Slashdot Mirror
RIM Settles Long-Standing Blackberry Claim
David Jao writes "Research in Motion has agreed to pay 612.5 million dollars for a 'full and final settlement of all claims' resulting from the NTP patent lawsuit against the makers of BlackBerry. According to the article, the settlement is 'on the low end of expectations', perhaps because the patents in question had earlier been preliminarily ruled invalid by the US Patents & Trademarks Office." Many article submitters characterize this move as 'giving in' to NTP's tactics. What do you think?
...if the patents that based NTP's lawsuit were going to be ruled invalid, what was the basis for the settlement? Why didn't RIM just tell NTP to go fuck themselves and wait for the patent office to finish. No patent == no patent infringement == no lawsuit.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
This is ridiculous. Why should a company with only an idea and no product have any claim to over half a billion dollars? It's not like Blackberry stole their idea, right?
Low end of expectations? Wow. This justifies patent squatting to the unscrupulous looking for the cash-out.
un burrito me trampeó.
I'm pretty disappointed with this move by RIM. I was hoping that by going all the way through the courts we might get some serious patent reform out of the whole mess. While this brought a lot of attention to the issue, I fear that it will just go back to being business as usual at the patent office.
"To lead the people, you must walk behind them"
They had no other choice but to give in. There was an article in the WSJ today that talked about how many people were switching to competitor's products, just because of the uncertainty surrounding the Blackberry.
It will be interesting to see how easily they recover from this.
This space intentionally left blank.
The people who developed the work around must be pissed off.
Thank god.
How to shut patent trolls up.
$612 million. Bastards.
Firefox 2.0 - Spell Rightly.
N
ot only is it "giving into" NTP, but it is also giving NTP 612.5 million "bullets" to go after anybody who transmits a message using a computer. Which they will do, because it is their business model to do so.
RIM Loses NTP Case, To Pay $53 Million 256 comments [+] HAHAHA
I think I've gotta get me one of them patent thingies.
...we could be next. Larry Lessig makes the point of saying that stuff like this and SCO is only the tip of the iceberg. We need patent reform. Larry Lessig urges people to spend say the equivalent of what you would spend supporting the copyright cartel on a monthly basis by giving to the org of your choice to fight this kind of stuff. So if your Comcast bill is $75.00, maybe you could squeeze out that much for the EFF.org, etc.
Did you mean "asshole"? Is there something wrong with your keyboard? Oh, I'm sorry, it's a "l33t" thing...
So if someone tries to blackmail me for $100 and I talk them down to $50, I didn't give in either?
That's some faulty logic right there.
It's about money. RIM figured that it was going to cost them more than 612.5M for lawyers fees, lost revenue and the court decision. They did what was best for their company. We just have a crappy system for IP and judicial arbitration.
Sure they could fight it out and possiblu win in 8 years after all appeals are through but theyd be dead as a company,600 million is 1/3 of RIM's cash reserves for peace of mind.
NTP=SCO????
RIM caved to NTP?!!
That's like Patton surrendering to the Germans when they were kickin their asses!
NTP's patents were bogus to begin with. They had no product.
RIM was winning in court.
Whoever it was who made this decision, FIRE 'EM!
Now anybody with a worthless patent will try harder to sue legitimate businesses.
RATS!
Regards,
Roger Born
"Sorry. No Refunds."
Blackberry wireless phone: (at least) $199.99
Bad Press and market instability: $100 million+
Patent Infringement Settlement Case: $612 million
Sound of Silence from annoying company who may/may not have driven you out of business without settlement/payoff: Priceless
If *somehow* they can use a credit card on this one, I want to know if they how much cash back or frequent flyer miles they get...
As long as there is a Second Amendment, there will always be a First Amendment.
The industry and millions of consumers are breathing a collective sigh of relief tonight.
Despite averting a BlackBerry shutdown, however, this case is just more proof that the US Patent Office is in crisis. While some of NTP's patents may prove to be valid, it is clear that many of them should never have been granted in the first place.
The US Patent Office's failure to ensure quality threatens the patent system that is so critical to innovative small tech firms. If the quality of patents is not improved, the industry may lose faith in the entire system.
Some may not like software patents, but the reality is that companies have them. Open Source Champion IBM is the single largest patenter in the WORLD. they still make billions (with a b) off of patent licensing - including software/method patent licensing. Small companies like 'slingbox' have patents to ensure that they get VC funding and to prevent Sony from just creating the exact same product and steamrolling them.
