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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.
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?
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???
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.
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/
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).
...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.
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
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.