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RIM Chairman Wants Changes to U.S. Patent Law
florescent_beige writes "The Globe and Mail is reporting that James Balsillie '... called on U.S. lawmakers yesterday to fix a system that he says boxed the company into one of the largest legal settlements in U.S. history.' Although this will do nothing to change the $612.5M(US) settlement RIM was forced to sign with NTP, Mr. Balsille says he wants to help 'assure that no other company experiences what we endured over the past five years.' Mr Balsillie's rhetoric was direct: he said RIM's treatment at trial was like '... a judge in a murder case pondering execution while ignoring DNA evidence that exonerates the accused ... RIM was virtually held up for ransom by NTP...'"
'assure[sic] that no other company experiences what we endured over the past five years.'
God, I hope that's what he actually said, and some jerk along the way didn't just mangle it into making him sound like a total idiot.
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
Patent Law Views from EconLog
"I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
I was holding out for a longer court battle, in the hopes that more and more crackberry addicted suits would be forced into looking at patent reform. I'll take what I can get but it would be nice to have more than one chairman on board.
I didn't closely follow the case but if memory serves it went something like this:
1) RIM and NTP originally tried to negotiate an agreement so that RIM could use NTPs patented idea
2) No agreement was reached so RIM walked away
3) RIM, despite knowing of NTPs patented idea, went ahead and developed a communication system based directly on NTPs patent
4) RIM got caught and had to pay for its mistake
Am I missing something or is this just a case of someone getting caught and whining about it? I'm sincerely curious, not trolling.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Is this not the same company that sued Handspring over the shape of the buttons on their Treo keyboards?
I'm not saying the circumstances are the same, and the article doesn't make clear what reforms he wants (apparently patents with hundreds of claims are seen as problematic, and I agree)... it just strikes me as a case of the pot calling the kettle black. I personally am more against the extremely low standards for novelty and non-obviousness than anything, which is why RIM striking out against patents sticks in my craw. But hey, maybe they've now seen the light and realize patent holders simply have too much power.
The enemies of Democracy are
I understand that the six hundred million dollar settlement is to be paid out over a period of time but isn't that quite a bit for a company that reports $213,387,000 net income in 2005 and only $51,829,000 net income in 2004?
I'm know their sales have been through the roof but recently the company I work for restricted anyone from using a blackberry--in fact I don't even think the company owns anymore for that matter. Whether this be security concerns or just operating cost, I'm not sure.
What I am curious to know, is whether or not you think Research In Motion Ltd. is done.
My work here is dung.
"NTP's eight original patents, for example, contained an average of 240 claims each, including one with 665 claims, Mr. Balsillie said."
Coming from someone with granted patents, patents pending, and patent applications on the works, I can tell you that 665 claims is totally ridiculous in a patent.
I propose NTP's lawyers be sent -airless- to outer space, that company's executives be hanged, and its servers donated to a Barbie website. Hot pink.
The US Patent System is seriously broken, the current nonstop lawsuits are a sign of this.
Among others I have seen recently:
1) Patent on streaming media (WTF? How did this even go through?)
2) Patent on "Buy-It-Now"
3) Netflix vs Blockbuster's online DVD queuing patent
I could provide sources for all these, but I'm lazy. The point is, something has to be done to stop these stupid lawsuits. Businesses are becoming dependent on lawsuits to help them stay afloat, rather than just being better than their competitors.
Chums up, let's do this!
The patent system certainly needs some fixing, but outlawing stupid CEOs at the same time would also be a big help. I'm not going to get my hopes up though.
It would have been interesting if RIM had called NTP's bluff and provoked an injunction.
While the damage to their business would have been grave, it would have been interesting to see them FIRST shut down all government users en masse.
If they could have delayed the shutdown of commercial systems by a few days or weeks, they might have gotten congress to pass special legislation putting a stop to it.
I wonder what shutdown options were discussed in the board room.
...a Canadian company is on the receiving end of US courts?
For a fraction of that they could have hired hitmen for all the NTP management and thier legal counsle.
"The last thing I want to do is deal with a bunch of people who want something."
Major Major
It was only a matter of time before the gold-rush of patents turned into a pain in the ass. It's still there, the culture of routinely filing for patents for complete nonsense, I mean. The changes that are needed are pretty well thought-out by thousands of people and organizations out there. Now's the time to get their ideas moving. And clearly since both the senate and congress are addicted to crackberries too, I don't suspect this will be a hard issue to get onto the floor.