I, along with Diane Peters from OSDL, Bruce Perens, lawyers from IBM and others got together at the USPTO last month to talk about ways to improve patent quality. No solutions yet, but some good discussion.
The quality issue MUST be solved, and NOW; so before you launch into a general "patents suck" rage, take a reality check and think about ways to get more prior art into the patent system and improve the quality.
It will be several years before patent reform legislation becomes law, so we are going to to have to find technology solutions that we can implement now, and hope that legislation fixes the things we can't.
Morgan Reed
A sig?!? I don't think so.....
He told RIM to settle or prepare for some serious pain. He could just have granted the injunction and put RIM out of business right then and there. The reason this happened this way is because the legal system is set up the way it is.
they countersue or something. Heck, can't the congress just abolish the friggin' patents!?
:(
GRRRRRRRRRRRR!
Hooray for those who set traps and await companies to develop and market products before suing them to protect their IP.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
RIM is worth much more than $100. This is more like blackmailing a multimillionaire for 3 cents.
(note: there was a cent symbol above there, but Slashdot apparently couldn't handle it. So much for obeying the "standards" that Slashdot calls jihads to defend.)
And the stock is up 13% in after hours trading...
http://www.google.com/search?q=rimm
So, when the patents are finally ruled invalid, don't you think RIM will come after NTP with a new lawsuit?
Anybody know if the settlement terms preclude this?
the folks over at RIM are avid /. readers. They are paying this money to NTP to help reduce the amount of dupes on /. That series of articles, due to their frequency, accounted for 75% of dupes.
/.
THANK YOU RIM!!!!!
here is to a dupe free
Error: Sig not found.
I think when standing in the shoes of RIM, the settlement was the best choice.
The lawsuit was making their stock go crazy, and the users of the BlackBerry service were worried that they would have to find some sort of Methodone for their CrackBerries.
There is nothing in the world that is as helpless or irresponsible as an executive without his CrackBerry. (with apologies to HST)
I know a bunch of the "patents suck" bandwagon are pissed (IMHO, they have good reason), but for RIM, the suit was really effecting their bottom line. Shut up money is usually cheaper than liberty or death money.
I think most people who use Blackberries are complete and utter asshats.
If they're not top posting, dropping attachments, or bitching because they can't see the website (the one they told to be designed for IE and damn everyone else), they're pounding away on that thing in meetings, giving everyone else half their attention.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless Blackberry. Because I'm a fucking tool.
The one good thing to come of this is it has raised the problem in the public eye. Congressmen thought they would lose their Blackberries. Let's hope some real reform is on the way.
Everyone knows that damage is done to the soul by bad motion pictures. -Pope Pius XI
is a patent troll with $600M in the bank.
Do you have ESP?
Can I patent the method for extorting money out of a company that produces a product I dreamed up but never actually bothered to make? While I'm at it, I'm also going to patent the process for exchanging currency under a table like structure to encourage laws favourable to me making more money.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Surely, this is quite profitable, and IT'S ALL LEGAL.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
The prices were simply for illustration purposes; my example would be 100% valid, though, if I was poor and 'worth' only a few hundred dollars. Even if I was a millionaire, paying such a small amount as blackmail still condones the act of blackmailing, and that's the point I was trying to get across.
Wow, they sure got themselves a RIMJob.
nT
The action to invalidate NTP's patents continues, so NTP won't be able to do this to other vendors. The flawed legal & patent systems led to this resolution. RIM basically had two choices: 1) risk the injunction (which would have been a death sentence for the Blackberry business, no matter what workarounds they had) or 2) pay them to shut up, and rest easy knowing the customers won't be left high and dry because of an injunction.
The GPL pretty much bound IBM to not settle. If there are patent restrictions on the code, then it cannot be used, therefore IBM had to fight it. Just another reason why I prefer stronger copyleft licenses over weaker ones.
This couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of bottom-feeding scumbuckets. Don't forget that RIM (or "Lawsuits in Motion" as El Reg dubbed them) was the group of clowns who sued Palm and others for daring to infringe on their breathtakingly innovative concept of putting a little keyboard on a PDA. Screw 'em. Screw 'em right up the arse with a pile-driver, 10 metres of razor wire, and a bottle of vinegar. And whether you love software patents or hate them, this event is a rare conjunction of equal parts schadenfreude and poetic justice.
