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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.
Patents. What will they think of next?
... could just ignore Nigerian law and be just fine. After all, it's not like many Nigerians obey anyone else's laws (much less their own).
to make 419 scam jokes, must resist...
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
... for sending SPAM from the OLPC
http://www.olpcnews.com/hardware/keyboard/olpc_patent_infringement_scam.html I like how the Nigerian patent office has an @yahoo email address!! Prepare for things to start getting wierd.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
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.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Will they demand to be paid via Western Union?
LAGOS, NIGERIA.
ATTENTION: THE PRESIDENT/CEO
DEAR SIR,
CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS PROPOSAL
HAVING CONSULTED WITH MY COLLEAGUES AND BASED ON THE INFORMATION GATHERED FROM THE NIGERIAN CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY, I HAVE THE PRIVILEGE TO REQUEST FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE TO TRANSFER THE SUM OF $47,500,000.00 (FORTY SEVEN MILLION, FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND UNITED STATES DOLLARS) INTO OUR ACCOUNTS. THE ABOVE SUM RESULTED FROM A PATENT INFRINGEMENT LAWSUIT, EXECUTED COMMISSIONED AND PAID FOR ABOUT FIVE YEARS (5) AGO BY A FOREIGN CONTRACTOR. THIS ACTION WAS HOWEVER INTENTIONAL AND SINCE THEN THE FUND HAS BEEN IN A SUSPENSE ACCOUNT AT THE CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA APEX BANK.
WE ARE NOW READY TO RECEIVE THE FUND OVERSEAS. IT IS IMPORTANT TO INFORM YOU THAT AS CIVIL SERVANTS, WE ARE FORBIDDEN TO OPERATE A FOREIGN ACCOUNT; THAT IS WHY WE REQUIRE YOUR ASSISTANCE. THE TOTAL SUM WILL BE SHARED AS FOLLOWS: 70% FOR US, 25% FOR OUR LAWYERS AND 5% FOR LOCAL AND INTERNATIONAL EXPENSES INCIDENT TO THE TRANSFER.
THE TRANSFER IS RISK FREE ON BOTH SIDES. I AM AN ACCOUNTANT WITH THE NIGERIAN NATIONAL PETROLEUM CORPORATION (NNPC). IF YOU FIND THIS PROPOSAL ACCEPTABLE, WE SHALL REQUIRE THE FOLLOWING DOCUMENTS:
(A) YOUR BANKER'S NAME, TELEPHONE, ACCOUNT AND FAX NUMBERS.
(B) YOUR PRIVATE TELEPHONE AND FAX NUMBERS -- FOR CONFIDENTIALITY AND EASY COMMUNICATION.
(C) YOUR LETTER-HEADED PAPER STAMPED AND SIGNED.
ALTERNATIVELY WE WILL FURNISH YOU WITH THE TEXT OF WHAT TO TYPE INTO YOUR LETTER-HEADED PAPER, ALONG WITH A BREAKDOWN EXPLAINING, COMPREHENSIVELY WHAT WE REQUIRE OF YOU. THE BUSINESS WILL TAKE US THIRTY (30) WORKING DAYS TO ACCOMPLISH.
PLEASE REPLY URGENTLY.
BEST REGARDS
1 Timber Lane, Natick, MA, 01760, USA
phone 339-987-9249, fax 508-647-4702
Put that into Google maps and have a look.
It's a house on a 100 foot square lot.
As pointed out in a later post, the OLPC project in Nigeria is basically charity.
If they continue having problems like this, simply don't send any to them. Let LANCOR explain to the Nigerian government and people how their greed and abuse of patent law is screwing up the education of Nigeria's children and putting them at a serious disadvantage to the country's neighbors.
Some keyboard internationalization research I did a few years back:
:)
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~crb002/ie574final.pdf
I bet it kicks their designs all the way to Timbuktu, which isn't too far from Nigeria
bash-2.04$
bash-2.04$yes "Don't you hate dialup connections?"| write USERNAME
First of all, it's a design patent. It's not a utility patent. Design patents are used for stuff like the flowers on the handles of your silverware. (why that isn't done with copyright I don't know) Design patent rules are different from utility patent rules.
It's about using two extra shift keys for the non-ASCII characters. On his keyboard, he calls them "Shift2" and "Ng". This is a nice way to do languages that use the latin alphabet with a few abnormal extra characters.
It's not like the mode switch key used for Arabic. There, you press the key once to switch modes. (more like a caps lock)
It's not like the dead keys often used for European accents. There, you press an accent key followed by a letter key. The accent key does nothing until you press the letter.
It's not like the combining accent keys used in Microsoft Word. There, you press the accent key after the letter key. (so the software must display your "A" before knowing if it needs an accent)
It's not like the fancy stuff used for Chinese, etc.
He's claiming that two keyboard layouts are in violation. The first one is Nigerian, now used for all of western Africa. The second one is "US International", which is QWERTY plus stuff like the Euro and various odds and ends.
They might actually have a point. It's not like they've sat on this for years - the public release of OLPC laptops is so recent that it's entirely conceivable that it's taken this long to examine them, document any violations, and file suit. And who knows what behind-the-scene negotiations, which may have delayed filing, have taken place between them and OLPC?
Is it just that the OLPC, being "free" and "open" and using Linux and all, are considered by
Sorry, not picking on you specifically - you're just the first in thread to mention the words "patent troll".
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
From TFA: "LANCOR's technology named Shift2 keyboard technology has been used to create a new class of region specific based keyboards called KONYIN Multilingual Keyboards, which are currently on sale globally." I don't think you can be sure to call this one a patent troll. They are actually producing a product, not just holding a patent for the sole purpose of the suit.
Any comment mentioning moderation is automatically Offtopic.
No good deed goes unpunished.
There may have been a translation error, leading the Nigerians to believe OLPC was an acronym for One Litigation Per Child.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
Or are people suggesting that all patent owners are patent trolls? (A position with which I would largely agree, BTW.)
Not all patent owners are patent trolls. Only those that use their patents to sue people and get in the way of progress and innovation.
By reading this signature, you hereby agree with the content of the above comment.
Here is the US international layout for OLPC:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Keyboard_layouts
Here is the Konyin layout for the US (you have to click on VIEW LAYOUT under UNITED STATES):
http://www.konyin.com/?page=home&menuitem=1
Maybe Konyin thinks that they invented making additional languages/scripts/special characters available via additional shift characters, but that's ridiculous; here is the Windows US International keyboard layout:
http://www.usna.edu/LangStudy/US-InternationalLayout.html
See, lots of special characters via AltGr.
They might actually have a point
They might in principle, but in practice, they don't. The OLPC keyboard differs from theirs, and there are decades of prior art in using multiple shift keys to reach multiple languages on one keyboard. Their keyboard is basically the "US International Keyboard" for Windows with the keys rearranged.
How are the KONYIN keyboard's multiple shift keys any different to ye olde AltGr key to access alternate - usually international - characters?
Yeah, that's the retarded world view where "innovation" means "work around a patent". In the real world, "innovation" means "build on the work of others" and patents are what you use to stop people doing that.
How we know is more important than what we know.
It's a nonprofit organization. This company is literally robbing children, quite likely children from their own country. Maybe they're not patent trolls, but they're clearly assholes.
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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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
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?
Dear Honest Individual ,gold and software merchant from Angola. I and my mother now residing in Senegal dakar west africa.
I am Stella McBride, aged 21years old the daughter of Late Darl Makoba a politician
As a result of the on-going problem in our country, we must relocate US$500 million of intellectual property to an overseas account...
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love