue the pants off of them.
You want to be protected by the patent laws?
Then in exchange for this protection, you have to actually use it.
Any patent holder that cannot show actual proof of use after a certain period of time loses their patent to the public domain. The length of time would depend on what type of patent it is. Software patents, for example, would be a short time period.
As far as i'm concerned, you do not deserve to be protected by patent law if you're not going to use it...
Indeed the recent patent rampage is mostly due to the court of appeals making everything patentable. What I have in minds are cases where there are two patents for a better break pedal and then a patent for a break pedal with both features, not examples for new applications for old techniques.
You may also want to read this about a case currently pending before the USSC (which will hopefully reverse). Essentially the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that for an invention to be "obvious" someone had to have said that it is possible. This leads to the perverse situation where if an extension is so easy that no-one bothered to point it out, it counts as "non-obvious", while if someone did write to say "x could probably be done" then doing x becomes obvious.
How many new, patented drugs are actually innovative cures, rather than slight improvements over old, generic drugs that treat the same conditions?
You mentioned Viagra. There's also statin drugs as well.
This, and a discussion about how much money a drug company actually invests in research is found in a book called "The Truth About The Drug Companies" by Marcia Angell (former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine). Excellent read.
I seem to recall Dr. Angell mentioning that her estimates and "forensic accounting" work reveal that it's closer to $200MM per drug. The remainder of the research is paid by the gentle US taxpayer through support of the NIH. The power of this, she noted, is in the suspiciously high level moves of overseas big pharma to the US.
Deep Throat's exhortation to 'follow the money' is still true.
In other related GNUs, Disney arrainges for DEV2.0 or more appropriately known as Devo the band, to buy the franchise and bring about a recent line of music with such adulterous illusions to the playlist as:
(Best reading with this in background, and the full story is here)
1. That's Good (to be a pervert)
2. Peek A Boo (open the diaper)
3. Whip It (slip it good)
4. Boy U Want (pederasts unite)
5. Uncontrollable Urge (don't need any comment for this)
6. Cyclops (attack of the one-eyed crotch monster)
7. The Winner (perverts ontop)
8. Big Mess (again no need for any comment for this)
9. Jerkin Back N Forth (is it anymore obvious Disney pederasts are reaping children)
10. Through Being Cool (oh...k)
11. Freedom of Choice (polygammist pederasty)
12. Beautiful World (for Disney to poop on)
Devo 2.0 Whip It video and band pictures are available.
Neither yet have any articles been cited that mention the circumstances under which NPT acquired these patents (the inventor died of liver cancer in 2004) or the name of the inventor himself -- Tom Campana whose own business making wireless email devices was driven into the ground by the fact that he invented it in the late 80's and early 90's, before email had caught on.
I think we've got a case of crackberrys spamming the media and skewing the terms of the debate into "Evil Patent Trolls vs. The Good Tech Blackberry." Perhaps its more the case that a couple of dot com kiddies are trying ride the actual technological advances made half a decade earlier.
Of course I also know that the KA9Q crowd was doing all of this in the mid-80's which is pry the prior art the NPT patents will be thrown out on -- and you'd think the /. community would know about this, you guys being such big swinging technical dorks and all. But...guess not.
In the RSA case, there is no development cost, it's just a sheer brilliance of the algorithm creators.
It's "certiorari", guys. Get a spellchecker.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
...the name of the owner of the Free Republic website.
What I don't understand is why they don't just license the bandwidth they use from some dummy corporation in the US and stop accepting payments in US dollars. Accept all payment in Swiss Franks. Done. Right away they become untouchable -- the corporation that leases them their bandwidth in the US is not infringing on any patents and their funds become extra-territorial to the US. Oh, and anyone with a credit card can still pay them in Swiss Franks. Their attempted supreme court argument was that the US patent system has become outdated. This way they would also in one whole swoop prove that the US legal system has become outdated as well.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
A new item has shown up on Ebay, Blackberry paperweights.
may be good for the USA. If the members of Congress and a large number of their constituents have to scrap their Blackberries, the thought may finally penetrate their noggins that software patents aren't such a good idea after all. And who knows, the Canadians might even rise to meet the challenge.