Now we just have to wait a few years for the NTP <descriptions containing far too much vitriol to ever be displayed publicly> to get their peckers handed to them in thin slices. It'll be worth it.
Well $600M less legal fees, still provides considerable ammount of coin for NTP to live the rich life, and buy some more patents, to sit on, until their coiffers run dry again. In any sense, the laywers one this one..
Since the Judge has already indicated that even though the PTO has recently determined that the patents under dispute are invalid, at the time the case was filed, they were not and that's what any decision will be based upon. That's right, even though they've proven the patents to be no good, the judge is not accepting any further arguments before his decision is handed down except for proceedural as the jury has already ruled on the case.
So what RIM has done is made the best of a bad situation by deciding to settle for the licenses they need while continuing to fight the issue through the PTO and courts. In fact the decision is exactly what I expected of a corporate board the follows it's Fiduciary Responsibilities to the share holders. That's right, the solution is far cheaper then was orignially determined even with the court case and they most likely are including a clause that if the patents are finally rejected, that they wont be paying anywhere's but a pitance for the trouble. Hell it's even possible that RIM's lawyers will be able to hold NTP's feet to the fire in regards to reimbursing them for the agravation and they may even make a small profit from this matter.
After shelling out $612M over this, spending another $100M on a massive PR campaign to get the public and Congress behind tearing up the whole patent system and starting over will seem like a gratuity.
Keep in mind, the House and Senate (not to mention damn near every federal agency imaginable) use Blackberry, so they're already on their side and will probably be more than happy to make life $612M easier for RIM over time.
Too bad they're still in business, because in the end, a crackberry is still a proprietary piece of crap. How many people will unnecessarily waste how much time and money on the proprietary treadmill because they just don't know any better? How much better off would we all be without all the greedy fucktards who think the world owes them a living for having little brain farts now and then? "Oooo, push email!" Cripes people are stupid.
By settling, RIM now has a license to "patented" technology. So their competitors still have to worry about patents claimed by NTP (and RIM). If RIM had kept fighting to the end and actually won they (and their competitors) would have no IP claim to the technology.
I'm not saying that you're wrong, but for those of us who haven't been following this case that closely, could you give a bit more detail on what "unethical courtroom tactics" RIM tried, and how they backfired?
I'm not in favor of NTP or anything, but the people who point out that NTP had no product are missing the point of patents.
Suppose you invented the Blackberry. You. Right now. You have the idea. Now what? Do you have the financial backing to manufacture a million Blackberrys? Do you have the industry connections to go around and make deals with all the mobile carriers to get your service into people's hands? No. But it's still a good idea, so you want to go forward with it. That means finding potential partners and investors. But just talking to those people about it is spreading the idea around. Suppose you go to the mobile company and say, "I have these plans for this service, I'm going to call it Blackberry." What's stopping them from just making the service themselves and cutting you out of the picture completely?
Your patent is.
In an ideal world, that's what patents are for: protecting the little guy inventor from big business.
Breakfast served all day!
Just a cursory review of the top level comments, but most of us are missing a big piece here....
RIM already took a $450M reserve against the settlement. They only owe another $160M which should be no problem over the next few quarters for them to finance...
Here is the Kicker: The settlement does NOT obligate RIM to pay royalties.
-A
that voids it and returns most of RIM's money in the event that the patents in suit are ruled invalid by the USPTO. If I were RIM, I'd reeeeally want a clause to that effect; then again, NTP is unlikely to be thrilled about that, so it's anyone's guess.
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
I love how the big company always gets the benefit of the doubt in today's corporate-loving world.
The founder of NTP had many years of wireless experience, and developed many technologies that moved wireless messaging forward. When RIM showed up on the scene, he sent them (as well as some other companies) a few letters to inform them that they were infringing on his patents. RIM ignored the letters, and continued doing business as though they had never heard of this guy. He didn't sue, he just chalked it up to a losing battle that there was nothing he could do anything about.
Then he saw a story about how RIM was suing other companies out of existence using patents that were infringing on HIS patents. At that point he figured it was time to try and get a big law firm involved, and went after RIM. He died of cancer before this whole court case was ever finished, but I am glad to hear his family will be well off.
