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NTP Sues Palm, Alleging Patent Violation
mikesd81 writes "The Seattle Time reports that NTP is now going after Palm for patent infringement on technology used in their devices. The suit asks the court to bar Palm from continuing to infringe on NTP's patents and seeks monetary damages for the alleged past infringements. At issues are eleven patents, dating from 1995 to 2001, according to the lawsuit. Five of the patents were part of NTP's lawsuit against RIM. The Palm complaint also centers on products, services and systems that integrate e-mail systems with wireless communications, including the Treo, Palm VII, Palm i700 and Tungsten products." You may recall NTP from the just-finished Blackberry case. Good to know they're staying busy.
This particular company is looking leachlike but the intent of patents is positive. Without them there would be very little incentive to develope new technology. Why spend a 100 million developing a new computer chip when six months from now a competitor can have a knock off on the market and under cut your price because they don't have to repay development costs. It's one of the reasons China has embraced piracy, it saves a bundle. Most of the world is getting tired of it and they are starting to threaten trade sanctions so China is claiming they will stop the piracy. Some industries are abusing the patent system. The worst offenders are actually the drug companies. They aren't happy that patnets actually do run out so once cahs cows go generic they spend tens of millions developing a patentable alternative that maybe less effective but at least they control it and can coerce the doctors into perscribing it so they can go back to charging $10 a pill for something that should sell for $1. Technology we can potentially live without but drugs often mean life or death to people so the drug companies are playing games with people's health just to make an extra buck. What the tech companies are doing is sleazy but what the drug companies are doing is criminal and costs lives to protect profits. Billions of dollars every year goes into finding replacement drugs rather than finding new cures so they money is wasted. Trust me there's far more money going into finding a Viagra replacement for when that patent runs out than is going into an AIDs cure.There's simply more profit in it. 50,000 to 80,000 lives are lost in the US from the flu yet many years there are shortages of the vaccine because it's cheap to manufacture but has some risk so the drug companies don't see it as profitable to make, simply not worth the lawsuits.
Actually not. While they did settle with Blackberry for a healthy sum, shortly after the settlement agreement, all 7 of NTP's patents were found to be invalid by the USPTO.
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I see the solution to the US patent roulette as simple: Don't establish a US office. Force all customers to contract with a head office in a nation that has SANE laws that aren't sold to the highest bidder. Force them to deal with fair courts, and cut them off if they don't abide by agreements.
If necessary, establish offices in a jurisdiction like Germany where innovation and privacy trump companies that have no products.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.