Yes - your post is quite informative and it does illustrate how futile the patent process is. Prior examples of this would include Philo Farnsworth VS RCA.
If as you state the NTP patents were legit - then we have the issue that there is no justice and the inventor only found a way to waste money on lawyers and legal fees. Often this is the major outcome of a civil case. Theives know this and white collar crime is rampant because they know this. If you take them to court you might win something back - and in the interm they get to use your money to fight against you. If they lose - the have to pay some of that money back to you.
In the Farnsworth litigation - this would be pretty close to the situation. Farnsworth would have been better off building better products and focusing on marketing. But then - isn't this what Sony is so good at? We have similar patent issues in this area.
So if it turns out that the NTP patents are in fact valid then we see RIM as the black hat - and they are the ones with the product and the marketing. Thus like Sony and RCA they should be expected to come out as a winner - regardless of the litigation.
But - are the NTP patents valid? I say they are perfectly obvious. Back before 1985 I was using fido-net systems and there were some running over packet radio. My neighbour across the street ran packet radio back then.
To send an email over a packetized transmission system is perfectly obvious to _anyone_ who thinks about this for a moment.
It doesn't even require a practitioner of the field. Even a retard would think of this.
In slash-dot if we go back there are even stories of packet passenger pigeon systems. Yes - they will work! Does this mean the NTP patents are so obvious they are for the birds? Even a pigeon can do it...
If there were _something_ innovative in viewing emails over a wireless system then sure - they might have a valid claim. But consider.
During the 70's I read many articals about how NASA communicated from their deep space probes. The communications were innovative. In some cases they did a fourier transform and spread the bits out in order to lose the noise.
Do we have something like this here? How a BlackBerry communicates might actually be innovative. That it can communicate is not innovative. Also what a user might choose to send over that communications channel is not innovative.
A user for instance might call his mom to wish her happy birthday. Should this be subject to a patent restriction? If so - what if he calls his dad. Now calling his wife might be of course since it is common knowledge among all wives that their husbands forget their birthdays. haha!
That the USA courts upheld this claim illustrates that the court to a large extend is not capable of establishing a fundamental tennant of patent law - that is: the "invention" must actually _BE_ an invention - ie - it must be innovative.
This also illustrates that the primary effect (if not also its purpose) of a patent is to encourage litigation. This would put the legislation clearly in the area of a restraint on trade - which is what it really is and should be seen as.
As a restraint on trade it is not much different than what the USA has done in many areas and that includes ignoring the NAFTA agreements in the area of softwood lumber.
There are many areas this has happened in. With RIM it just turns out that a Canadian company is involved. While this does add more weight to the idea of protectionism in another guise - we are still left with the observation that were RIM an American company - we would still be left with the same issues. Patent law's primary effect is to encourage litigation. This is good for the [legal] business.
When we look at patent law from this perspective then we have to realise that if we complain to the legal community we will receive lip service at best because everyone in that business knows what this is all about - its about generating fees from clients... big fees. We _also_ have to realise that the legal community includes the pollies.
You are so misinformed, you don't even know that Compana, the "little inventor" is long dead.
Patents were conceived to protect someone from COPYING your idea. What about independent invention? In the old days as long as the device was independently developed with no knowledge of the other one this was a defense.
This company is a patent-holding company that produces nothing, but lives like a vulture on the remains.
Also, the current utilization of patents is not protecting an invention you are planning to go out and use.
It's trying to "slip by" as broad a patent as you can. The USPTO practically encourages you to submit as many and as often as you like. Then 10 years down the road, you collect on these vague descriptions.
Worst of all, these squatters sit on this territory, doing nothing with it, and telling no one about it. They wait until someone else does make use of it, then pounce on them to bleed them to death. Even if they 2nd person never heard of them, never copied an idea from anyone, came up with it INDEPENDENTLY the squatter wins.