The fact of the matter is, this never would have even happened if RIM hadn't started the whole thing by employing predatory practices with their dubious patents to drive competition out of business in the first place. I have no sympathy for RIM at all. They flat out lied in court, and were busted for it, they used some pretty questionable lobbying practices to get NTP patents invalidated, and they have practiced far more dubious patent extortion than NTP ever did. I don't think this is a case of a fine, upstanding company getting a shakedown by a troll. This is a case of pretty sweet karma in action!
Hurray!!! Research In Motion is Back in Motion.
I dont have any mod points at the moment else I would be modding this guy up. This is very insightful.
Now if patents should last longer than your lifetime is another question entirely...
This didn't solve anything. If anything it made things worse. I didn't see *ANY* reporting that the flawed patent system was at fault.
All I heard from the mainstream news media was the Blackberry was being sued, and now they settled for $600 Million, so, in my mind, they must have been at fault.
Furthermore, this payment will embolden other patent trolls who want to be fed to the tune of millions for doing nothing.
And the Patent System will go merrily on it way, because now that Senators can use their Blackberries again, do you think they are going to give a tinker's damn that the system is flawed?
If I'd been running Blackberry, I'd have shut down service for 24 hours, with the message "we can't provide service due to a flawed patent system.".
Does anybody here remember the day everyone made their webpages BLACK as a protest? Does anybody remember when it was OKAY to fight back against something that was wrong? Now it seems, the M.O. is to give up, pay the bastards and lick your wounds, regardless of who's right or wrong.
In fact, the more wrong you are, the harder you should fight, it seems, because these days, the good guy always loses. (RIAA anyone?)
What a wonderful lesson to teach our younger people.
George Lucas should make a movie on that subject.
So this is how freedom dies. With a $600 Million payout.
TTYL
A disgusted and concerned old-timer.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
"$612 million for patents that don't have to be valid. I think I can do that."
Get ready for the floodgates.
It seems as if patents are bringing corruptness to society. It seems like patents are resulting in fear of innovation and fear of making new products. There needs to be reform in the patent system NOW. It is uterly rediculus that people can sue over such things. Ideas are not products and certainly do not deserver half a billion dollars. Anyway, Conclusion, patens cause corruption, and there needs to be change.
IIRC, a lot of that cash reserve was already earmarked for a settlement -- it would have made sense to put aside about a half a billion since thay had a tentative deal for 450M at this time last year. So, the corporate books won't be hit too bad.
As much as I despise NTP's "business", it was better for RIM to do the deal. Customer uncertainty and all that...
Most software patents I am aware of are relatively obvious, including RIM and NTP's patents in this case. Prior art is not the only issue, the entire definition of what should be patentable is problematic. Currently any combination of technologies not previously written about that is non-obvious (by who's definition?) is legit. Maybe I should write a patent generator that randomly combines existing technologies.
We need to ask ourselves what the purpose of a patent is, and then make the rules aligned with the goals.
If you think NTP never had a product then you don't know SHIT about what NTP had done in the past. I am not linking you, You can do some real research into what NTP had done with Major corporations like ATT and what ATT did to fuck over NTP. NTP was put in a position of being pretty much bankrupt because of ATT. Also the Patent office ruling the patents invalid has to offer NTP the chance to show they are valid so this could have drug on for a good long time. So my position is this. NTP had a valid patent was fucked over by ATT who left NTP bankrupt. Whether NTP had the wear with all to produce a product after that VERY PUBLIC display of what NTP could do which I am sure RIM boy was aware of. RIM LIED IN COURT PEOPLE the RIGGED a display meant to show previous art. HELLO RIGGED A COURT UNDER OATH DISPLAY. So what ever. Maybe RTFM means you have to do some extra research into the realities of the case. I once had a wester civ teacher who on the first day said this to us. If you come to every class and do all the required reading you will get a "C" on my test. Makes since to me because that would be AVERAGE work. So maybe people need to do more then read the aritcle on complex subjects that have something like 20 years of back story.
