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NTP Sues Six Major Tech Companies Over Wireless Email Patents
rgraham writes "NTP, the same company that sued and eventually settled with RIM for $612.5 million over an IP dispute, has now sued Apple, Google, HTC, LG, Microsoft and Motorola for infringement of wireless email patents. In the press release, NTP co-founder Donald Stout said, 'Use of NTP's intellectual property without a license is just plain unfair to NTP and its licensees. Unfortunately, litigation is our only means of ensuring the inventor of the fundamental technology on which wireless email is based, Tom Campana, and NTP shareholders are recognized, and are fairly and reasonably compensated for their innovative work and investment. We took the necessary action to protect our intellectual property.'"
inventor of the fundamental technology on which wireless email is based
Really? Which technology would that be: wireless or email?
Funny may not give karma, but +5 Informative never made anyone snort coffee out their nose.
Step 2: FUD+Lawsuit
There are only 3 steps in the underpants gnome plans. Step 2 would be: ???. HTH HAND
Nasty Patent Troll?
First, it seems they forgot to sue Nokia.
Second, I see six very big companies who suddenly have a reason to work together. The $600M NTP got from RIM is a penitence compared to what these people can afford on legal.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Email is over 20 years old, so there's no way they could patent it. Combining email with IP-over-GSM is simply combining two existing technologies, which isn't patent worthy, so they couldn't have patented that. And, if they had patented something at the transport layer or higher, they wouldn't have called their patents "wireless email patents", they would have called them "wireless networking patents". So, their patents can't possibly be valid. I'd look them up and show exactly why - but they were so ashamed of how much they abused the patent system, that they wouldn't even tell us which patents they are. FTA:
What are these patents? We can only guess, as the one-page release issued by NTP's public-relations firm does not name them.
Network Time Protocol sues NTP for maligning their good name.
You know, I think society was fundamentally better when people were physically afraid of screwing over their neighbors too badly. Yeah, I understand the downsides to vigilantism and a lynchmob mentality, but I'm not completely convinced that the tradeoff has been worth it.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
the other thing to consider is that if step two involves lawyers, it doesn't matter how many steps follow, there will never be Profit!!
Prior art probably already exists for this patent...
I had an assistant print my eMails for me so that I could read them years before wireless internet routers were even being produced (back in the early 1990s). By holding those hardcopy eMails in my hands to read them, I was reading my eMail in a wireless fashion.
The Lumber Cartel, local 42 (Canadian branch)
British Columbia, Canada
I hold the US patent 38967, regarding the design of generally worded patents with the goal of making a quick buck off of multinational corporations well after the fact. The wonton disregaurd of my IP will not go undealt with.
Quick we need to patent an idea so we can sue someone and make money...i hate these damn patent trolls... Open Source all the way then anyone using any open source has to publish under that so no more patent trolls or would that make more because they would go after the idea and concept then???
wonton disregaurd
Would that be fried wonton, or wonton soup? I'm not even going to guess on "disregaurd"
This isn't the sig you're looking for... Move along.
Perhaps step two should be "Go to law school".
It looks like he wrote a bunch of patents regarding wireless data communications.
He isn't even alive anymore which is funny that they mention his name and getting recognition
I don't expect apple et.al to take this sitting down.
And RTP's NDA muzzle on Geoff Goodfellow and his prior art bites six more companies in the ass.
While it's true that NTP received a $612.5 million damages award from RIM, it's important to remember that NTP initially offered to settle with RIM for approximately $6 million. Remember too that RIM was found to have been a willful infringer, so its damages were increased and included attorney's fees. It also engaged in some courtroom shenanigans that likely contributed to the increased damages award. Another reason the eventual settlement was so high was that it was a full and final settlement (i.e., accounted for future use of the patented invention), not just a payment of damages that had already accrued. Finally, the litigation took 6 years, and in that time (2000-2006) the market for smart phones exploded, so RIM effectively racked up a lot of damages.
The point is that a lot of the large settlement was RIM's fault: it chose to fight a losing battle, it was a willful infringer, and it behaved unethically in the courtroom. It's hard to have a lot of sympathy for them.
