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RIM Chairman Wants Changes to U.S. Patent Law

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the with-good-reason dept.

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...'"

1 of 245 comments (clear)

  1. They have no credibility, but patents are broken by NigelJohnstone · · Score: 0, Redundant

    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.