OMG Ponies!!! with Glitter!!!! I miss Pink
Slashdot & Groklaw readers you figure it out... Of the hundreds of patents, trademarks, servicemarks, copyrights, etc. which are filed daily, how many are reviewed by anyone with a critical eye as to the value of the "intellectual value" of the "property" being claimed. That is the real failure of the "system" notionally addressed by Patent systems. Someone is claiming an idea as property, and now given hollywoods claim to this ownership in perpetuity and without recourse (DMCA invalidation of fair use and endless copyrights) it seems like the system (both here and abroad) is about at the breaking point.
;-)
I think:
The Patent, Copyright, Trademark, Servicemark (Intellectual Property) system needs an overhaul.
The overhaul needs to address (and protect) both buyers and sellers rights to use and get fair $ for.
The system needs to be technology agnostic (must have a future not tied to technological advance).
The system should not be complex, but should be fair, and firm for both producers and consumers.
The global system should be encouraged to follow a similar pattern in exchange for open trade.
For IP Patents/Copyrights (vice Trademarks/Servicemarks) the IP should have some reasonable fixed lifetime.
It should be as easy for an individual to obtain a patent for IP, as for a large company with $$$ lawyers
Ciao,
mdw
This company deserves to go straight to hell. $612 million is a rap on the knuckles.
Now there won't be a need for crackberry withdrawl support groups.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
I didn't pay attention to this case for quite a while because there's so much patent BS going around right now, and I don't use Blackberry anyways. Can someone please summarize what this is over? The article is very, very basic on the details.
From a quick search, it sounds like the one company is based entirely off of patenting ideas and licensing them out (what some might call a "patent whore"). 5 of their patents happen to be related to some of RIM's technology, so they're suing. Can somebody (unbiased, preferred) fill in the details?
Also, haven't there been past patent infringement cases that were dropped because the patent holder had made no attempts to develop a product based on their patent, so there was really nothing to steal, unless it can be proven that RIM based the Blackberry on those patents rather than their own original work?
I was recently involved in a patent fight, where we had comprehensive prior art, and were really convinced that we were going to prevail eventually, but between getting to trial in the first place, and the resultant inevitable appeals, it was cheaper to settle. It made my skin crawl, but we did it anyway.
Also, remember that juries on cases like this are not technologists who will readily understand a complex technological argument, but "peers" who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty.
What bothers me in this entire process is that NTP was composed entirely of the inventor and a lawyer. So for much of this case, it's been just a lawyer.
The most foolish thing though is that I believe RIM could have settled this case for far smaller sum early on, but now its 600M and probably something similar again in lawyers fees and business damage.
Actually, the "making a product" issue is only a relatively modern claim. It used to be that all patent submissions required a working model to be submitted at the same time. The PTO got tired of storing everything, so gave up on it.
What's stopping them from just making the service themselves and cutting you out of the picture completely?
I don't know. It's the Microsoft Model (just ask Citrix, Symantec, etc). If you have a shit-hot application idea, Microsoft *will* eventually start competing against you, whether you like it (i.e., they pay you some $$$ for it) or not.
In the other copyright-associated industries, it's simply claimed to be a copyright violation: "he stole my original idea for 'Big Momma'. I showed him my script 3 years ago called 'Big Fat Hoochie Mama', but he didn't want to produce it. Now I want my 10% of the gross box office take, or one million lira, which ever is greater!".
If the applications can be copyrighted, then that's how it should be resolved. Software (and software techniques, including business models) should simply *not* be patentable.1
If you're shopping an idea around for a software application or service to investors, you'd better have a pretty good NDA and agressive lawyer to back up that NDA...
The Software industry has been allowed to get away with choosing the best parts of different areas of IP to benefit themselves while using the best negative parts of IP law to keep out competition or screw customers out of $$$. But the toothpaste is out of the tube on that one.
Either software is copyrightable, patentable or simply trade secret. None of this license bullshit and double-speak in them, either. It's either a physical product (patentable) or an instance of a copyrightable publication.
They had previously set aside around $45p million for the previous settlement. Only a little over 100 Million is coming out of the existing quarter.
"Sheesh, I seriously hope you develop some technology that you can't afford to develop. Then before you get funding,some company infringse upon it and make billions."
The trouble is, for every time you protect the little guy, there are many more examples of patent portfolio companies basically being a leech on progress and legitimate companies. Is it worth the cost for that one in a million example of protecting the lone inventor?
To me, your argument is the equivalent of saying "The lottery is a great thing because once a week somebody becomes rich".
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
I don't give a rat's ass about RIMM.
