Nigerian Company Sues OLPC

d0ida writes on the continuing troubles at the OLPC Association. Adding to the recent difficulties — the BBC has picked up the litany — a US-based, Nigerian-owned company has now filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against OLPC. Lagos Analysis Corp. claims that OLPC "made unauthorized use of LANCOR's multilingual keyboard technology invention in XO laptops." The suit was filed in Lagos.

Comments

Boy, did they pick the wrong mark

[QuantumG]

Eben Moglen, invalidator of bioscience patents filed by his own university ("that is what tenure is for") is a public ally of the OLPC. I suspect he'll not only invalidate their patent, he'll drive em one step from bankruptcy.

Prior art?

[ozbird]

How are the KONYIN keyboard's multiple shift keys any different to ye olde AltGr key to access alternate - usually international - characters?

Re:This is good news

[Alsee]

Lawsuit states that keyboards were purchased and illegally reverse engineered.

The only way that could be true is if Nigeria has a seriously defective legal system (quite possible), but even then the "truth value" of that statement would only exist within Nigeria.

Like someone who illegally wears a t-shirt that says "Vote".

The phrase "illegally reverse engineered" only weighs in favor of a case of this company being a "patent troll", it is not an argument to refute that label.

A further note is that all uses of the word "invention" appear to false. According to the article this is a design patent. At least in US law, design patents are not for new useful inventions, design patents are not for functional aspects, design patents are for aesthetic and ornamental aspects. Design patents are about "our product looks cool and distinctive". Design patents are trivial to work around, you just change the shape or arrangement of your product to any of a zillion other equally reasonable equally functional looks.

...ok a little Googling and yes Nigerian RD#### patent are "Registered Design" patents. This is not an invention patent, this is an ornamental design patent. It also turns out that there is no official website to look up Nigerian patents, not only is there no website for it but the Nigerian Patent Office official contact point is a Yahoo email address.

This company is suing a charitable high-tech project to aid 3rd world children, and doing it based on an ornamental patent registered with a government operating from a Yahoo email address. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

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What a strange coincidence

[jimicus]

It strikes me as remarkably inconvenient that there just happens to be a company which is US-based, Nigerian owned and happens to have a patent on something which so directly affects to OLPC project. How many companies can there be which fit this description?

Putting my tinfoil hat on for a moment, it's not possible that this company is a stooge for Intel or Microsoft, is it?

Re:Better yet, just don't send them

[mrchaotica]

Unfortunately, most third world kids don't speak the main language of the net

Obviously, you sprang as a fully-formed, English-speaking adult out of Zeus's forehead or something. Or not. No, instead you're just a dumbass who doesn't realize that children can learn, and moreover that the entire point of the OLPC project is learning, and that contrary to what you might think the children are most likely capable of learning English along with everything else!

Tell you what, read this: India: Hole-in-the-Wall. Then try telling me language is a real barrier!