Kill off software patents and kill off business process patents and that'd likely take care of the bulk of the problem right there. And since it seems that most of these frivolous patents are simply defensive in nature, I'm pretty certain the many level-headed execs out there would not mind relinquishing their defensive weapons so long as it's a unilateral disarmament.
There really is a deference in meaning between ensure and assure. Although many people use assure when they mean ensure it does not mean that the difference is gone, only that they are unaware of it. Apologists such as you will point to dictionaries. So what? Dictionaries have abdicated their former prescriptionist role and now contain common usage. Conflating ensure and assure detracts from the precision of the language. If you use a knife long enough it gets dull and needs to be sharpened. Grammar Nazis are the whetstone of language.
Where has the Neo Liberal Canadian Government been in all this?
Canada's breakout convergence darling, our future NOKIA gets beaten with some BULLCRAP legal play by a collection of yankee lawyers -- forcing the company to hold still for years (customers doubt their viability, causing them to divert attention from conquering the world).
Where was our government in all this? Why was a Canadian company being brow beaten by a housefull of lawyers? One reason: If RIM was AMERICAN, some in-house politico would have stopped it Pretty Darn Quick.
$650 million was EXTORTED from RIM. Ive been pissed about this (i dont work for RIM or hold shares), but my vote is we burn NAFTA. It really blows getting burnt by your money grubbing patent laws (America to world: "we own IDEAS(!)). Stuff it.
instead of fixing the patent system, they should instead pass a law that does the following:
1) any patent lawsuit will be presented to slashdot.
2) slashdot will vote and decide if the company bringing suit is a "patent troll" (if at least one member with some good kharma says they are a troll, that's good enough)
3) if the company is a patent troll, then all lawyers and executives for that company will be drafted into the army and sent to the front lines where they will be forced to go on patrols unarmed and waving american flags.
"The patent system certainly needs some fixing, but outlawing stupid CEOs at the same time would also be a big help. I'm not going to get my hopes up though."
True however this story provides:
Slashdot entertainment. The clown quit.
A platform for the "I hate IP, but I LOVE your ideas!" people to rally around.
Boosts slashdot's karma with the world to +5: they're all right!
Truely a three for one that doesn't come around often.
It's more likely this call for attention from RIM will encourage more curiousity of how to exploit these legislative loopholes rather than start the reformation of a broken system. It's a new way to milk your competitor. The only people hit by this will be the slow, poor, or legally-inept losers. And those are irrelevant voices in making legislation today anyway it seems.
I really hope I'm wrong though. Reformation has to start somewhere.
Try to change the law! I'm sure RIM employees were walking the halls of their headquarters for those five years saying "It's NOT FAIR" and stomping wildly. In fact, it is also rumoured that their chairman flung a spoonful of pudding through his limo's sunroof at the U.S. Capitol Building after the Patent Office "withheld" his sippy cup.
There are no uninteresting things. There are only uninterested people.
Laws are written with the pretext that it will better serve the citizens, but with the posttext that it servers the politicians in giving them power over those they serve. No change to the law will make a difference -- politicians don't write laws the way we want them written, and many of them don't even read the bills that they vote into law. Don't be surprised when the "Fix the Patent System Act of 2007" is passed, and all it does is incorporate 500 pork barrel items not pertaining to patents, as well as some changes that only give Congress more power over something it was never meant to destroy. Yes, Congress has the right to make patent laws, but they were supposed to exist for a short period of time to protect individual inventors, not megacorporations who create nothing and stifle innovation.
If we want to change the system, we need to get these laws in front of the Supreme Court, over and over and over. Don't let them tell you no, just keep refiling under new pretenses. Stop voting for the monsters who make the laws, and consider all the bad laws on the books.
What we need is a President who does nothing but veto, over and over and over. That won't happen. What we need is Senators to be elected by the state governments like it was before the 17th Amendment was passed -- Senators who think about the power of the state over the power over of the federal government. That won't happen. What we need is to reduce the power of the two parties by throwing out all campaign finance laws ("incumbent protection acts") and also throwing out the control of the debates. That won't happen.
It isn't just the patent laws that are broken, it is the system. Instead of a Republic of Independent States, we have a democracy of statism and authoritarianism. Don't expect it to get fixed, not as long as you continue supporting the monsters in office -- from both parties.