But, I'm a bit concerned about the system. The entire patent system seems to be nothing but a game. It has nothing to do with who actually invented anything. It has nothing to do with protecting rights.
When the innovators can't make money; they will stop trying. And that is the end of the USA as an economic power. Think about it: manufacturing is long since dead in the USA. Now engineering and software development are going overseas. Technical support is also being off-shored. What's left? Nothing but lawyers and politicians and a lot of gaming and you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours.
" along with Diane Peters from OSDL, Bruce Perens, lawyers from IBM and others got together at the USPTO last month to talk about ways to improve patent quality. No solutions yet, but some good discussion."
Why don't you get together to discuss the fact that most of the significant discoveries in computers, information and software fields came about before software patents.
And if you want to quibble with me, fine, but answer this: If software patents were important to drive innovation in the high-tech industry, then how did some many great pieces of software get written in the days before software patents?
Let's not pretend that software patents are an old, time-tested way of protecting software. They're not, they're less than 10 years old. So rather than accept a relatively recent ruling by a court (Not even a law from congress), why don't we do the right thing and stop software patents. The fact that the courts lowered the bar so that nonobviousness was no longer the primary determinant of whether a patent should be granted should be reason enough to get rid of them.
Name something... anything out there in the market that was only possible because of software patents. The idea of these patents isn't to make NTP rich simply because of knowing how to game the system, but to advance the state of the art. These patents aren't doing that; if anything, they're doing the opposite.
I'm opposed to coming together and working out an arrangement because it presupposes these patents are acceptable. They are not. Software patents are so tremendously wrong that I think they're something that have to be opposed on general principal.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Eat poop, you stinky potty-mouths!
The reason they settled is because the judge said that he wouldn't wait for the USPTO to issue final rulings on the patents before he granted the injunction to shut down Blackberry service. RIM thus faced: 1. the possibility that the PTO would ultimately uphold at least one of the patents; 2. the likely possibility that Blackberries would be shut down while the PTO review proceeded; 3. the possibility that they'd lose on their motion to remove the injunction if the PTO ruled the patents invalid; 5. the certain appeals to the ruling motion (from either side); 5. all the lost business from this uncertainty; 6. the legal fees from continuing litigation.
Actually, Campana's company Telefind did have working products, albeit prototypes, exhibited at Comdex in 1990. There weren't terrible reliable - as the networks weren't either, only one way email to pagers but they worked. AT&T was online as primary customer but ducked out leaving Telefind high and dry. Campana inherited tha patents after a lawsuit against Telefind."Mr. Narayanan liked Telefind's products, thinking they might fit well with the Safari project. AT&T had an e-mail system and a prototype computer; what it lacked was a paging service that could put the two together. But after a year of flirting with Telefind, even demonstrating Telefind's system at the Comdex computer show in Las Vegas, AT&T opted for a larger partner in Skytel." RIM's 800 and 900 series pagers were released in 1990 - well after Telefind. Mind you they were true 2-way pagers operating on Motorola's wireless packet Mobitel network. What brought on the NTP lawsuit was RIM's own arrogance in suing othe companies like Palm for having the audacity to incorporate tiny keyboards in their products. C'mon RIM! Who's the troll now?
IP law is currently flawed, but that does not make all IP law bad, nor does it make all the people who claim evil. I can't belive the Slashdot crowd is so juvenile they will automatically think: lawsuit with IP claim = evil.
In this case I think NTP has a valid claim. Even if you don't think so (and frankly you're wrong), assume this is actually true. So the situation is that the big company (RIM) is violating IP law. Now exchange RIM for Microsoft and NTP for your dad. Still feel good about this?
Now mark me as a Troll and you can stay in la-la-land.
All I want to know right now is does this mean that guy in that commercial who said he invented blackberry lie to us? Can I still have faith in television?
ôó
Have you ever approached an investor with NDA in hand?
Probably not.
They won't listen to you because the guy next in line behind you (or the guy that came in yesterday) could have had the very same brilliant idea. That guy may seem more viable than you and giving you the ammo you need to come back at them later is just plain stupid. They listen to lots of people with lots of ideas and, quite often, to many people with the same idea.
