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Boingo Awarded a Patent For Hotspot Access
Boingo has scored a patent for accessing a Wi-Fi hotspot by a mobile device. The patent, no. 7,483,984, was issued in January, but Boingo only started talking about it recently. The patent application was filed in December 2002. According to the company, the methods covered by the patent include: "...accessing wireless carrier networks by mobile computing devices, where a client software application hosted by the device accesses carrier networks using wireless access points. For example, when a computer — or netbook, smartphone or any other Wi-Fi-enabled device — is in a location where there are multiple signals, the patented technology looks at each signal and alerts the user which signal will work, showing the signal as an understandable name and ID for the user.The patent covers all wireless technologies and spectrums, as well as any mobile device that access wireless hotspots." The company is not saying anything about whether or how they will attempt to wield this patent.
I thought Halliburton patented this tactic back in 2008: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/10/1651236&from=rss
Boingo is infringing another corporation's intellectual property!
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=20080270152&OS=20080270152&RS=20080270152
Patent Acquisition and Assertion by a (Non-Inventor) First Party Against a Second Party
Abstract
Methods for a first party to acquire and assert a patent property against a second party are disclosed. The methods include obtaining an equity interest in the patent property. The methods further include writing a claim within the scope of the patent property. The claim is written to cover a product of the second party where the product includes a secret aspect. The methods further include filing the claim with a patent office. The methods sometimes include offering a license of the patent property to the second party after the patent property issues as a patent with the claim. The methods sometimes include asserting infringement of the claim by the second party after the patent property issues as a patent with the claim. The methods sometimes include negotiating a cross-license with the second party based on the assertion of infringement of the claim, where under the cross-license the first party obtains a license to an intellectual property right from the second party. The methods sometime include attempting to obtain a monetary settlement from the second party based on the assertion of infringement of the claim.
This patent is beyond the Patent Office's usual idiocy and right up there with "method for playing with a cat with a laser". I mean really, displaying a list of accessible networks using perfectly standard techniques?
wherein two or more carrier network identifiers associated with a common carrier network system are aggregated to generate a carrier network system identifier that is included in the user selectable list
so if you see multiple Starbucks SSIDS, you just display one on the list to pick from.
it would seem, therefore, that if you do not perform this step of aggregating the two or more network identifiers associated with a common network system, you've avoided this patent.
HINT: show 'em all, even if it means showing multiple Starbucks.
My favourite carrier when I'm on the road? LINKSYS
The patent seems to be related to the mobile device specifically accessing a "hot-spot". Just how the heck are they supposed to license this and make money?
Any mobile device can connect up to wireless that does not necessarily qualify as a hotspot. So how can you force a mobile phone manufacturer, a netbook manufacturer, a laptop manufacturer, etc. to pay royalties when there is no guarantee that the device will ever be used to access a hotspot? I understand they have a patent, but I don't find that reasonable.
To me it would be the same as getting a patent on the act of juicing oranges and then asking royalties from every single juice machine manufacturer with the claim, "well it could be used to juice oranges".
They could go after the people hosting wireless hotspots that the devices would be accessing or the access point manufacturers, but the claim is on the client device......
Wow, you went to all that effort, but you couldn't even skim the summary? Boingo didn't patent the hotspot, they patented a method to have a single signon for multiple wifi (or other spectra) carriers.
Not that this is a sustainable patent (it seems pretty obvious to anyone skilled in the art).
There is one key element of the claims that no OS or device that I'm familiar with implements. Specifically, the list of wireless networks presented to the user must include "getting carrier network information from an access point database by the access client using the plurality of carrier network identifiers, wherein the carrier network information includes information indicating whether the access client is authorized to access a carrier network..." In short, the list of networks must include whether or not the client is authorized to access each network.
To my knowledge, no OS or device does this inherently. They may show that the network is encrypted or that it requires a username and password, but those say nothing about whether the client is authorized (i.e., allowed or permitted) to access the network. Even software that shows that a user is currently connected to a network that requires authentication only implies authorization and then only to that network, not any others.
So, as I read the patent, most existing software does not seem to infringe. One possible infringer might be the Easy Wi-Fi app for the iPhone, but it has been made obsolete by iPhone OS 3, which auto-authenticates with AT&T hotspots.
The US Patent Office should be eliminated. It doesn't serve its intended purpose, and the way patents are reviewed indicates that the people examining them either don't often have a clue on what is obvious or non-obvious, or that there is massive corruption and the finances of the examiners need forensic investigation.
I think there are way to many lawsuits out there, usually motivated by greed, but is it possible for people to launch a class action lawsuit to simply stop an entity from operating?
It seems like the concept of free market economy and all-encompassing corporate patents are at opposite ends of the spectrum.
Even if no one had thought of this before (which is not really true), this is the kind of thing that once a need presents itself, hundreds or thousands of people would think up how to do this. This is nowhere near the kind of thing that justifies the patent system concepts (of taking the rights away from possible other inventors because it is a concept that was not likely to have other inventors). The patent system is supposed to reward the inventor for creating something that we would otherwise have not had. But this is a case of something we most certainly would have almost as soon as the need is first experienced. The only advantage of a prior-to-the-need invention in this case is a few weeks lead time on the initial development, at most.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I was traveling a bit recently, and a lot of the WiFi hotspots in airports, restaurants and hotels were free (or included with whatever purchase you were already making). Most of the ones that weren't could be accessed with Boingo, so I looked into it a little. It seems that their "innovation" is that they are a network of networks. The actual WiFi service provider that you use might be AT&T or Wayport, but a Boingo subscription gets you access to all of them. I think the patent is intended to cover their method of identifying Boingo-member networks and listing those. They have special software you can download for that, though you don't need it. You can simply use the advertised SSIDs of the WiFi hotspots themselves. Their "innovation" is looking up the SSIDs in the network database for you, to automatically identify which networks are part of Boingo, consolidating the list, and then letting you have preferences as to which networks show up on the top of the list. I prefer open standards myself. I also prefer to places that offer their WiFi for free - so I decided not to subscribe and they can keep their patented technology.
Boingo Inc. vs. 35:42:11:AA:EA:03, 432 US. 666.
Lawyer: You connected to a wireless network in Starbucks?
Defendant: Yes, that's correct.
Lawyer: No further questions.
Yes I know, this is /. and no one read the article, let alone the actual patent - however the article (and the /. excerpt) are very misleading about what was patented. Reading the actual patent, it appears that the patent was granted on a method for the user to create an account with the patent-holder and then use the patent-holders software to access any number of various for-pay and other wifi hotspots without having to manage the individual credentialing, network configuration and associated billing.
I am not a lawyer, or a patent attorney -- and I'm not a big fan of software patents in general -- but this doesn't sound anything like: "patenting wifi hotspot access". More like: "patenting an integrated, account-managed, token passing, billing system for accessing multiple diverse wifi-hotspot vendor systems". I.e. Much narrower and a based on a product built on basic wifi access.
In short: Boingo was granted a patent on their software that makes it easier to manage all those wifi accounts you have to set up if you travel a lot and use a bunch of different carriers. Not wifi access in general.
The editors should consider amending the front page summary because its very misleading.
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