OIN Posts Details of Microsoft's Anti-Tom Tom Patents

number6x writes "LinuxDevices.com is reporting that the Open Invention Network has posted the details of three of the eight patents used by Microsoft in the Tom Tom suit (which Tom Tom settled last month), asking the community for prior art. These patents cover aspects of the FAT file system. You can find them on Post-Issue.org — see numbers 5579517, 5758352, and 6256642. OIN CEO Keith Bergelt believes that these three patents are of tenuous validity and will probably not survive a review. Bergelt believes that there's a good chance that the USPTO may well invalidate them before the end of the year.

Comments

Why didnt TomTom look for this stuff?

[RobertM1968]

I'm curious why TomTom wouldn't have done this work themselves to invalidate Microsoft's claims and avoid any sort of settlement? Couldn't they have stalled this until a determination was made that either the patent was invalid, or that their methods were based on the prior art - just like Microsoft's?

I'm hoping that TomTom just didnt do their homework and someone manages to come up with the info that they did not.

Makes me wonder how much luck this initiative will have - though I am hoping lots.

On another note, I wonder if an effort to invalidate the patents on the basis of "gee, that's obvious" is taking place as well...

Re:Why didnt TomTom look for this stuff?

[Lead Butthead]

It becomes really easy to decide to settle such a lawsuit to keep management focused on "job 1", rather than focusing on saving a few pennies per unit by fighting a lawsuit for several years with a very well funded adversary.

Because it invites other to sue you too. IBM could have easily bought SCOX to make their little... 'problem' go away, but it did not. Instead it spent millions to BURY SCOX to let all other know that it will not be intimidated into buying out a plaintiff.