As a point of references, some history is useful.
/ 2100-1040_3-257801.html?tag=st.ref.goo
RIM made lots and lots of noise about their own IP, and have gone after lots of people before finding themselves on the other side of the ball.
"RIM is alleging that Good is infringing on its patents, according to the suit. The first is "for a method and apparatus to remotely control gateway functions in a wireless data communications network." The second "relates to a method and system for loading an application program on a device." The third "relates to a method and system for transmitting data files between computers in a wireless data communications environment."
or this one
"Ontario, Canada-based RIM charges in a suit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Delaware that Glenayre Technologies violates a patent granted last month to RIM protecting the way the BlackBerry redirects e-mail from a computer or server to a handheld using a single e-mail address." - http://news.com.com/RIM+wins+patent%2C+sues+rival
Anyways, my point is that RIM really loved patents when they could shut out their competition with them, but disliked them when someone heard them making lots of noise about their IP and said, wait a minute, we have patents in the same area. Despite extrodinarily preferential treatment by the USPTO (ie, no one else will get patents they context reviewed that fast ever), they still were unable to prevail.
Something def needs to be fixed on the patent side, but there is something interesting also about RIM getting some of its own medicine. I wonder if someone has a more complete history on their annoucements on monetizing their IP portfolio.
Patent law is so far out of hand it is just a farse at this point. I'm personally glad that people (and people with money and a voice behind it) are finally also getting fed up with it.
That is one of the main things the "Pirate Party" has right, and it is time we start getting this fixed before it is unrepairable.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
RIM is a Canadian company, and if they want to do business in the USA, they have to accept the American patent system. Just as (unfortunately) do Americans.
What really irritates me is that this system is being pushed on other countries by (cough..) 'elected and accountable' American politicians. At this point, the public interest of Americans is only being represented by proxy from those few regions that resist.
From the horse's mouth. Research In Motion Files Wireless Patent Complaint Against Glenayre Electronics, Inc
I guess what goes around come around, at least in this case.
American companies seem to be making a habit of broadsiding foreign companies who do business in the US. Take the case of Zi Corporation vs. Tegic (an AOL subsidiary) which resulted in a similar payout even though the patent in discourse was the silliest thing.
Don't deal with the receptionist. Ask for the HR Department instead. HR is definitely the place to get a RIM job. People are getting RIM jobs from the ladies in HR all the time.
A lot of people apply for those. Heck, I could really use a RIM job myself. I hear that they're really satisfying.
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
Just thinking of Steve Ballmer's recent comments to Forbes.
Has anyone investigated what M$ patents Linux could be potentially violating?
Every single one of these guys can see the patent system is screwed up and loves the way it fails as long as it works in THEIR favour. Sure, they have no credibility. But does that mean the patent systems not screwed up?
"I personally am more against the extremely low standards for novelty and non-obviousness than anything, which is why RIM striking out against patents sticks in my craw."
I wish they'd take patents back to their original purpose. Inventions that:
1. cost a lot to research and develop to a working solution
2. are easy to copy once the invention is released
3. The time to copy means the first developer could never recoup the cost
Novelty and non-obviousness come under 3, if you're not the first developer, its not your costs to recover.
Software comes under 2, its not obvious how software works from releasing it, so its not easy to copy. This is why MS needs its arm twisted to reveal its interfaces.
Business processes come under 1 & 3, a ten minute back of the envelope 'buy now' idea costs nothing to recover because there are no huge research costs involved in those ten minutes.
Patent trolls would come under 1, they don't make the thing, so they haven't taken the risk to bring it to a working solution.
It's just f*cking dumb, that I would be forced to apply for patents and lose my ability to use trade secrets, when trade secrets work worldwide and patents only work in the country they apply to.
Which could be the most ridiculous of all of them. Patenting pieces of the human genome. . . that's gonna be good for science.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
seems like an easy change would be to require a full review by the patent office once a lawsuit has been brought. the lawsuit would not be allowed to proceed until a final determination has been made. that would seem to address the RIM case where the patents are well on their way to being rejected.
You could see that a hypocritical, but I prefer to see it as someone having their eyes opened once they became the victim of the system. People can learn from their mistakes and become more enlightened.