The world of pharmaceuticals, you want to have patents there to protect the giant-Mega-Pharma-corp fine, you do that. However for industries like technology they are nothing but a giant drain, and something that needs to go!
First you need to be running Exchange 2003 Service Pack 2 on your Exchange 2003 servers. Luckily this has been out a few months. However....
/ default.mspx
a milyID=e6851d23-d145-4dbf-a2cc-e0b4c6301453&Displa yLang=en
Unfortunately it requires the Messaging and Security Feature Pack for Windows Mobile. I believe Microsoft only has just recently released (December timeframe) the feature pack code to the OEMs for testing. If the device is strictly a PDA then you will need a code update from the manufacturer of the device. If you're using a smartphone/cell-enabled PDA then it is sounding like you have to get the code update from your carrier. I only know of three or four Windows Mobile 5.0 devices that the US carriers currently offer.
More info on the feature pack is available here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/business/5
Here is the ActiveSync Web Administration Tool to do remote wiping of the Windows Mobile devices:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?F
Why can't we get ANYTHING new here? Here we are. America. #2 in terms of Technology behind the Japanese, or so we thought. And what do we do, we deny innovation. Instead of revamping the American automobile industry with hybrid vehicles, we shut down factories and market cars that are not hybrid as hybrid. I know that sounds offtopic, but when you think about it, if the Toytas and Hondas of the world are getting 55 MPG for their hybrid vehicles and we can't any of our Fords and GMs above 30 MPG, chances are Ford and GM aren't telling the truth.
A more mundane cause seems to shutting down new technology from improving the lives of others.
Image if a small group of cavemen decided to keep Prometheus's Fire from the world. Likewise in a more relevant sense, the Blackberry. The greatest thing to come from Canada since Tim Hortons. Here we have one of the greatest handheld devices on the market and what does NTP want to do? They want to keep it away from everyone.
Why should we let them covet this technology to themselves?! We don't have the Sharp Zaurus, so we don't have any Linux handhelds. There doesn't seem to be any real support for Palm or Pocket PC devices since the handheld market is nearly non existant. And America is not even in the top five high tech countries in the world anymore thanks to greedy businessmen and their lawyers.
You've heard of the dumbing down of America. Now we are witnesses to the downshifting of America. Instead of downshifting being used as a term by organizations like the Adbusters, think of this definition of downshifting as the enervation of innovation, where computers are used as consumer devices instead of a source for collective knowlege. Where people sit in front of their computers playing videogames for days on end instead of creating the next big operating system. Where freedom of speech is replaced with untrustworthy censorship. Our rights as creative programmers and innovative technologists are being stripped away. Our right to freedom of choice is also being taken without warrent or a collective complaint.
These are the days that programmers and technologists must ask ourselves: "Are we just going to still sit here and let these people shut us down because it violates a patent or is not marketable enough in the eyes of a select few or are we going to take back control?" We know how things work, and what they are for. Lawyers and businessmen only know now to use it to make money, to keep feeding the Beast known as Consumerism so that they can use to sell our rights away by controlling the government through secular causes and irrational exuberance. How could a Capitalist country such as the United State prevent itself from making money? More importantly, Why would it?
I call checks and balances on this case. An office of the Excutive Branch of government (United States Patent and Trademark Office under the Techonology Adminstration under The Department of Commerce) and the Judicial Branch (that has sided with the USPTO that doesn't work). What about all those Senators and Congressmen who are going to work tomarrow morning and find that they don't have Blackberry Service. Sure, it wasn't a problem for them until they were denied service. I know for certain theres going to be a Congressional hearing when some big shot representative doesn't have Blackberry.
