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Patent Lawsuits Galore
eldavojohn writes "Guess who owns the patent on the touch-screen keyboard. Not Apple — SP Technologies has filed a suit based on just that. Ars brings out the intriguing detail that the founder of the patent troll company is serving prison time for health-care fraud." Read on for four more patent developments in the day's news.
Today the news broke that Aloft is suing Microsoft and Adobe for deliberately violating the patent entitled 'Network Browser Window with Adjacent Identifier Selector.' Qualcomm had a bad day as the US Trade Representative advised the President not to intervene in the patent beef it is losing against Broadcom. Today we found out Sharp is suing Samsung for an LCD infringement. Ending an eventful day on a note of sanity, a judge today threw out the jury verdict on Alcatel-Lucent vs. Microsoft and Microsoft no longer has to pony up $1.5 billion.
Today the news broke that Aloft is suing Microsoft and Adobe for deliberately violating the patent entitled 'Network Browser Window with Adjacent Identifier Selector.' Qualcomm had a bad day as the US Trade Representative advised the President not to intervene in the patent beef it is losing against Broadcom. Today we found out Sharp is suing Samsung for an LCD infringement. Ending an eventful day on a note of sanity, a judge today threw out the jury verdict on Alcatel-Lucent vs. Microsoft and Microsoft no longer has to pony up $1.5 billion.
Why are they suing now, when Palm had devices with touchscreen keyboards only 11 years now. However they kinda hit the right company at least: the Apple Newton was before Palm and had a on screen keyboard on its touchscreen too. Too bad for the patent troll the Newton lived (and died) even before the patent was filed in 2000.
If you keep bailing out the patent system by having judges rescue the companies with the power you are gonna get stupid hypocrites like Apple's recent statement that the system is fine and no one will change it.
What the hell's the point of a Jury verdict if the Judge can just throw it out ?
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
slightly off topic, I apologize.
..but does anybody know what happened to the "morse code" mobile texting input people were discussing a few years ago? after all it is well proven that morse code is a lot faster then texting.
..and on topic I know there are some patents in this area..
t ent-for-morse-code-generating-cellphone/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhsSgcsTMd4
http://www.engadget.com/2005/03/12/nokia-files-pa
You could tie damages to use.
How can someone claim 'irreparable damages' if they went out an 'bought' a patent and started trolling with it, after it sat fallow for a thirteen years? If you have or control a patent the amount of damages you could claim could be limited to a simple multiple of your income from use of the patent within a certain interval from its grant. If you didn't earn anything from it, it wasn't worth anything was it? How about a mechanism to revoke patents that don't show use by the inventors within a certain interval? The Constitution says in Article I, Section 8:
"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."
If it didn't get used it doesn't promote science or useful arts. Income from patents could be reported to the IRS and might be taxable or partially exempted might even be taxable on a separate schedule, after all its a grant of a monopoly, isn't it? You could shorten the grant period of a patent, and make it eligible for a single renewal based on an income test. The 1790 Patent Act set an interval "Not exceeding 14 years". The 1836 Patent Act allowed a 7 year renewal after a finding that a patent met the promote/progress criteria. I can understand how much effort it would require to renew. You'd get three tiers of patent holders: Those that realize income upon or before grant, those who also realize enough income to pay for the renewal process, and those that never realize income. Could you simply use extremely high renewal fees as a test?
Patent trolling is an attempt to monetize ideas, which are not recognized as 'intellectual property' under U.S. law. All other protections required a tangible expression or realizable invention. Ideas are not property. Even in trade secrets it's keeping a secret that has the value (indemnity), not the idea.