Slashdot Mirror
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."
Looks like they aren't going to go out of business after all. Maybe I'll send them an application, I always wanted a RIM job. I just hope they aren't anal about the dress code.
Why are companies allowed to sit on patents and wait for someone to come allong and violate it? Why aren't they forced to A) license it or B) to implement it? (If they choose neither then the patent should expire.)
In 1996, the use of a proxy server to change data to suit the target device would have been very innovative.
True, if you're under 25, in which case you probably believe that information distribution (and indeed the world), was invented in 1980's.
On the fly format translation by in intermediary device was, of course, a new innovation in 1996 as long as you limit the context to "computers on the internet". Broaden the scope to the parent realm of information distribution and such methods have been around for decades and were VERY obvious in 1996.