Slashdot Mirror
Vonage and Verizon — Prepare for Round 2
According to the New York Times, Vonage is preparing to take it's case back down to the lower courts for a retrial of the lawsuit against them from Verizon. Their hope is that with newer approaches set forth by the supreme court that the lower courts will be able to decide whether Verizon's patent(s) are ordinary/obvious or deserve patent protection. I wonder if this time it will be more obvious to the courts that Verizon's patents aren't so original?
Forgive me as it's been a while since I looked at the patent documents. But I do recall posters here on slashdot found prior art that could (possibly) be used to deem the patents invalid. Why try to invalidate a patent on obviousness when you can just use prior art? Seems like that would be the easier option.
Vonage addressing the courts about the obviousness of the patents:
Verizon: We object!
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
Would the onus fall upon Vongage to demonstrate this (presumably).
Does anyone know enough about the patent who can comment on what specifics Verizon claims is original. As I recall, the idea of "voice over IP" has been around for quite some time, so I wonder what part of this technology Verizon claims is theirs and truly original and protected.
I'm a happy Vonage subscriber and was thrilled when the USSC essentially gutted patent law as it exists.
Not only do I think Vonage will prevail in this case, I also think they should pursue a case against Verizon for anti-trust.
And in other news, Verizon RI lost $9.7 million last year. I had long thought they'd lost at a maximum a third their business but it gets better, 43% of land lines in RI aren't Verizon land lines any longer. So what does Verizon do to counter the loss? They hike rates.
A good anti-trust action would be the kick needed to fracture Verizon into a million little pieces. Then the new at&t had better watch out.
Lets face it, VoIP was and is known as a disruptive technology. Brilliant little idea, use the IP capability built into most telephone switches to take advantage of excess switching capacity. And in the end, disruptive technologies almost ALWAYS win.
Does anyone know enough about the patent who can comment on what specifics Verizon claims is original. As I recall, the idea of "voice over IP" has been around for quite some time, so I wonder what part of this technology Verizon claims is theirs and truly original and protected.
Based on another article on the topic that I read earlier today, Verizon's patents don't cover VoIP entirely, but they do cover some general schemes for translating IP addresses into phone numbers and vice versa. E.g., a Skype-like (dunno about SkypeOut, though) system wouldn't be covered by the patents, but systems that interface directly into the POTS system, give you a real phone number that's routed to the IP device, and allow you to direct-dial POTS lines from the IP device, are in trouble.
So the prior art you'd need to find isn't just some implementation of voice-over-IP, it would be something that actually interfaces the IP system to the telephone system and provides translation back and forth between the two, particularly in terms of switching and routing calls.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Coldmoon over Dark water...
I mean - who would have ever thought of putting IP-based phone traffic over the PTSN! Wait - wasn't that why it was created - and by a company Cisco acquired a company whose name escapes me for their VOIP systems back in the late 90s... Cisco would have NEVER thought of THAT!
Folks,
There is a public standard called ENUM that is defined by an IETF RFC and that basically involves the mapping of a Telephone Number (TN) to IP address, which is at the core of the Verizon patent.
ENUM in its public and carrier implementations is basically DNS for VoIP. It resolves TN to IP address, email, IM ID, or other strings that can be used to reach the user. Most if not all ENUM Addressing Servers are built on top of DNS server capabilities.
It's an obvious use of an existing technology. By the same token, if ENUM infringes on the Verizon patent, then the whole Internet DNS system could infringe on the Verizon patent because DNS can be READILY used to return an IP for any TN as long as the TN is specified as a domain name, using the reversed TN-domain format, e.g. 2.1.2.1.5.5.5.2.1.2.1.e164.arpa (for public ENUM.) DNS and ENUM are one and the same. ENUM is simply one "use case" for DNS.
!!!
The courts need opinions like these to defeat Verizon.
Not defeating Verizon means that DNS itself will be infringing on their patent.