If they were just self serving and opportunistic I don't see why they would keep campaining on the issue now that their own problems have been solved.
The patent office threw out NTP's patent claims, albeit too late in the trial to make a difference. Or do you think this was some kind of retaliation for Canada's dumping of wood on the market which even the WTO ruled illegal? ROFLMAO!!!
Instead of crying over the stolen $612.5M, RIM should have pro-actively spent a small fraction of that sum to make the patent system fair in the US. Instead, they allowed the Patent Cartel to fund this monster of a legal system, which of course rewards its creators.
Software Idea Patents are a form of legalized extortion encouraged by the US government. It was put in place in order to protect monopolies like Microsoft, who has recently threatened to sue users and developers of open-source software, including Linux. No wonder the US government intervened on behalf of Microsoft in its European anti-trust case -- Microsoft and the Patent Mafia has Uncle Sam in their pocket. Too bad Europe is heading there too.
I have seen no evidence for staunch nationalism in our civil courts. We treat Canada the same as the other 50 states.
I don't think I would want the job of "RIM" Chairman. It has to be worse than "Pivot Man".
Friends don't let friends line-dance.
A little know clause in NAFTA allows a company to sue a country if that countries fails to keep things fair. It was intended punish countries from talking private property (think the Hilton in Havana). In this case the US government is quilty of not fixing the patent process. It sound better if they wait until after all of NTP's patents are thrown out, and RIM is still paying because a judge wouldn't wait for the USPTO's final ruling.
RIM needs to look to its own attorney for an explanation of why the Judge was unfriendly...
This guy ran a technology demonstration in open court to demonstrate "prior art" for the jury and then it was discovered that the demonstration was a fraud!
You don't win many points by attempting to pull one over on the judge.
Please, let the patent cold war end. Let the hot war begin. I believe lawyers everywhere are very eager. They would earn a lot of money. I want to see Sun beat up Microsoft beat up IBM beat up ...
Where is my popcorn?
And I'm getting a little impatient waiting for everyone else to extract their heads from their assholes long enough to see that the real crime is "intellectual property" itself.
Don't count on anyone realizing this until long long long after we've died of old age. Maybe, in a 1000 years or so.
Pain in the ass for whom? For entrepreneurs and engineers, trying to bring a great idea to market, and reap the rewards of their ingenuity? Sure. For lawyers and judges and Congress, the first of whom collect giant fees for litigating for and against patents, the second of whom revels in the glorious power of being able to decide the fate of millions, and the third of whom rolls in fat campaign contributions from all sides in the debate? Ha ha.
Don't look for lawyers to reform our legal system. Pigs might as well petition wolves to consider the virtues of turning vegetarian. Lawyers like the legal system the way it is -- confusing, capricious and expensive -- because if it ever were simplified to the point where normal sensible people could reliably predict its outcomes and use it themselves without risking immolation or poverty -- why, where would the necessity go for paying lawyers $400-$500 per hour salaries?
I'm not trying to be overly cynical here. Just pointing out that Congress on its own will never salvage the situation until angry citizens point the gun (of electoral defeat) at their heads and make them.
OK, RIM, you liked patent law just fine when you were suing Handspring for having a tiny keyboard. But NOW it's time for Serious Patent Reform!
Uh huh.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Dude, seriously.... when was the last time you saw a grammar nazi get good karma points?
did it even fleetingly occur to you that his grasp of the English language just might be superior to yours and that of the knee-jerks who modded you up?
His usage violates my ideolect. I don't argue with the sentence given for definition 4 in the dictionary you linked to. It sounds reasonable. But the text given in the article:
Sounds wrong. For me "assure" cannot be followed by a dependent clause.
However, you probably spell colour without the "u" so I'll forgive you since the "English for Dummies" rule would come into effect.
If this is a more international usage, then I concede to that point, I can't argue international English, only what sounds good to me. And "assure that..." sounds wrong to me.
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
The problem is not that NTP applied for these patents. The problem is that they were granted.
Punishing NTP for this will have absolutely no effect on the actual problem, which is the US patent system.
Pick your battles.
Here's the two last patents in question. Read them, see for yourself then decide for yourself if NTP is a patent troll.
1 7%2C592
% 2C436%2C960
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=patent+6%2C3
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=patent+5
I think they're pure patent trolls and should have been rejected as obvious.
