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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."
no pun inteded, I guess.
Fleur de Sel
Never underestimate the stupidity of bean-counters, even more so that they run most companies nowadays.
While I'm not naive enough to think that the problem will get fixed any time soon, at least this will add another straw, and eventaully enough straws will be added to break the camel's back.
Oh, and by the way, NTP are bastards. I don't care about their cute little story. Nobody should be able to do a half-assed job and get hundreds of millions.
Ok...so...basically as pointed out in any number of the previous RIM/NTP stories, RIM started as a bunch of patent litigating bastards. Now...NTP attacks them with an equally moronic patent and suddenly we are all supposed to gather the horde, fetch the pitchforks and charge to RIM's defense because patents are bad. So...once this is over...and someone attacks NTP the same way RIM went on the attack, followed by NTP attacking, are we supposed to support NTP during their defense? This also brings up similar questions with SCO and friends...are we supposed to support SCO when they are attacked by the same litigious bastard types that they were being? I for one would like to see RIM get torn to pieces by this silly patent, partially as karma, partially as an example to the world how stupid this patent nonsense is getting, and partially becuase I just don't really like crackberries.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
...are the legal rep's screwing both sides for all they can
Cheap UK and US VPS
The Key thing is that's NTP's patent was a worthless piece of paper until RIM did the hard work and made a product that worked, and that NTP could try and scrounge some cash from.
Patent Trolling is not clever, it's a cancer in the patent system, just like submarine patents and software patents.
-- oldthinkers unbellyfeel ingsoc
I got this from a waitress friend of mine...
A lot of times, people come into the restaruant she works in and while she's trying to take their order and ask them things like: "What kind of dressing do you want, what do you want to drink, etc...", they'll be looking at their crackberry and findling with the butons. Of course, they're asking her to repeat what she said and thy always get pissed when their order isn't what they thought they asked for. So, to make their rudness fun, while she's (other waitresses are doing this, too) taking their order, she'll interject a "meow", as in a cat's meow. The contest amoung the waitresses is to see how many "meows" they can say to the crackberryheads before they say "excuse me?". It's really fun to watch!
I'm still confused about how someone could patent wireless email. Basically, you have email technology (POP,SMTP) and you have wireless data transport networks designed for general purpose use, IEEE, GSM, whatever. How is it considered an invention to simply use the network for what it was designed to do? I mean, what about wireless web browsing? Wireless DNS resolution? Wirless SSH/Telnet? Or Email over ATM? Email over ISDN? Email over DSL?
The real inventor of 'wireless email' is the original inventor of email plus the original inventor of a general purpose wireless networking protocol. Doesn't the patent office think that when a network is invented to move bytes, the original inventor envisioned email or any TCP/IP service to run on it? If the logic I am reading is true, wouldn't it technically be possible to patent any TCP/IP service over 'insert layer 1/layer2 technology here'?
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.
Brief summary:
Rim used to be the bastard. NTP is the bastard. Lawyers changed brilliant inventors into agressive beasts.
Conclusion:
the US patent system is bad for the US economy and bad for your ego.
I can tell you I've been at several places and NONE of them have really concerned themselves with infringing on others' patents. The common rebuttal is that "we have patents too, and I'm sure we can find them [other company] infringing on ours somehow. Hence, we can "strike a deal" if a problem ever comes up.
Jerry
http://www.networkstrike.com/
In the 80's and 90's IBM service reps ran around with something they called a "brick" which was a wireless device that they used to communicate with the main office, wouldn't that be prior art for RIM and NTP?
More importantly, if RIM was going after all of these other companies, then it was hardly "novel", right?
Neither company deserves a patent in this case (which appears to be the case with about 98% of all software patents).
After reading that blow by blow summary, I worry that many Research in Motion employees will have to say goodbye to their RIM jobs.
What a thoroughly ugly situation.
On one side we have a former innovator that decided to become a patent troll. I suppose if not for RIM, those patents would have just quietly turned to dust.
On the other, we have an actual innovator that produced a real product. It then learned that he who lives by the sword shall die by the sword. They sure thought patent lawsuits were a good idea until they found themselves on the wrong end of one.
The big winners are the lawyers on both sides. The undeserving loosers are everyone who depends on this technology. Fortunatly, there are a few other ways to keep up with e-mail while mobile now.
Personally I feel companies that buy and sell patents as if they're some kind of property are a disgrace to everything the patent and trademark system was founded to uphold. They're not using the patents to innovate, they're just using the patents to extort money out of other companies. NTP should have all its patents stripped because it's quite clear they're nothing but a patent squatter.
