Slashdot Mirror
Bluetooth Lawsuit
Krish writes "The Seattle Times reports that a local Washington state group is suing cellphone makers for patent infringement on bluetooth devices. Research conducted by a University of Washington undergraduate more than a decade ago has become the subject of a lawsuit filed against some of the largest cellphone manufacturers in the world.
The suit claims that consumer electronics giant Matsushita and its Panasonic unit, as well as Samsung and Nokia, are infringing on four patents sold under the 'Bluetooth' name."
I think there should be a certain time limit set on patent infringement cases called "the dumbass period" where after that time has passed, you're a complete dumbass for just realizing the patent infringement then and your case is automatically thrown out. Unless he was stuck in a desert island for the last couple years and just got rescued, he or the group or whatever should stop this pathetic attempt at scamming some money from companies.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
the article was kind of vague. this is the patent in question. Personally, it seems kind of obvious, but that's how it goes.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
The patent was filed in 2001 and granted in 2003, however, bluetooth was developed in 1994 and formally announced in 1998. It seems kind of backwards to me that someone would try to patent technology that has been circulating for a few years, let alone that someone would grant said patent.
These patents in question are certainly not simple. Perhaps you should try reading them? Whether or not they infringe is a different story.
You've confused UW and WSU. University of Washington is where Pine was developed and the student in TFA studied. Washington State University ('wazzu') is where the drinking and sports occur.
If I recall, the US govt paid Qualcomm over 100 million dollars to do R&D on RF technology for military communications. Then just as the technology started to become developed in the market, they patented the shit out of everything to do with CDMA. I always thought that was sort of unfair, after all my tax money paid for that R&D, and even if it didn't - it seemed like there was incentive was already out and that it was going to be invented anyhow,
Bluetooth is a protocol it doesn't describe the hardware implementation.
The said patent seems to be hardware related.
When you say "not simple" do you mean "written in dense legalese which would be useless for recreating the 'invention'" or "an invention that is not stupidly obvious"?
:]
Just wondering; seemed kinda vague
There is. Its called LACHES!
http://www.converium.com/2103.asp
If you look at the first page of the 2003 patent, it says that the patent is a continuation of another (filed in 1999), which is a division from an application filed in 1996, which became this patent. So, they started the ball rolling in 1996. The details make my eyes glaze over, so I'm not sure how different the patents are, but on the surface, they appear to be based on the same research. It's possible that the patent system moves to slowly that it wasn't until 2003 that the research was fully covered.
actually, from TFA they are suing the handset makers, not the chipset manufacturers. "Matsushita, Samsung and Nokia are some of CSR's largest customers, said WRF attorney Steven Lisa. Instead of suing CSR, he said the organization decided to act against the handset makers because the chipset manufacturer may not know which chips are headed to the United States, where the patent is enforceable, but the device-maker would."