Does it mean that they can shutdown the Internet?
back in 93, I was working at Bell Labs. We had started the raptor project. It was H.323 connection over IP. There was also other types very similar. Basically, Verizon does not have a leg to stand on.
Aren't they basically the same thing? If it's obvious, there will probably be prior art, just because of its obviousness.
No, they're not.
"Prior art" means it's already been done that way, or exactly that way of doing it has been described publicly.
"Obvious" means that if a person "skilled in the art" sets out to actually do it, he's likely to come up with that way of doing it as one of his design options. It does NOT mean:
- It's already been done that way.
- That way of doing it has already been described.
There are a number of reasons an "obvious" invention would not be prior art. One of the biggest is that the technology might not have gotten to the point were it's practical to practice such an invention. Another is that the business environment may not yet make use of the invention a good business plan. Once these externalities are resolved and people are set to do the task, the "obvious" inventions are then detail-designed and implemented. Sometimes, once it becomes clear that they WILL be resolved, people begin planning and publishing.
Both of these apply here.
Once these externalities are resolved and people are set to do the task, the "obvious" inventions are then detail-designed and implemented. Sometimes, once it becomes clear that they WILL be resolved, people begin planning and publishing - for instance: in academia, or in standards organizations.
Both of these have happened here.
But if "obvious" is abandoned and "prior art" required, it becomes possible for an alert businessman to lock up the obvious ways of doing things by rushing to the patent office with a flurry of applications for every obvious solution that nobody has happened to have published on or done - often because it's so obvious they thought there was no point in mentioning it.
Think about it: What's "the internet way to build a phone company"?
- Use a stock streaming VoIP protocol to carry calls on the internet.
- Use VOIP/POTS bridge servers at price-convenient locations when you need to contact to a POTS phone (or connect two POTS phones to each other over your IP service).
- Use a database (such as DNS) to translate user identification information to routing information - which includes:
a) Phone number and preferred VoIP/POTS bridge address(es) when the called phone is on the POTS side.
b) Multiple possible sites and the preferred order for trying them (call forwarding)
c) A registration entry made by a portable wireless phone when it associated access point as it moved into range.
- Also use databases to authorize calls and record billing information when calls are made.
Obvious, right? If somebody set you to do this that's what YOU'D do, right?
Well a), b), and c) are what Verizon claimed are their non-obvious inventions - and got the patent office and a lower court to agree and almost KILL Vonage by blocking them from doing anything like it.
(I think they also claimed tying authorization and billing for VoIP or VoIP/POTS bridged calls into database authorization/billing systems, too.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The proper term is "its." "It's" is an abbreviation for "it is," while "its" signifies that "it" possesses something.
FIGHT!
(cue Mortal Kombat theme)
Everyone is talking about "KSR INTERNATIONAL CO. v. TELEFLEX INC. ET AL." expanding obviousness. That was not the most important decision of the day.
MICROSOFT CORP. v. AT&T CORP. was. Check this out:
(a) A copy of Windows, not Windows in the abstract, qualifies as a"component" under 271(f). Section 271(f) attaches liability to the supply abroad of the "components of a patented invention, where such components are uncombined in whole or in part, in such manner as to actively induce the combination of such components." 271(f)(1)(emphasis added). The provision thus applies only to "such components" as are combined to form the "patented invention" at issue--here, AT&T's speech-processing computer. Until expressed as a computer-readable "copy," e.g., on a CD-ROM, Windows--indeed any software detached from an activating medium--remains uncombinable. It cannot be inserted into a CD-ROM drive or downloaded from the Internet; it cannot be installed or executed on a computer. Abstract software code is an idea without physical embodiment, and as such, it does not match 271(f)'s categorization: "components" amenable to "combination." Windows abstracted from a tangible copy no doubt is information--a detailed set of instructions--and thus might be compared to a blueprint (or anything else containing design information). A blueprint may contain precise instructions for the construction and combination of the components of a patented device, but it is not itself a combinable component.