In any event, the cost to end users was not that great. RIM has sold ~100 million BlackBerries. The cost of the settlement amounts to roughly $6 per unit, which is about a 2-5% royalty on the cost of each device. Compared to the cost of owning a smartphone (often well over $1000 per year when you factor in the voice and data plans), $6 isn't much.
Many of you may now be saying, sure 2-5% isn't much, but it adds up fast if you have to settle with multiple patent owners, each of which wants their 2-5%. That's true, and a significant litigation reform effort is building behind allowing defendants in patent infringement suits to present evidence regarding the royalty rates for patents other than the ones in suit. Right now, the jury doesn't get to hear that you have to pay royalties on X other patents for each device sold and that those royalties are typically very small (e.g., pennies per unit or .1% of the cost or somesuch), so it's common for the jury to award comparatively high royalties. There is an effort to change that to allow juries to work with a much more complete picture of how royalty structures work in the real world rather than viewing only the patents in suit in isolation.
I think society was fundamentally better when people were physically afraid of screwing over their neighbors too badly
No, it wasn't.
All these patent trolls make me want to just come out and make a list of "ideas" just to establish "prior art". So, say I think teleportation would be cool. The fact that I thought of it here will be prior art for anyone who invents it later and patents it.
So ya, I hearby already thought of teleportation. Any of you really smart physics majors out there thinking of inventing it, don't bother, its mine.
AccountKiller
I'm on the side of the lawyers on this one. NTP got lucky when RIM treated them with the contempt they deserved and the courts took offence. This time it will be the lawyers who get lucky, not NTP. How big a hole will NTP punch in their stake?
They did pay him while he was alive though.
My God! James A. Lawsof? How did it feel in 1863 when you were granted this patent?
http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=vgoAAAAAEBAJ&dq=38967
http://news.cnet.com/Patent-office-issues-final-rejection-of-NTP-patent/2100-1047_3-6042049.html
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued a final rejection of one of the five patents at issue in NTP's long-running case against BlackBerry maker Research In Motion.
The final rejection was posted on the Patent Office's Web site for the NTP-held patent, which covers a system for sending e-mails over a wireless network to a mobile device. The Patent Office has already issued nonfinal actions rejecting the claims in four out of the five NTP patents in question, but a final rejection is required before the appeals process can begin.
All in 2006...
http://opencm3.net, http://www.nongnu.org/gm2/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_J._Campana,_Jr.
Making your link link to the site it says, for those too lazy to cut-n-paste.
He meant to say disregourd, as in the process of undoing the readding of a gourd to said wonton soup. It's delicious without the gourd that was there (again).
Wow, that's really big. Anyone has any doubts left of the EVIL IP PATENT laws???
It was clearly just a matter of time before Network Time Protocol became sentient and turned on its masters.
...because they have a track record of smacking down patent trolls, like today. Maybe some of those companies can toughen up and follow the example.
The lawyers seem to profit. Maybe step one should be to become a patent lawyer...
Its friday and I am in a food coma from the pork adobo lunch.
Thanks!
I'm not interested enough to read details, but I'm pretty sure that folks did UUCP (including email) over HAM radio decades ago.
It doesn't matter what you think you remember. What matters is what is exposed in the body of the patent - not in the introduction and not in an abstract.
My guess is that this isn't simply about POP3 over GSM, but special low-power push systems like Blckberry's system and Microsoft's ActiveSync, which is licensed by all of the named companies. I also find it interesting that Palm isn't on that list now that they're backed by HP's deep pockets. Perhaps their patent portfolio really is a nuclear deterrent.
Thanks for the attention. One of NTP's PR folks just e-mailed a copy of the company's complaint against Google. There's a copy embedded after the jump of my post, and you can also read or download the PDF via Scribd. I encourage you all to give that document a careful read, then look through the patents claimed (I've linked to the relevant USPTO pages in the post as well).
- RP
It is your patent!
In particular 5,436,960, and I note that something like half of the paragraphs in it, though numbered differently, all say:
Which sounds like a particulary contorted way to describe a router taking the data out of a packet routed to it, and routing it to another system based on the destination address.