But, if what you have can be patented and you got a patent on that, they may dump the more promising guy and go for you.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
It is this argument I never understand. Who is screwing who? When I choose to buy a song or use a technique I didn't come up with - I choose to. Life is sustained by food, water, shelter, and oxygen - not music and software. No one screws me out of anything, because if I know a seller as screwing me, I don't buy from them.
Sarcasm and hyperbole are the final refuges for weak minds
Reading the replies here the disagreement seems to be about who is the most corrupt: congress or the patent system. Defenders of RIM say the patent system is corrupt because NTP was gaming the system to extort unearned money. Defenders of NTP say congress was corrupt for putting pressure on the USPTO to invalidate NTP's patents.
Anyone sane would say: a plague on both your houses.
In abstract I think most people on
Given this, any patent dispute is likely to be as releveant to sane concepts of justice as the outcome of a WWF bout. The whole thing is a staged, noisey ritual intended to incite fans, and promulgate the idea that getting into the ring is first and foremost a very dangerous activity. The purpose of the patent system and high-profile patent disputes such as this one is to stifle innovation and scare off inventors.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
"Campana died in 2004. His widow, who lives outside of Chicago, will split most of the settlement with Stout, with the rest going to NTP's 20 shareholders, according to sources close to the talks."
It's times like this I wish I had a time machine to go back to last week and become a shareholder in NTP.
Yes, here.
http://outcampaign.org/
Of course. The issue is simple, and deemed a problem with the legal system in question. There have already been numerous rulings for either party, as well as disputes on the patents. The patents have been evaluated and thrown out, then accepted then ruled invalid again. The court cases had rulings and then they end up right back in court becuase one party (duh) is unhappy with the result. This could go on for eternity really.
So NTP will keep trying till they win. RIM will do the same. Nobody will be happy. Meanwhile there's uncertainty as to what the final result is. It's bad press. It's bad accounting (they essentially need to make sure that should they have to pay something out for damages, that they have that allocated in a reserve on their books). It's a poor use of time. Essentially they will never win, because there's never a clear answer in these cases.
How about the booming Canadian company taking away the business of companies like Palm and local cell makers? Please- no matter how you look at it, this was a bold statement saying "you're playing by our rules... bi7ch". And of course he's wrong- not one person on Slashdot has said "Oh- that NTP company... good things... good things" and people here probably know more of the issue than the ones deciding the case.
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
to win*!
*You may have to threaten to sue to win.
is it just me, or is everyone spelling curses with numbers today?
If I've got it right, the way the patent office works is causing a lot of obviousness to be patented, but the way patents are written is causing that disclosure to be meaningless. These together combine to make US patents counterproductive.
Does any inventor go browsing through the published patents as an aid to hisher research?
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Umm if it was their patent, they deserve compensation. Its only fair. ( now the dollar amount, we can debate, but not the concept )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I'm sick and tired of this company and thier products. I would love to see all these self centered corporate types have to throw out thier blackberrys. I mean how many times a day do most of us need to check our email? I long for the day when I see this stuff in the garbage dump where they all belong. I just wish NTP had crushed the life out of RIM!
Yeah, and $DAYJOB is panting after crackberrys. Since this is settled now, I expect that to get pushed hard.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
RIM sucks, sure, but that doesn't make what happened right. The enemy of your enemy isn't necessarily your friend.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
We absolutely can debate the concept.
Even assuming you consider software patents to be legitimate (which is debatable), the holders of many patents are not the people who invented the process or product, they may not even have been involved in it... they're simply the ones who were first to *describe* something that a judge can be convinced includes that process.
Here's how Richard Feynman got the original patent on the nuclear rocket. A "very nice fella" was bugging him about writing down all the things he could think of that nuclear power could be used for:There's millions of patents that are just as obvious.
There's a guy who spent years threatening anyone who made a screen protector for a PDA because he had a patent for attaching a screen protector to a curved surface for a fish radar... and then, after several screen protectors came on the market, he got his patent amended to include flat screens. He didn't invent them, he didn't even file his amendment until after other products were out, but he was able to get people to pay "licensing fees" to use this bogus patent.
And that's all assuming the patent's even valid. If the patent's invalid, they don't "deserve" a thing.
Im right. Period.
Sooner all you people accept that, the better for you.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
We're talking about patents that could have conceivably covered any possible paging system and turned on things like which servers the messages were stored on before sending them to the customer. Patents so broad should be invalid.