The fact that you can patent such broad ideas as people are allowed to, by itself COMPLETELY undermines the entire patent system. To make it worse all these patents are issues for the broad ideas (like "ecommerce payment") something that can be done a thousand different ways, and the kicker is half the time the people holding the patents havnt even made there idea work!!
Aha! Now the rubber band's on the other claw!
To read the exact excerpt (where Balsillie made the point quite eloquently), read this
Why not let them judge for themselves:
1 7%2C592
% 2C436%2C960
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=patent+6%2C3
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=patent+5
Here's the last two patents in question.
No your right, assure is misplaced, ensure would probably be what they were aiming at. It does make sense, but at best it's a poor choice.
As to the flamer, I can but apologise for my fellow Briton (most likely), and hope you believe it when I say, we're not all that bad.
This is in reference to your point a) which has been expressed elsewhere.
The USPTO has been under considerable pressure from both the U.S. Congress and Executive branch to reject the NTP patents. So much of the U.S, Government is dependent on the RIM Blackberry that it is frighting. Having worked in the U.S, government, some people do things that are wrong because they are told in a round about manner to do them without a direct order being given. There is only anecdoctal evidence for this; however the situation is very plausable.
For Open Source works.
I fully understand, if a Company exploits a technology, a Companies sole motivation being economical, then they need to pony up a share to those who well deserve it.
However, for the person in his garage who isn't economically motivated, since he's not being paid for the direct effort and since he wishes to freely release his work, then the "patent holder" isn't "losing" money because there's no money exchanged to begin with; in short, noone is making money yet everyone is benefiting. Secondly, the individual is incapable of such magnitudes in all aspects of "Companies" in terms of distribution, research and development, wealth/power, manufacturing etc.
In short, I feel that patent law should ONLY be applicable to Companies. I would even extend this to any laws prohibiting reverse engineering as well; such that it's only illegal if you attempt to generate revenue in any way from your findings. Some upstart soundcard company reverse engineering Creative's work to market and distribute merchandise for sale should be illegal, but someone at home reverse engineering a Creative soundcard to write drivers for the Open Source community, or hardware hacks of any extreme, should be immune from any legal consequences, no matter how many others use the work; and becuase an "individual" would be lawful in doing such activities while companies aren't, companies that use what "individuals" have done lawfully (reverse engineering etc.) would still be required to pay royalties to relevant patent/copyright holders.
But, regardless of what those in power choose, I'm going to do what I feel is right.
RIM has to pursue this. Otherwise, how do its corporate heads explain to shareholders how they lost hundreds of millions of dollars? (Good luck!)
Someone needs to patent processes used by politians and courts, then sue them for infringement. Only when it hits the fan, and senators + judges find their own a$$es on the line, will they actually do something about it.
Just looking back at the comments in this thread is really sobering.
/. or the other simply doesn't know the facts.
All the posts that get modded up fiercely defend one side or the other, and accuse the other side of being utter slime.
These extreme positions (mine above included) all get modded up, and they all get modded overrated.
I'm past believing that one half of
I think the explanation is that we all think of patents as a tool to safeguard innovation, but we all think that system has broken down. This case illustrates that fact in different ways for different people:
either
1) It's a case of a large company vs. a little guy. Large companies in this system churn out spurious patents which clog the USPTO. They constantly cry out for strict protection for intellectual property, claiming innovation dies without such protections. When they get attacked for violating a little guy's patents, they act appalled, and cry bloody murder. This case points to the hypocrisy of megacorps in an era where the little guy who just wants to help the world is squeezed out of innovating, because he can't afford the expensive patent lawyers it takes to just get started.
OR
2) It's a case of a slimy law-saavy company who abuses the system, waiting to prey on any successful innovation without actually helping society get better by bringing anything to market. The patent system shouldn't protect people who game the system, waiting to pounce on companies that develop a working product. This case represents how the bogged down patent system represents a minefield where any inventor is always clueless as to whether they've stepped on someone else's toes or not.
I suspect neither account is entirely accurate, but both have some truth.
The patents were going to invalidated, so why did they pay up? There was nothing to pay for.
They're Americans! They don't give a fuck about screwing over a Canadian company or even themselves. Trade laws? They mean nothing! Look at the 5 billion dollars that have been screwed out of the Canadian softwood lumber industry.
HA HA HA HA!! ..... oh wait, that's not quite right is it
Meh.