Then, in the Description he lies:
Email has always had a send-to-multiple recipients functionality, and has always used store-and-forward servers over packet networks and/or instances dial-up lines. It is not "point-to-point" except rarely when sending to the same host where the mail originates.
Basically, when you realize that an Ethernet is an RF frequency network, this patent describes email being forwarded by an outgoing mail server and being routed to one or more destinations. Pretty much what SMTP over TCP/IP had been doing for over 20 years at the time this lame-o patent was filed. I can't wait to see what the other ones look like (shudder).
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
3Com press release of the Palm VII in October of 1999, two months before this patent was filed. The press release explicitly mentions wireless e-mail. http://investor.palm.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=338689
There is probably even earlier prior art as the idea is trivial and was plainly obvious when 3Com released the Palm VII (microwave stations anyone?). This patent also seem to cover any computer using Wifi.
It was stupid when it was filed and is stupid now.
Lucky bastard.
More to the point, sooner or later when the cost of litigation is greater than the cost of a hit squad someone will make the simple economic decision to follow the path of least resistance.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Follow the gourd!
Hire a guy for a week. Give him the problem parameters, but not the patent. See what he comes up with in way of solutions.
Any result to be considered prior art for any later attempts at same.
And, of course, the company that want to get the patent have to pay for the guy - and the guy is *not* selected by them.
I'm going to patent the "patent trolling" so, when one patent troll appears I'll be able to charge them because they are overlapping my patent
Kill the patent trolls.
Ban patents.
These RAT BASTARDS ...NTP... not only use the abbreviation for the Network Time Protocol...an internet standard... but they are suing companies based on patents that are under review because the US patent office has been presented with PRIOR ART. These clowns are nothing more than a holding company, sitting on paper. They aren't engineers, they don't make anything. They just sue people. They sued RIM for 621 Million. RIM developed their technology independent of anything these guys have. As stated, there is also prior art. But these clowns are suing everyone + world based on the notion that perhaps they can pressure the US patent office just like they have been pressuring people who actually make stuff. When their patents are rolled over, RIM will want their money back. I hope RIM sues the fucking crap out of them.
Look, they got $612 million from RIM and they have to use it somehow. This is just another flush to keep the money swirling in the great porcelain basin of our economy.
Considering the amount of characters spent asserting things about patents on Slashdot, there is a large amount of ignorance and bad information. Phrases like "final rejection" in patent law don't automatically mean what the English language would suggest. In this case--and you can tell directly from the linked article--the "final" rejection meant another round of reviews and appeals.
I work at a company that had an important (to us) patent "rejected"--the story even appeared on Slashdot. I assumed that this would have been bad (it sure sounds bad) but the internal message was that this was an expected and even desired part of the process, as it gave a chance to get a court to affirm the patent, which as I understand it carries far more weight in future legal disputes. On Slashdot, of course, all the patent watchers thought rejected meant rejected and was a sign of fundamental change.
So, who was right? You can't believe internal corporate spin, of course. But not only did the internal line prove to be sincere (not my department, I would have known if people had panicked), and not only did their predictions come to pass (our patent was upheld), but it was apparently *obviously* correct--our investors shrugged at the rejection, there wasn't even a day's worth of movement, even though it would have cost us about 90% of our profits if we'd lost.
I don't mean anyone at Slashdot is stupid. I don't consider myself stupid, and despite years of industry experience I thought the same thing most people here did when I first saw the word "rejected." But the crowd here does *not* show a lot of wisdom or expertise when it comes to patent law; terms of art are misunderstood and comments that misunderstand them are then modded up quickly. As with a lot of complex fields, a few google searches are not sufficient to bring a layman up to speed.
I learned my lesson from the above incident, so I'm not asserting anything about NTP's validity or spending time trying to find out--it'd be too easy to fool myself. But there are more recent claims about the status of NTP's patents in this article: http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202463426991&pos=ataglance and someone reading it would get a different impression of the current situation than what is stated in the parent post.
Quick -- let's patent the process by which someone patents an obvious idea and then sues everyone already using it? We could call it "Patent Trolling" and then sue NTP for billions.