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
NTP is basically a small group of lawyers. They shuffle paper. They don't do anything (they don't make anything). They don't know much about technology, but they know oodles about the law and how to turn a judges ear. OK. The judge keeps listening to NTP and sticking pins into RIM. RESULT: the Blackberry will be forced by the judge out of the US. The US government might not like it, but the judges order must be obeyed. Can NTP provide a similar service? NO! Will RIM allow NTP to run with all 5000 of it's patents? NOT A CHANCE! There are 2 patents that NTP beat RIM to the punch to (One engineer who has since died was the one who approaced the lawyers). The judge seems not to care about RIM or it's blackberry technology. NTP doesn't want to negotiate. They have little technology. They have no means of running a network. One more setback for RIM, and the Blackberry will be history (and there won't be a replacement for it in *ANY* form). NTP apparently thought that it's better to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. NTP will get its ass sued off by all and sundry once they successfully kill the Blackberry. Any money they got from RIM will be spent till they are all dead running back to court and putting out fires.
Aren't patents supposed to protect inventors/innovators? I may be jumping to conclusions about NTP, but how can a company that exists solely to litigate patent-infringers get away with what it does?
So, because the guy is dead, his heirs don't have a right to the royalties which (perhaps) should have been paid to him? So, I can steal your invention, and then kill you, and then not have to pay for what I stole? That does not seem just.
Another seemingly propopsed injustice here would be that you suggest that I cannot assign my patent to a company so that I can at least get something out of the deal, some help in my David-Goliath fight, because the company's only reason to exist is patent holding and litigation. Shouldn't I be able to assign my rights to whomever I believe would most benefit me and my heirs?
You assume that the only incentive for research & development is profit. Currently the cost of developing the technology costs billions - technology like a cool new operating system for computers even. Somehow without patents the world will cease going forward rather than the development of technology shifting to less business centric areas.
It currently costs billions to develop vaccines because billionaires manipulate the technlolgists. Currently theye might be ppl in R&D for the money, making a competetive atmosphere for ppl who just want to be there.
Perhaps its more the case that a couple of dot com kiddies are trying ride the actual technological advances made half a decade earlier.
Perhaps it's more the case that this shit is freakin obvious.
If your idea is taking something that was already invented and adding the word "wireless" in front of it, that's not any significant innovation. People who file patents like this should go to jail for fraud. It's absuing the system, plain and simple.
Life is too short to proofread.
whats blackberry, the other, the case, and this decision, in layman terms, please
Contrary to what you say, it is RIM's CEO and other upper managers who
will be sued to oblivion by the disgruntled shareholders.
Why ? Because this case is the future text-book example of
HOW NOT TO RUN patent infringement case.
I suggest you educate yourself a little better about basic realities...
Good for you. I know some people that actually cannot really live without it. They would "starve" without it....
Thanks for the link and the clarification. I remember hearing about this and agree this one is "obvious". Lets hope the SCOTUS takes it up and overturns the lower court.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Most patented material is at least somewhat obvious to a specialist in the field, particularly after the fact. That's why people patent things in the first place. The criterion according to the USPTO is that it cannot be obvious to someone with ordinary skill in the field--and it cannot have been reduced to practice, published and sold. Personally I think that the KA9Q guys sending email to each other over amateur wireless radio links means that wireless email had been reduced to practice years before the original patent was filed, and might make a more competent case to the judge than "this shit is freakin obvious".
Perhaps a more effective approach would be to summarize your evidence in the context of 35USC and 37CFR and provide it to opposing counsel, along with your oh-so-well-reasoned suggestions.
Good Luck!
You're wrong again.
e .shtml
http://www.rim.com/investors/articles/patent_abus
RIM did a patent search. They did due diligence.
NTP sued RIM. They claim an infringement on a bad patent.
The judges ruled that given the patent, REGARDLESS of the patent office review and statements "we shouldn't have done that", could be applied to RIM.
RIM has done everything they can given that the validity of the patent is not the issue.
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
Most patented material is at least somewhat obvious to a specialist in the field, particularly after the fact. That's why people patent things in the first place.
The reason patents were created is to protect investments made in groundbreaking R&D.
The criterion according to the USPTO
The USPTO is worthless. They are simply a registry of "I claim to have invented this on this date."