One must always question - is it really worth the effort to file a patent. If the patent is refused - is the filing still valid as "prior art" and therefore sufficient to be able to avoid others to claim a patent and then kick you out of the market?
The majority of patents are not worth the cost of preparing and filing the application. The minority of patents are worth modest fortunes, and sometimes more. The problem is determining the difference between the former and the latter. It's educated guesswork.
Patent applications do not necessarily become prior art. Before November of 2000, U.S. patent applications were not published as a matter of course. The content of a patent application only became public if a later patent or a printed publication made the public aware of the abandoned application's existence. If the document is not accessible to the interested public, it is not prior art. Even after November of 2000, a U.S. patent application can be withheld from publication if the inventor certifies that they have not and will not file an application in any patent office that has an 18 month publication rule (the current standard).
That being said, if you want to prevent others from patenting your idea, whether or not you intend to patent it, all you have to do is publish the idea in a way that's accessible to the public. This is phenomenally easy to do when you consider the existence of Google and the internet. Make sure that the document can be indexed by search engines, and include a precise publication date (not "2004"), and you've overcome most of the barriers that would prevent an examiner or attorney from using your publication as prior art against an application or patent.
Of course, if you intend to patent an invention described in that document, especially in countries outside the U.S., you would be well advised to publish your idea only after you've filed the application(s)...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"He was not the greatest businessman in the world," Mr. Campana Sr. concedes. "Even when his business was going broke his employees never missed a day's pay. He went home without paying himself."
Mean while RIM in Nov. of 2002, to meet the finacial quota, layoffs followed;
http://news.techdirt.com/news/wireless/article/824
To be more balanced, here is the timeline on RIM vs NTP stories/posts;
http://news.techdirt.com/news/wireless/search?quer y=RIM&topic=&author=
I am not defending NTP or RIM, however this seems awfully a lot like history being repeated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philo_Farnsworth (Father of TV)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Howard_Armstron g (Father of FM radio)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Meucci (Father of Telephone)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Boole (Father of Digital Age)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Diesel (Father of Internal Combustion Engine)
All died with tregic end, without entitlement or recognition or compensation for their life's work while they were alive, only to be stolen and profited by thieves and corrupt hands of greed.
This may sound naive and to some "slashdotters," idiotic, but I value true human story in history more so than the profit margin or success of marketing and public opinion. The truth is, Mr. Stout and Campana are robbed from their rightful entitlement as Mr. Stout successfully demonstrated his idea through practical usage and only to be failed as business venture later on. This does not mean that Mr. Lazaridis didn't have any valuable input for this technology. However as patent is to protect the legitimacy of an idea, our legal system should validate that entitlement, not manipulate and craft to falsify the technical validity of original idea of the inventor.
I don't personally care for how many lines of code are there, regardless if it's 16 million lines or 16 billion lines to make BlackBerry work flawlessly. This patent isn't about who has how many lines of code or how much work has been put in or how much money it made or how important it is on fight against "terrorist." It's about the innovative idea and technology.
Other point is that often people are too quick to judge that patent itself is wrong, however without patent, non-profit driven, non-corporate endorced, average inventors and innovators of technology become faceless, only to be digged up later to be found in history book as many Open Source developers and programmers may face later.
Or are we all that naive that one day, giant corporations and investers will dig up the holder of the original idea their proprietary software/technology benefited from in oder to share the profit and entitlement? Will FOSS and GPL ever have enough backbone or teeth to enforce its ideal and fight legal battles against billion dollar corporations'?
What if Farnsworth became billionaire with his invention, what change could we have seen in today's TV broadcasting? What if Armstrong could have made his FM radio available to millions, what different sound could we hear over the radio today? What if Meucci and not Bell profitted from telephone, what could have happen for today's telecommuncation industry? What if Boole's idea was taken seriously and valued as later Claude Elwood Shannon, nearly 70 years later, found it to be, what could we have accomplished in today's computing industry? What if Rudolf Diesel was alive and prospected as Ford, could we have seen cars running on vegetable oil mor
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
Comparing RIM to SCO just doesn't fly. SCO is basically using some nearly-worthless old patents to try to extort money from those who put in the actual hard work. Remind you of someone? Consider NTP's (admitted) business strategy. They sat on some nearly-worthless patents for years with no intention of developing them, instead lying in wait for someone (like RIM) to do the hard work of transforming an airy concept into a commercially successful reality. Companies like NTP are parasites in the truest sense of the term. RIM should be hailed for having the spine to stand up to those leeches, instead of cravenly giving in to a settlement.
Procrastination Man strikes again!