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RIM - The Whole Story
khendron writes "The Globe and Mail has published an article titled Patently Absurd, detailing the whole history of the RIM vs. NTP wireless war. It is a blow by blow account of how a dispute that could have been settled for a few million dollars is now 'a billion-dollar dagger hanging over RIM.' The article reads like a fairy-tale of egos, legal blunders, and patent stupidity."
Except the idea behind patents is to protect innovation. I'm sure you've thought of a good number of things that would be great if patented, researched and marketed. The problem here is the researching and marketing. NTP has no product.
The blackberry is running on top of 18 million lines of code. How much code did NTP write? The blackberry is a physical piece of hardware I can hold. What can I buy from NTP with the same functionality?
NTP put in exactly zero work in their patent. Someone had a good idea, patented it, and then sat on it, waiting for someone else to actually MAKE IT WORK. That is not, or at least should not, be the foundation of the patent system. At this point there's plenty of options...save the patent so it can be researched while protected, I'd tentativly agree with that, maybe a 4 year limit and at least show some progress. (In NTP's case, they could've had a 15 year limit and not make product). Only issue a patent when there's a tangible device to go along with it, that's ideal.
I suppose, though, that they do have the patent, so they should get some recourse. I imagine that the best way would be to have RIM pick up NTP's R&D costs which amount to... the cost of filing a patent.
Seriously though, should I be able to file a patent for warp drive and just sit on it until someone actually does the grunt work and makes it...and then sue them back to the stone age? If you can answer yes to that without flinching...I fear for the fate of this nation.
Ironic, isn't it, that the patent system is becoming increasingly burdensome for exactly the people the system was originally intended to protect (the "small guy"). The cost of acquiring a patent is on the order thousands of dollars ($5,000 - $10,000, depending on your lawyer), which you have to be willing to spend without knowing if the patent which you receive actually has any value. It may be invalidated later (being granted is *not* a good measure of whether or not prior art exists) or simply not be useful.
More damagingly, though, a patent is useless if it can't be defended and defending one's patents is becoming horrifically expensive to the point that the winner is most likely to be the "big guy", and the "small guy" loses out.
Have fun,
Nathan 'Nato' Uno
http://web.unos.net/
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Ummmmm no, the moral is: "Don't get caught".
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.