The fact that it is easy to encode software's instructions onto a computer-readable medium does not counsel a different answer. The copy-producing step is what renders software a usable, combinable part of a computer; easy or not, the extra step is essential. Moreover, many tools may be used easily and inexpensively to generate the parts of a device. Those tools are not, however, "components" of the devices in which the parts are incorporated, at least not under any ordinary understanding of the term "component." Congress might have included within 271(f)'s compass, for example, not only a patented invention's combinable "components," but also "information, instructions, or tools from which those components readily may be generated." It did not.
How do you prove something is obvious without prior art? There will always be a need for prior art references. Especially when the USPTO doesn't get to an application for a few years. What is obvious today might have been insightful 3 years ago. Many patent applicants go into business with a "patent pending". If someone's own efforts in the marketplace (after filing an application) renders their own invention obvious, then things are even more broken than now.
The biggest problem with prior art on slashdot is that so few people here understand what it actually is. It has to be relevent and it has to be published before an application's priority date. It doesn't matter what people claim they did without credible verification. That's where published prior art comes into play. An assertion that you did something will only buy you an afidavit, a court appearence, and a bit of "impeaching the witness".
So, now we have KSR v Teleflex. Cool. The old test was kinda bogus. I'll read the USSC opinion in the next day or two because it has completely changed how I respond to office actions. I don't believe, however, that much will change. Lots of bad patents will still slip through. Lots of good ones will still get rejected.
Most of all, the new ruling will change things on the litigation side. After all, it is the litigators who fight to overcome patents after they've issued. ka-ching!
The biggest cases recently are the ATT v M$ (no overseas infringement) and the earlier one that said no immediate injunctions for asserted infringement. Those are the ones with the biggest effects on trolls and corporate coffers.
I am a lawyer, but not yours. Anything I tell you might be a total lie intended to benefit my clients at your expense.
Lawyers are just terrible leeches, drains on society - except when you've been accused of something you didn't do, and Big Corp, or the government, or someone with a grudge wants to work you over. Then suddenly a lawyer is your best friend. Ask anyone who has ever been sued or iniated a torts action, or been brought to court on criminal charges.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
If I am reading the decision correctly, SCOTUS has changed the game by ruling that a patent fails the obviousness test if:
1) Any ordinarily skilled person in that area of expertise would, if they set about building a device to do what the patented device does, come up with nearly the same solution you did. In other words, you can't patent sending email over a cellular network, because anyone with email/cellular networking experience would come up with the same system you did (or one substantially similar).
2) A patent that is merely a combination of two existing methods is considered routine exercise of general knowledge in the art and is also not patentable.
One-click patent? IsNot operator? Connecting VOIP calls to the POTS network? Not patentable; these things fail the obviousness test. They are all examples of combining multiple existing methodologies, applying existing methodologies to new technology, or doing what any sane person with skills in that area would do.
However something like JPEG or WMV would still qualify, as there are many ways to compress images to fit into a smaller space. Frankly, that's the kind of software I think should be patentable... There is very little (relative to total patented software overall) that deserves protection, but there are still a few novel ideas that are worth protecting.
I might also point out that patent examiners are bound by these court decisions as well; I know there have been many cases where frivilous patents were rejected (often several times) by the examiner but the examiner was overruled thanks to the jacked-up circuit court decisions that essentially made it impossible to demonstrate prior art. Now that SCOTUS has put patents back in their place many more of the rejections from the patent office should stick.
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
On comp.dcom.telecom this post showed up on 22 September 1995. Hmm... sounds like prior art in the form of "discussed publicly".
b rowse_thread/thread/1227ba19866a3426/22f8ceae097f7 f6d
...
Google Groups Archive of post:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.dcom.telecom/
I don't know who to submit this info to that can make a difference... anyone know the law firm defending Vonage in this case?
Hope it helps
I hope Vonage burns in hell for the way they treat their customers. Anyone here ever tried to cancel their service successfully? Wait until you hear about the surprise $40 "cancellation fee" that they charge you per month after you've cancelled your service. Fuck Vonage. Fuck them in their VoIP asshole.