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Smartphones Patented — Just About Everyone Sued 1 Minute Later

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the definition-of-a-patent-troll dept.

This week the US Patent and Trademark Office issued a surprisingly (although I guess it shouldn't be) broad patent for a "mobile entertainment and communication device". Upon closer inspection you may notice that it pretty much outlines the ubiquitous smartphone concept. "It's a patent for a mobile phone with removable storage, an internet connection, a camera and the ability to download audio or video files. The patent holding firm who has the rights to this patent wasted no time at all. At 12:01am Tuesday morning, it filed three separate lawsuits against just about everyone you can think of, including Apple, Nokia, RIM, Sprint, ATT, HP, Motorola, Helio, HTC, Sony Ericsson, UTStarcomm, Samsung and a bunch of others. Amusingly, the company actually first filed the lawsuits on Monday, but realized it was jumping the gun and pulled them, only to refile just past the stroke of midnight. "

3 of 407 comments (clear)

  1. Prior art? by networkBoy · · Score: 0, Redundant

    anyone?

    --
    whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
    1. Re:Prior art? by SchroedingersCat · · Score: 0, Redundant

      Motorola MPx200 released Oct 21st, 2003
      http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2003/oct03/10-21smartphone.mspx
      SD slot for expansion
      Windows Media Player for mp3/view streaming over Internet
      Pocket Internet Explorer
      Pocket Outlook client
      etc etc etc

  2. I can only hope by shadylookin · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I can only hope that continued use of these (in my opinion frivolous) patent lawsuits will eventually force a revamp of how the patent system works.