Twitter Faces Patent Infringement Lawsuit

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Twitter Faces Patent Infringement Lawsuit

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday August 5, 2009 @05:10AM from the stupid-but-predictable dept.

Digital Dan writes "Twitter is being sued for patent infringement. Surprised? OK, probably not, but you'd think the plaintiff would at least wait for Twitter to actually make money before striking. According to TechCrunch: 'Twitter is being sued ... by TechRadium, a Texas-based technology company which makes mass notification systems for public safety organizations, the military, and utilities.' The abstract to patent #7130389 describes it: 'A digital notification and response system utilizes an administrator interface to transmit a message from an administrator to a user contact device. The system comprises a dynamic information database that includes user contact data, priority information, and response data. The administrator initiates distribution of the message based upon grouping information, priority information, and the priority order.' Two other patents are involved as well."

13 of 236 comments (clear)

I for one... by santax · 2009-08-05 05:12 · Score: 5, Insightful

think there is bound to be a bit of prior art here... like the teletext, sms, wordprocessors and even digital radiotransmissions. Who grants this stuf anyway?
1. Re:I for one... by YouWantFriesWithThat · 2009-08-05 06:37 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  what the GP thinks is relevant.
  
  this isn't the court case. the GP doesn't need to produce citations just because you demand it. this is a bunch of people discussing the filing of the lawsuit. the nature of a casual discussion is to share opinions, not list facts. the GP is allowed an opinion. you are not the judge. get over yourself.
2. Re:I for one... by Red+Flayer · 2009-08-05 08:32 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Just to expound on that a bit... there is a logical reason for it.
  
  Letting a bureaucratic patent examiner be the final arbiter of patent claims leaves the potential for errors with far-reaching (for the applicants) consequences, never mind the potential for abuse.
  
  The Patent Office's current practice seems to be "If everything appears to be in order, grant the patent -- any disputes can be settled in court".
  
  The reason this is a somewhat logical approach is because in court, both sides of the dispute have the ability to present their cases, which theoretically results in a fairer result.
  
  The downside, of course, is the cost (both public cost, and the litigants' costs) of hearings and/or trials. As usual, when lawyers write the laws and regulations, lawyers benefit from them.
  
  And while court costs and legal fees have a way of squeezing out the little guy, it's reassuring to me that patents can be argued in court, and applicants aren't *entirely* dependent on the whim of a patent examiner or two.
  
  --
  "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I'm honestly surprised... by NecroPuppy · 2009-08-05 05:14 · Score: 5, Interesting

A Texas based patent lawsuit that doesn't, at first blush, appear to be a patent troll.
TechRadium actually has a website (http://www.techradium.com/) and appears to sell products.

--
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
1. Re:I'm honestly surprised... by NecroPuppy · 2009-08-05 05:25 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  No, a patent troll is a company that exists solely for the purpose of patenting things and then filing lawsuits.
  This company, as they actually have products, is not such a troll; I make no statement as to the validity of their patent, or whether or not it should have been granted.
  As they aren't an NPE or NME, the normal defintion of patent troll doesn't apply.
  I do think it's rather dumb to sue a company that isn't making any money and has no real prospects for doing so, but that just makes them dumb too; not a patent troll.
  
  --
  I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
2. Re:I'm honestly surprised... by Shakrai · 2009-08-05 05:28 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I do think it's rather dumb to sue a company that isn't making any money and has no real prospects for doing so, but that just makes them dumb too; not a patent troll.
  Why is it dumb? Presumably they have assets that could be taken to satisfy a judgment. Waiting until they start making millions of bucks and then filing your lawsuit would seem to be more questionable than just filing it. The former suggests that you are only in it for the money. The latter suggests that you may actually care about your patent.
  
