Slashdot Mirror
New Patent Suit Threatens Bluetooth Standard
Aditi.Tuteja writes "A U.S. research institute has sued Nokia, Samsung Electronics and Matsushita-owned Panasonic for violating a patent on Bluetooth technology, potentially putting the free wireless standard at risk. The Washington Research Foundation, which markets technology from the University of Washington, is seeking damages from the three mobile-phone makers for using a radio frequency receiver technology without paying royalties. From the article: 'According to the lawsuit, Bluetooth-based computers, cell phones and headsets made by the companies have violated four patents for research done in the mid-1990s by Edwin Suominen when he was a student at the University of Washington. All four patents are now licensed by the Washington Research Foundation. The foundation's lead counsel on the case, Steven Lisa, said the court filing followed two years of informal attempts to resolve the issue with the major players in the industry.'"
You know I think this already happened. Like two days ago or something.
you can also read about it here!
I seem to have seen this discussed before
I was under the impression that Bluetooth was an open standard, and it looks like the suits involve specific chipsets used by the companies in question, not the standard as a whole.
And just after I had bought a bluetooth module to work with my Nokia phone.
Seriously, do you think this is enough that Nokia Legal will stop pushing more patents on the EU?
Hello!
I am new to this Slashdot thing. I have trouble understanding this... Wasn't this story posted before? It's like the same story posted twice.What's the word for it? Doop?
We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us
This will teach companies to do proper due diligence!
first dupe of the year?
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun the frumious Bandersnatch.
Not exactly the answer I was hoping for, but precisely the one I expected. At least you're consistent in your idiocy.
If you google him, you will find that Edwin Suominen is a patent agent who studied RF at university and assigned some patents there. Despite his name (Suominen), he doesn't seem to have any Finnish connection (Suomi, is the Finnish name for themselves). I had wondered at first whether he had any connection to another well known Finnish company which was heavily involved in the original research. What is unusual is that he seems to have acquired a number of patents (about 4) whilst studying as an undergraduate at University.
The thing is that the original BT work done in Finland/Sweden (mostly the latter) was done some time ago. It has taken a very long time to catch on in the US but started appearing in the mid nineties. Simple implementations appeared a little later and it may be interesting to look at the history of this patent against when the first single chip implmentation appeared (about 98). It could well be that some existing technology leaked.
See my journal, I write things there
... to make sure there is enough memory for the next two dozen dupes. p.s.: which group is the one with short memory - editors or users ?
good, i say. it was crap, and it will always be crap. start over with something faster, and, more importantly, mored secure!
FYI, ADD here is the Attention Deficit Disorder.
There's a hidden treasure in Python 3.x: __prepare__()
Ericsson, the company that played the biggest part in the development of Bluetooth is not even mentioned in the suit. So this is probably something about a way of implementing a certain part of the standard, and not the whole standard itself. To say that this is endangering bluetooth as technology is a bit exagerating.
Presumably the alleged "patent violators" are seeking to have the patent annulled? More people should do that; and one day, just from the ton of feathers effect, a bad patent will be annulled.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Yea, and i patented Edwin Suominen, so where my royalty
The earliest of Mr Suominen's patents assigner to the University of Washington was filed in 1996, but wasn't granted until 1999. Of the four of Mr Suominen's patents assigned to the University of Washington, only one was filed before the formation of the Bluetooth consortium, and none of them were issued until after. It is entirely possible that Ericsson (or one of the other original Bluetooth founders) would have IP that predates the 1998 formation of the consortium.
The fact that the filing is only against three handset manufacturers, all of which have Bluetooth chipsets manufactured by CSR PLC in the UK, shows that this isn't an attack on Bluetooth, just one method of its implementation. Oddly enough, the lawsuit is going after the handset manufacturers and not the chipmaker. This just shows that they are only after money, and to rustle up some FUD regarding non-Broadcom chipsets. This is reinforced comments from Rob Enderle (whose previous clients include Microsoft and SCO): "Defendants would be quick to settle if it appeared the case was immediately threatening their product lines".
Undoubtedly, the defense would most likely claim Laches against any possible injunction. It is also highly likely that other memebers of the Bluetooth consortium would leverage their IP to prove prior art. It seems Washington Research Foundation and Mr Suominen have quite a large uphill battle in their hands.
I don't think this case will last very long, and even if they were successful, I'm sure Nokia, Samsung and Panasonic would just move to a different chipset in the future.
how is it off topic to remark on the duplication of an an article
King of kings and Lord of lords
Hey man, you are *HERE* on Slashdot!
Don't you remember silly jokes modded +5 informative?
Don't you remember well known information modded as troll?
You must be new here!
Ok Blue tooth has been around since 1998-ish, Why wait till now to make a fuss? Any Idea's I work on, I research heavily to see if there are alternatives out there. Blue tooth has been in the news for a long time, seriously why wait till now? I wish there was a law that says if you hate a better part of a decade to sue for your patent, you should lose out. But then again, I want a law that says no vaguely worded patents, be precise, and not have it describe 15 million things.
SimonTek
This really is more of the same old; "Follow the Money".... Some greedy bastard decides he wants money for something and gets a lawyer involved. They'll screw it up every time.
All content in this message is copyright (c) 2008. All rights reserved. RIAA is prohibited here.
If a large corporation delays filing a complant until *after* the technology has been adopted and is in wide use "oh, gee, you owe us money" i think they should lose most their rights for compensation. ( notice i said most, not all )
They knew it was in violation in the beginning, they should have spoke up long ago.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
If we tolerate these parasites, we'll eventually be eaten alive.
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
The foundation that manages the patent did not know that these products were infringing on the patent. To find out, they probably had to take a scanning electron microscope to the chip and reverse-engineer it. A certain bluetooth chip manufacturer has decided to use his patented RF-on-silicon design for their chips because it works well. Should they not have to pay him a fee for using his patented ideas?
I thought I recognized the names of the attornies active in the later prosecution of the patents-at-suit and the attorneys filing the suit. Hoffman, Lisa and Hosier were part of the Lemelson foundation lawsuit gang that siphoned a LOT of money out of the barcode industry before the patents were declared invalid.
Thats fine thought let the US Patent office Kill the Tech in the US.
Its fine from here since our country does not reconize the US patent office or its laws surrounding this.
I guess the spec will still be valid here then.
I'm sorry, call me picky, but if the research that leads to a discovery is conducted at and funded by a public university, then the entire discovery should be open-sourced, not patented and hoarded for the selfish enrichment of the university or particular people involved.