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RIM Wins BlackBerry Patent Dispute in UK
Guinnessy writes "Research In Motion has won its first patent case against Inpro Licensing. Justice Nicholas Pumfrey rejected a claim by Luxembourg-based Inpro Licensing SARL that it holds a UK patent on the technology used by RIM to transpose images and Internet files onto BlackBerry screens ruling that all the claims at issue were either obvious or lacking in novelty. It is the second European legal victory this year for RIM, following a Munich court's invalidation of a German version of the same patent. The big court case of course is on Feb 24 when a U.S. court will consider whether the BlackBerry service should be halted for infringing patents held by licensing firm NTP."
In the US patents are 20 years from the date of filing of an original application. This is done to give companies time to implement their idea without fear of losing their investment(Company A develops a new widget, 2 years into the design of it Company B hires away their core team developers and finishes the project, patent law keeps Company B from selling their stolen product)
A M.20060128.wxcover0128/BNStory/Technology/)
For an individual inventor, the patent laws lets them invent something and then shop around for a comapny to develop/market the product without fear of them stealing the idea.
The US patent case RIM is involved in is not a "submarine" patent.
(http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTG
The problem with finding prior art is that you need to find one piece of prior art that covers all the aspects of a claim. You can't mosaic them. The prior art we used in trial was the following:
The general concept was clearly obvious back then. But the patent had some specific details that Inpro claimed were not obvious. I believe they were obvious to someone in the field in 1996. Clearly the judge agreed.