  --
  I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
  We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
3. Re:I'm honestly surprised... by maraist · 2009-08-05 05:47 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Patents are evil, they should never have been added to our constitution. They serve no useful social role. Processes are what people come up with to get something useful done. They are not themselves the goal of any useful society or societal actor. The original (ill-conceived) intent of patents was to allow clever commoners to make a living by doing nothing but thinking things up. What this does is create artificial 'property' out of an otherwise unlimited resource (e.g. thought). Producing scarcity where none SHOULD exist.
  
  So instead of negotiating price on prime real-estate. Or convincing somebody to give up their precious time to labor on your behalf, we instead have royalties, and more importantly, denial of service. Namely, I can prevent your innovation by strategically patenting random otherwise-useless things that I know can prevent you from accomplishing real work (that otherwise benefits society).
  
  If I were strategically buying up land to prevent your rail-road, it would be the same thing.. Or if I were hiring the only people technically capable of doing your work (i.e. MS paying off big Linux gurus), then it would be the same thing. But, in those situations, we're dealing with real materials. IP is fictionally held ransom by the US founders. If we'd been founded 100 years before or 100 years later, we wouldn't have had IP. It's right up there with our funky archaic embeded masonic imagery.
  
  Therefore suing for patent infringement is trolling. Constitution be dammned.
  
  --
  -Michael
4. Re:I'm honestly surprised... by Teancum · 2009-08-05 06:04 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  The concept of patents for the designs of mechanical engineers seems to have at least the fundamentals of a good idea. It takes quite a bit of effort to get some mechanical device created, a process developed to make the thing, distributed to various retail outlets (or to potential customers for devices intended more for businesses than ordinary consumers), and the cash flow coming back to the group that made the thing in the first place.
  Keep in mind that the constitutional provision asserts that purpose of both patents and copyright is to "promote the useful arts and science".
  Where the problem has come in not only this case but a great many others is the expansion of the role of a patent to cover things like business methods, genetic sequences, computer software (originally unpatentable), and other more nebulous ideas and theoretical constructs that have nothing to do with an actual tangible item. None of these should have patent protection, and IMHO it is an abuse of constitutional authority to even grant these kind of patents.
  Furthermore, I would have to agree that patents in and of themselves, even in regards to mechanical patents, are a waste of government bureaucrats and courts. They don't do what they claim (protecting the independent entrepreneur/inventor), nor to they really provide any benefit for society as a whole, nor even promote scientific endeavors. I dare anybody to show an independent private "inventor" who creates something and makes money by selling the idea to some mega-corporation for royalties. It doesn't happen.
NET SEND by ThatSteve · 2009-08-05 05:17 · Score: 4, Insightful

Maybe they can use net send to communicate the failure of their suit.....
They patented email! by jholder · 2009-08-05 05:20 · Score: 5, Interesting

As far as I can tell, email distribution lists and automated rules for re-sending email after receiving them from an email list is also covered under the claims in this patent. How did the patent examiners fail to see this?

--
-- John
Re:Not again by sixteenraisins · 2009-08-05 05:26 · Score: 5, Insightful

...is it just me or does the concept of "mass notification systems that allow a group administrator or 'message Author' to originate a single message that will be delivered simultaneously via multiple communication gateways to members of a group of 'message Subscribers'" encompass things such as newspapers and cable TV?
Yes, it does encompass those things, IMO.
It does not I believe, include Twitter.
Why?
Because Twitter (1) does not use an administrator to originate a message, and (2) doesn't "deliver" a message. It posts a message, where it must then be retrieved. Push vs. pull. Big difference.

--
When you're not looking, this sig is in Latin.
Comment removed by account_deleted · 2009-08-05 05:32 · Score: 4, Informative

Comment removed based on user account deletion
Re:Not again by schon · 2009-08-05 05:34 · Score: 5, Insightful

Because Twitter [...] posts a message, where it must then be retrieved. Push vs. pull. Big difference.
I thought the whole "big thing" about Twitter is that it can send SMS messages to subscriber's phones? That's "push" pretty much by definition, isn't it?