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NTP Gets a Taste of Its Own Medicine
UltraAyla writes, "NTP's patent suits seem to have attracted the attention of Oren Tavory, a man who claims to have worked on a project with NTP founder Thomas Campana back in 1991. From the article: 'In September, Tavory filed a lawsuit against NTP in U.S. District Court in Richmond, VA, demanding that a judge issue a court order naming him as co-inventor on seven NTP patents, and accusing NTP of copyright infringement and unjust enrichment.'"
I take it NTP isn't an acronym for "No To Patents"?
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Ah, Lawsuits. Is there any problem you can't solve?
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
Live by the patent, die by the patent. Or maybe it was swords. Nah I'm pretty sure it was patent.
the fact that you can actually sue someone for "unjust enrichment" is sort of awesome.
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
Hope he has some documentation to back up that claim.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
#16787401
NTP, as far as I can tell, is simply "NTP, Inc" it is not an acronym like RIM (research In Motion).
Do Or Do Not, There Is No Spoon, There Is Only Zuul. Everything in the above post is probably opinion.
"the fact that you can actually sue someone for 'unjust enrichment' is sort of awesome."
Well if you can invade a country for simply suspecting unjust enrichment, I'd think being able to sue for it is a given. *Ba-dum*ching*
[Parent]
Let's all sue NTP. I read a sci-fi novel back in the day where messages were zipping around in space. I thought a lot about it. Surely that qualifies as early work on wireless email?
Are you...Are you some kind of genius?
No, ma'am, I'm just a regular Slashdot reader.
Patenting the shape of the corners of a gift card and the tsunami of other meaningless patents overwhelming the PTO will not bring about patent reform. Working the PTO, like most gov't jobs is something private industry doesn't want to do and is a relatively small portion of the Gov budget. Crying about the extra work and hiring 1 for every 100 requested reviewers is about the only way it's being addressed right now.
Clogging the (I assume federal) courts with patent related litigation will. Why? Because the courts will be asking for many more judges, clerks, infrastructure, (money$$$) to address the tidal wave of litigation.
Judges and their courts are much more expensive and much more respected than mere patent workers.
The more litigation related to frivolous patents, the better.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
But this guy sounds like he should open his own holding company, if he wins this he can be the one that squanders the squanders... I actually wish him luck!
Mod me down im a newf (wiki)
And better yet, why does slashdot always post articles with acronyms without explaining what they mean once before turning them into an acronym?
For an explanation, I refer you to one of my prior posts which explains this quite adequately.
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Is anyone else missing the link to reply to Posts?
I thought that leaving an inventor off the list of inventors (or including someone who was not an inventor) was sufficient to invalidate a patent. I am not a patent lawyer, but that what I remembered from an intro to patent law course that I took many many years ago.
Can anyone comment who knows for sure?
I hate NTP (the company) because of the lawsuit against RIM. But to make matters worse for myself - my mind has since associated NTP the company with NTP the time protocol. Everytime I have to setup a NTP connection to a server I think of RIM. However when I think of RIM, I think of a RIM job. No, not a job a RIM. Yes this is off-topic - but I had to get this off my chest.
Especially since most geeks know "NTP" as "network time protocol"
Skinner: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of [lawyer] that thrives on [patent trolls].
Lisa: But then we're stuck with [lawyers]!
Skinner: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the [lawyers] simply freeze to death.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
I'm guessing that this has nothing to do with the Network Time Protocol.
adf is true
Think this was about Network Time Protocol?
Does that mean we can no longer keep our clocks synchronized without paying royalties?
Why do so many people hate the Network Time Protocol? I think it's cool!
"An eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind." - Mohandas Ghandi
NTP will sue others on its patents to pay those who sue NTP on its patents. And a rhumba line of lawyers will all collect the fees, ultimately from consumers.
--
make install -not war
...or at least that is the best that Stout can recall. From an article in Virginia Business Magazine http://www.virginiabusiness.com/magazine/yr2005/se p05/law.shtml "...the inventor came up with the name. Stout does not even remember what it stands for, but thinks it was originally New Technology Products."
"There is always a bigger fish."
time that NTP got what was coming to them.
"Need Those Patents"?
"Need To Prosecute"? (Not sure if this term is right for a civil case)
"Naughty Tech Parasites"?
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
Aren't most people running OpenNTP these days?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
"Ah, Lawsuits. Is there any problem you can't solve?
Yes. The lawyers don't keel over and die when they're finished, like the should."
HEY! I am a lawyer.
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
...was apparently for threaded message posting on an online web forum.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
"No Two Patents" are not involved in litigation. Awww..
NTP = No Toilet Paper... That's why everything they do smells...
If you need to get it off your chest, it's not a rim job. There's another name for that activity.
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
--Scott Adams
... for RIM if they hadn't spent a decade using litigation to force everyone else out of the market. Personally, in these kinds of situations you have to go with Kissinger's comment on the Iran-Iraq war - "It's too bad they can't [all] lose."
Do you know what PCMCIA stands for? People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms :)
In Nature, stupidity is a capital offense. In human society, too many get off with less than a warning.
The Network Time Protocol hasn't sued anyone.
Ask Dave Mills, he's right down the road at the University of Delaware!
And there isn't any other NTP that matters.
In response to Comment #16788993
I thought PCMCIA stood for Personal Computers are Monitored by the Central Intelligence Agency.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
But there is a chance for customers so that they do not have to foot the bill.
IMO those lawsuits are "investment" for the companies: they are financing it in hopes to later obtain income thanks to it and that income will cover this "investment" and gives also some bonus. Also lawyers are (at least partialy) being paid after the case (more precisely: after the successfull case).
So, at the end, if the customers does not buy the products employing contested patents, they wont be footing bill for this legal battle and the cost will remain with the companies and lawyers thus depleting their savings.
But it is hard not to buy "bad" products.
hany
Hmmm? C'mon, name me even just one instance. Can't do it, can ya?
:-)
The proper functioning of Capitalism is dependent upon every participant being (equally) greedy. The theory is that since one gets screwed-over in transaction A - an inequal exchange of value - then one must in turn screw-over someone else in later transactions just in order to break even... but of course some people still manage to do better than breaking even. Sounds pretty ethical, don't it?
This story is just an instance of Capitalism working exactly as intended.