Inside the BlackBerry Workaround

pillageplunder writes "Businessweek has a pretty good FAQ-style article on the proposed workaround that RIM would implement if a judge upholds an injunction." From the article: "It would work by changing the part of the network where e-mails are stored. Right now, when someone is out of wireless coverage range and can't immediately get e-mail access, RIM's service stores incoming messages on computers at one of its two network operations centers, or NOCs. When you come back into coverage range, those e-mails are forwarded to you automatically. "

Comments

Explain this please

[Nom du Keyboard]

RIM is asking the court not to impose an injunction on devices that have already been sold. The Canadian company argues that it already has an implied license with NTP on these devices, and so they shouldn't be covered by an injunction.

The reason: A jury found RIM guilty of infringing on NTP's licenses in 2002. RIM lost its bid to overturn that verdict. So, even if the Patent Office throws out NTP's patents, RIM still has to pay royalties for the time up until the patents are overturned.

Okay, if RIM is:

1: Having to pay royalties still on every unit sold.
2: Has a workaround to avoid the patent they are paying royalties on.
3: Says there's no difference to the end-user to use this workaround.
4: Says all new *ackBerries have the new code in them already.

Then why haven't they rolled out this workaround already ASAP. It would:

1: Make any court injunction moot.
2: Reduce the number of units that they owe royalties on.

Methinks there's more to this that's not being told yet.

Text Messaging?

[cloudscout]

Maybe I'm completely missing the boat here, but I recall when I got my first cellphone capable of receiving text messages 10 years ago that those messages would be queued up on the carrier's servers until I turned my phone on or was in signal range. Would that not be prior art?

Good example

[slackaddict]

This is a good example of why you should not put all of your eggs in one basket. The US Federal Goverment uses Blackberries and this is a response to their mandate that no matter what happens to RIM over this patent dispute, Senators still need their Blackberries to work. Given other communication forms out there, I think it would be better for companies and governments to diversify or use an open standard for communication rather than relying on a single, vulnerable source for all of their commo needs.

Re:Well If That Isn't Worthy Of A Patent...

[planetmn]

Problem is, now you have to define utilizing. What if I patent a part of a larger system, but the rest of the system isn't ready for market yet. Does designing a system that would use that patent constitute utilizing it?

Personally, I think a system like this would work better:
Allow for an easier to get, low cost, shorter term patent (think helping the little guy) - Say less than $200 (no lawyer needed) and 2 years
Require that a prototype demonstrating the patent (not necessarily the end item) be required in order to upgrade the above patent to a full protection patent
I don't see that the problem is that patents are too easy to get. I think they are too easy for the wrong people, and too hard for the right ones. I don't have the $10k+ required to file a patent for something I want to develop in my garage. But I also don't want to spend two years developing it, and then get nailed for patent infringement because a year ago somebody patented something similar.

-dave

Re:Maybe I'm dense

[jrumney]

It is different because the email is not stored on a standards based IMAP or POP server, it is stored on RIM's server which talks to your Blackberry using a proprietary protocol, and to your corporate email server using a proprietary plugin which works only on Exchange. RIM's protocol and server add the important feature of "lock-in" to the system. Yes, you could do it all with SMTP and IMAP, but "Blackberry and Exchange" sounds a lot more user friendly to the people who make purchasing decisions than "IMAP and SMTP".

Re:Well If That Isn't Worthy Of A Patent...

[31415926535897]

And patent squatting, or whatever you care to call it when a company sits on a patent without utilizing it, simply to stifle competition, should be illegal.

I would tend to agree, especially based on our current patent climate, but here is my concern:

I, personally, have several ideas that I think are "patent-worthy". I cannot afford a patent let alone the costs of (pre-)production. So let's say I scrape together enough cash to make a patent ($400-$5000 depending on the route you go), now what do I do with it? My options are to produce the product (I have already established that this is out of question financially), wait for someone to infringe on my patent and sue them (expensive and risky, especially for an individual trying to feed a family), or sell my patent to someone else.

If I sell the patent to someone else, I have a couple of options. One, I can try to sell/license it to a company that is in business related to the patent. So for most of my ideas, I could try to sell it to IBM, MS, Sandisk, etc., but the chances of them buying the patent are pretty slim. The other option I have is to sell the patent to a company that holds patents, like Invention Submission Corporation or perhaps a company like NTP. So I have an agreement with them that they either pay me a lump sum (far less than the value they see in the patent), or a percentage of profits from the patent. So they take on the risk and the financial burden, and I as a small player am pretty happy with my payout (perhaps I have enough now for one of my other ideas, to patent and then even start small-scale production).

I'm not saying that we have to protect the likes of NTP because of what I've just said, but I think there is some validity in these kind of companies that help out an individual. I don't know what that balance is or what kind of rules you would create to make sure that the system doesn't eventually kill innovation (especially from the small-time guy).