Preliminary Finding Invalidates VoIP Patent

netbuzz writes "After a review, the US Patent Office has issued a preliminary finding that the Electronic Frontier Foundation calls 'an important first step in busting a patent that stifles innovation and the use of VoIP as a free speech tool.' (Here is the EFF's press release.) C2 Communications has used the patent to extract one-time payments from the likes of AT&T, Verizon, and Qwest."

Comments

Free VoIP

[Algorithmnast]

Perhaps this will allow the Free VoIP providers to expand without having to worry about Death By Lawyer. Now where's my FIOS?

Re:Free VoIP

[popeye44]

I have a question in cases like this, Assume you paid 1 billion dollars to this company. Can you now ask for it back because their patent was invalidated? "probably not I'm guessing"

Re:Free VoIP

[Algorithmnast]

IANAL, but I would think that if company A coerces company B into leasing rights to use a patented idea... then the contract would probably have a "too bad sucker" clause in it for just this possibility.

In other words: the contract would either specify the answer and preclude a lawsuit, or it would (foolishly) leave the issue unanswered which might encourage the suit.

Of course, even if companies sued and won the money back, they'd probably never see a penny - the company likely paid out all of its money to employees and/or stockholders. And you can't really sue them.

Undermining progress to profit extortionists

[Anonymous Coward]

If Americans don't rein in software patents soon, they're eventually going to turn us into a technological backwater.

Can you imagine if mathematicians couldn't use certain types of calculations for 20 years if somebody else happened to use them first? What if fiction authors weren't allowed to use particular combinations of words if another author "registered" them for "protection"?

As a programmer, I'm continually amazed by how backwards, technically-illiterate politicians are tricked (or willingly lead) into outlawing technological advancement. Make no mistake, that's what software patents do. There are a bunch of rationalized lies about "protecting innovators" -- but in the real world, software patents exist solely to profit a few extortionists who use them as an easy way to gain market share without actually inventing anything.

In the real world, software patents do not protect innovations; they protect conceptual monopolists, and hinder actual innovations.

Let's read the claims!

[CajunArson]

Claim 1:

1. A method of routing a full duplex telephone call between a first telephone set and a second telephone set using a public computer network as at least part of a communication link connecting said first and second telephone sets, comprising the steps of:

receiving at a first computer network access port a first telephone call from a central office placed from said fist[sic] telephone set initiating said full duplex telephone call, said first telephone call specifying a telephone number of said second telephone set, without specifying additional telephone destinations;

converting data received from the central office to an Intenet protocol;

establishing a communication link over said public computer network between said first computer network access port and a remote second computer network access port;

placing a second telephone call from said second computer network access port to said second telephone set using a PSTN;

converting data received from the public computer network from Intenet protocol to a PSTN protocol; and

connecting said first telephone call, said communication link and said second telephone call to thereby establish a telephone call between said first telephone set and said second telephone set.

A little broad, but then again it was filed in 1995 which is over a year before H.323 was even published. Note the requirement of a PSTN: If you are just making a VoIP call over Skype this patent does not cover that since there is no PSTN. In fact, and Pure VoIP call is outside the scope of this patent. I wonder if the EFF had been around in the 1870's if they would have been accusing Alexander Graham Bell of "stifling free speech" with the original telephone....

Support the EFF

[cesman]

This is a fine example of why one should support the EFF. https://w2.eff.org/donate/index.php

Re:So can AT&T, Verizon, and Qwest get refunds

[mea37]

"Why would we offer you a refund? We offered in exchange for your payment a promise that we wouldn't sue under this patent, and we aren't going to!"

For More Information

[Grond]

What's being announced here is a non-final office action in an ex parte reexamination. Basically, the EFF submitted some prior art that presented a 'substantial new question' of patentability and asked the Patent Office to review it. From there, the Patent Office and the patent owner hash things out; the prior art submitter's role is finished. (Prior art submitters can take a more hands-on role via inter partes reexamination, but that's more expensive and time consuming than ex parte reexam).

Reexamination cases are a little tricky to look up because you have to find the control number for the case. The control number in this case is 90/009637, which you can plug into Public PAIR. Here is the non-final office action that is the subject of the post, since you can't link directly to documents in PAIR.

The patent owner will have an opportunity to respond to this non-final office action. If the examiner is satisfied, then that's that. More likely the examiner will not accept the arguments or will have discovered new ones. Typically there are one or two non-final actions and then a final action. After that, the patent owner can still appeal to the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences. From the time of appeal to a decision is, at median, a couple of years. From there the patent owner could still appeal to the Federal Circuit.

So, while this is a preliminary finding, it is very far from definitive.