The problem is that they claim to adequately research patent applications, and therefore those that are accepted are presumed to be valid.
It is retarded to believe that a single gov't agency understands every technology on the planet well enough to decide if a patent is novel.
Patents should be changed so that, like copyright, the evidence is argued in a court of law with expert witnesses. The presumption that an orgainzation that refers to patent applicants as its "customers" and time and time again approves nonsense patents (with no consequences to itself) is qualified to decide what is a valid patent is nonsense.
Life is too short to proofread.
You're just demonstrating your complete ignorance of US Patent law here. Patents are regularly challenged in a court of law and before a judge with the input of expert witnesses . They often lose. People prosecuting a patent that would not withstand this level of scrutiny typically drop their requests for royalties when push comes to shove, and go off looking for an easier mark -- at least they have every time I've served as the expert. One report from me, and they go runnin' scared. It's good money too.
Of course, you need something more substantive, my loud friend, to challenge a patent than ignorant assertions like "this shit is freakin obvious" and "The USPTO is worthless," and "Patents should be changed so that..." followed by a description of how patents are already work. Unless, of course, your goal is to be laughed out of the court.
You're just demonstrating your complete ignorance of US Patent law here. Patents are regularly challenged in a court of law and before a judge with the input of expert witnesses .
...and as I said before, the shit is freakin obvious. The problem here isn't prior art, because you shouldn't have to search for prior art, you should be able to recognize that this is a trivial merger of two already existing technologies. Even if there was no prior art directly implementing the claims of the patent, it should have been immediately thrown out.
You're just demonstrating your lack of reading comprenhension.
Obviously patents get challenged in court.
My point is that patents are considered valid until they are challenged in court and thrown out.
They often lose. People prosecuting a patent that would not withstand this level of scrutiny typically drop their requests for royalties when push comes to shove
Of course, you need something more substantive, my loud friend
How about this:
WE'RE NOT IN A COURT ROOM. I'M BITCHING ON THE INTERNET ABOUT THE FLAWS IN THE SYSTEM ITSELF, NOT SUGGESTING WAYS TO WORK WITHIN THE FLAWED SYSTEM.
How about this, try repling to the points I actually made instead of bragging about being an "expert" witness. The point is that the people wanting to place a restraint on everyone else in the country should have to be the ones paying your fee, not the people who want to continue to do what they were doing before some jerk patented an obvious idea.
Life is too short to proofread.
Hey, you are reading official RIM's press releases to better understand this case?
I guess you fully qualify as "mudak" (if you know what it means, actually, nothing too offensive...)
I suggest you read the actual court documents instead...
Oh... I see. Because in your opinion "This shit is freakin obvious" it should also be "freakin' obvious" to everybody else in the world with ordinary skill in the field . Since you also assert that you are qualified to say how the system ought to be changed, clearly you must be familiar with all of the details in the existing system -- so surely you must know that the criterion of non-patentability due to obviousness is that it be obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the field, not specialist.
Furthermore, I'm sure (since you're such an expert in the existing system and therefore know exactly how it should be changed) you are certainly aware of the fact that the merger of two existing techniques -- if they produce a result which neither of the original technologies was intended for is in fact patentable, no matter how "freakin obvious" it seems five or six years down the track. Many things look "freakin obvious" after the fact, that were not at all obvious at the time of filing .
However, in this specific case, as I have mentioned before, because the KA9Q guys were sending each other email over amateur packet-switched radio more than 10 years prior to the date of filing, that it would be much easier to prove specific prior art. To prove obviousness is far more difficult, but clearly, my LOUD friend, since you are such an expert in the workings of the USPTO as to be qualified to criticize it -- you know this already.
Any 'wireless' patent that involves doing something previously done over the internet should be invalid. The 'ethernet' evolved from the original 'Aloha' network protocol running over radio between islands and the university. They certainly had email and file transfers etc.
Wireless is just a return to the origins of the ethernet.
The USPTO should be sent back to school.
- AndrewN