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Smartphones Patented — Just About Everyone Sued 1 Minute Later
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. "
This is good news in several ways. First, I really don't care for smartphones (except for the iPhone), so I'm glad to see their makers all sued. The iPhone sucks too, since it's locked down to one provider, though it's a lot better than all the other smartphones. I'm glad to see any kind of shakeup in the cellular space.
Second, one of those sued is RIM. Hopefully, this patent troll will demand an injunction shutting down ALL smartphone service, including RIM's Crackberry. That'll get the attention of those morons on Capitol Hill, and maybe they'll do something about this patent mess. I just hope they don't settle for some reasonable amount of money; I want them to totally shut down everything. We all need to see how bad this patent system is, and why it should be abolished.
That's an informative first post you've got there, networkBoy! You sure are quick thinker, Buddy! I hope you don't mind, but I wanted to expand on your ideas. I'll begin by examining this more closely: this company, who ever they are, obviously have some kind of patent on this sort of thing, and they are really taking advantage of it! Maybe, in this instance at least, someone could find some example of prior art, where another company had produced something similar in the past? Or maybe, as this sort of technology is so new, an announcement or some kind of design was announced in the past?
S-M-R-T! I AM SO SMRT!
_is_ _supposed_
Learn HTML, you fucking thalidomide baby.
<u>is supposed</u>
Damnit you asshole would you shut up?! At least make their lawyers come up with this shit on their own, no need to hand them more crap. I bet this won't be modded Funny when a patent describing that in obscure ways gets a stamp of approval. However a lawsuit against you for revealing trade secrets would be kind of amusing.
In all seriousness, it doesn't take fancy tech to show how totally fucked our patent system is. When fast food places started having "patent pending" on their fucking fry containers or coffee cups it should have been painfully obvious something was going very very wrong.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.