So whether RIM were angels or devils, NTP are no heroes either. This was a battle between two patent abusers. My only complaint is that by caving in RIM made it harder to use this case as precedent for the next time some patent abuser goes after an inventor. Which was probably deliberate, given their track record.
Reminds me of the way Palm boned Royal, and then got boned in turn by Xerox.
I think most people are forgetting that RIM had already lost the initial lawsuit, and that the verdict is binding, irrespective of whether the patents at the heart of the case are eventually overturned. So, they had to pay NTP something (minimum, the 54 million awarded). Plus, since they continued selling the blackberry after the verdict, they likely would have had to pay back-royalties as well, again, even if the patents were eventually overturned. So, they were never going to get out of the mess without paying something; it just was just a case of how much.
When I look south of the border and see that a judge in Virginia is making it clear that he's protecting the interests of his country-men over the interests of fairness, I find it so very, very frustrating. RIM has managed to fight off all the major phone manufacturers and grab a larger market share than Palm. An incredible feat in and of itself. Yet, a bunch of sleazy, ambulance-chasing lawyers who convinced a now-dead guy that he had the basis for a huge lawsuit has, with the backing of the American justice system, stolen millions from the coffers of this successful company and taken futures away from developers and investors alike. It's just criminal. RIM would have had an easier time going through the legal system in China, not to mention the help they got from the wonderfully quick response [NOT!] by the U.S. Patent office.
My hats off to RIM for having the huge balls to just settle the thing with these thieves, put this ugly mess behind them and move on with their lives. May NTP, all it's investors and everyone who's ever supported them rot slowly in hell. (But, apart from that, I have no opinion.)
*** Don't be dull.***
Can anyone point to a description of what's actually in the NTP patents?
My impression is that they're pretty trivial. Meaning they might pass whatever ridiculously low bar that the USPO, various silly judges, patent lawyers, and the evil rent collectors themselves think is reasonable, but are they such important contributions to the furtherance of technology that it's unlikely anyone else would have come up with the same ideas in a reasonable short period of time?
But I haven't seen detailed, informed descriptions of the patents anywhere.
This is just bad. This is patent abuse at its worst. The really bad thing is, is that this sort of thing seems to be the norm now in the states. Crazy.
Most people have no idea what they are doing, and are silently panicking on the inside.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_v._Diehr/
This is the court case that allowed for software patents. Although it was just a reversal of a decision that allowed for a computer to be used in a patentable process, the USPTO took this as a signal to allow all software patents. While recommendations for software patents may not have been actually codified until 1995, software patents were being issued after the 1981 Diamond v Diehr case.
So if someone tries to blackmail me for $100 and I talk them down to $50, I didn't give in either?
Well, granted, but if you had a thousand bucks in your pocket, you might still feel like you got off pretty light (RIM's market value is over 12 billion).
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
Yeah, just sue later when the patent is invalid and get your $650 mill back + interest and penatlies.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I find it disturbing that a Patent Holder may suy an entity for Infringement many years after the patent was granted... OK let me explain.
RIM is successful with its email system and Blackberry devices. But what if RIM had to license the patents in question that belong to NTP? Would this drain on profit hurt RIM's ability to be so succesful? It doesn't seem fair that NTP can sue after years of RIM's success and expect to garner a large settlement or victory.
I think that perhaps requiring patent holders to actively pursue Infringers in a timely manner (like in copyright law) would be more fair. IANAL, but IIRC a judge may rule that a copyright holders has not actively pursued copyright breakers for certain property then that property may be ruled by the judge to be in Public Domain.
I know that NTP's story is that a "Patent Review" or review of their IP "discovered" this Patent, but any possible claim of this as an excuse for the timing of the suit is bull. It would be too late to cash in by virtue of my argument that "you shouldn't be entitled to attractive settlements or victorys if you did not sue in a timely manner becuase A) you may or may not have been able to license your IP and B) that license (and associated monetary agreements, etc) may or may not have precluded the success of things based on that IP."
They'd rather pay 2/3 billion dollars than use the workaround they have all ready to go huh? Right.
"The crows seemed to be calling his name, thought Caw."
Mudak !!!
RAMBUS is a victim of a rape, not a rapist...
Go to rambus.org and read the fucking articles before spitting on them here!
I am wondering why so many fucking clueless slashbots are susceptible to big infringer's lies and propaganda ?