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Patent Troll Goes After Notebook Cooling
An anonymous reader writes "If you are manufacturing notebooks and you are using hardware that needs to be cooled down occasionally, you may be in the crosshairs of IPventure, which claims patent rights to an approach that is common in all notebooks today. For now, the company appears to be establishing its case by suing Fujitsu and Lenovo over the use of its invention in the Lifebook and Thinkpad series of products."
So the method is common in notebooks today... meaning it has been in wide use for at least a few years now. The patent holder just waited until everyone had committed to selling that design, so that they could just sue everyone. Submarine patent tactics if I ever saw them.
Palm trees and 8
This patent will go nowhere.
They are suing companies that have enough money to defend themselves, and will invalidate it by claiming prior art (this system has been used for a long time now).
It's patent troll 1 - 0 - 1, sue those without enough money to a lengthy court battle so you can charge a "reasonable" amount to forget the whole thing.
Trolls and idiots, I say
It's obvious we need to find a new way how to make money
The patent is on a technique old enough that I think my PowerBook 540 would have violated it back in 1994.
(I'm not claiming this was the first machine to do this, just that it was the first one I owned that I knew did so.)
... explain how our current system of IP law "promote[s] the Progress of Science and useful Arts."
Come on, guys. Don't disappoint me.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
No, it completely fails to be a novel idea. When you are running anything (from an engine to your body) fast and it starts to overheat, you slow it down. It is common sense to anyone. Everyone does this instinctively. It is not a new idea. Patenting that as a novel process is as ridiculous as patenting driving at lower RPMs when your car gets close to overheating.
From TFA: "original patent claimed by IPventure was filed on June 22, 2007"
The Apple MacBook introduced in May 2006 did this. I'm sure there were many others before, that's just one clear example.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
From the article:
"However, when prolonged activity (i.e., sustained fast clock frequency) causes the processor’s temperature to become dangerously high for proper operation, the clock frequency is reduced so as to maintain processing speed at a reduced speed while preventing overheating".
This reminds me about this classic Tom's Hardware video about what happens to a CPU when the heat sink is removed.
patent filed in 2007, rewarded in 2009
I just checked a pentium4 datasheet, marked copyright november 2000 it describes exactly what that patent is about, reducing clock frequency in response to temperature.
This is interesting because it affects the CPUs and the GPUs. But I believe this dates back to at least the Pentium 4 which would slow down if it started to over heat which is what this patent covers. Their going after Fujitsu and Lenovo because they probably know they can't win against Intel or AMD. What the computer manufacturers need to do is to tell a Judge that they unknowingly bought a possibly infringing product from a reputable supplier and that IPventure needs to sue Intel and AMD who are actually manufacturing the infringing technology. Obviously, Lenovo and Fujitsu are in no position to defend an IP infringement case when they are not doing the infringing. They may also need to go into detail about how they are only adding a fan but the CPUs and GPUs will still speed step even without a fan.
I think that Lenovo should, as a sign of friendship and cooperation towards them, replace a Thinkpad's CPU fan and heatsink and replace it with a dead squirrel then mail it to them. You know, to try and prove that they're going to get away from that whole CPU cooling thing.
is that there is no adversarial position, as in a civil or criminal lawsuit.
This means there is no effective counterpoise to the seeker of the frivolous patent, since the patent office itself has nothing to lose from rank incompetence.
An attorney team whose reward is correlated with the number of patents it gets dismissed or invalidated would be quite interesting.
Then we need to work on the broad strokes of varying patentable periods depending on the field at hand. Drugs, software, and shoes probably ought to be patentable for differing periods of time.
I independently innovated a profile for RivaTuner that uses this exact same technique to cool a GPU in the worst-case scenario, by underclocking it when the fan is already at 100% past a certain threshold. I guess I'm a naughty infringer, too? I'm not even a fully matriculated genius, so if *I* can come up with the idea on my own then just how unique and non-obvious can it be?
The people who operate IPVentures are the only sort of trolls we should be trying to hunt down with torches. Forum trolls are pin pricks by comparison to the damage these ugly creatures do.
Come on, guys. Don't disappoint me.
[Eeyore] Soooorrryy, Daniel. We've got nothing.[/Eeyore]
Basically you don't get to keep a patent for doing nothing. Basically I'd do it so that within 6 months of the time you should reasonably be aware there is a product using your patent, you must contact that person about either licensing your patent or discontinuing the use of your technology. Failure to do so renders your patent invalid.
So you don't have to develop something right away, that's ok, but if someone does develop it, you have to get on talking to them, you can't hide in the tall grass until it is popular. You have to exert your patent, or it goes away.
The "reasonably aware" clause protects you from having someone roll out a product but only sell it in one store in the middle of nowhere and then claiming you didn't defend yourself. Has to be something that is on the mass market, something you would be reasonably aware of, to count.
Not perfect, but nothing is, and it would do a much better job of stopping this shit.
Big business doesn't read slashdot.
If one looks at the wording of the U.S. Constitution and some of the writings of the time on patents, the purpose of patents in U.S. law is to encourage people to make their inventions known (rather than keeping them as trade secrets). Looked at in this way puts a somewhat different interpretation on "obviousness". If you make something and it is obvious how you did it, it fails the obviousness test. There is no advantage to society from giving you a patent, someone else can duplicate what you have done even if you never tell anyone how you did it.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
:)
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
But don't all these lowly moves by trollish "software patent" (what a joke) holders, M$ included, apply only where such laws were approved (like US, South Korea, Japan)?
What if a company simply bypass these (admittedly bigger) markets and go for countries with more sane laws (i.e., those without software patents)?
Does it pay to fight such annoying hassles? From a strategic POV, is it sound to feed the M$ monster even further?
Big business doesn't read slashdot.
You're probably right, but that doesn't seem to prevent a number of /.ers from singing the praises of corporate power generally, and IP law in particular, every chance they get. It's possible that they're paid shills; more likely they're just victims of a kind of economic Stockholm Syndrome.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
The patent shows a SLECTOR whatever that is.
I suggest they use a MUX or SELECTOR instead. Or atleast describe their solutions as using one.
Immediately it sounded as if they are 'gearing up, attempting to squeeze some much needed cash from these lesser of companies in order to move into second gear, Toshiba, Sharp, Apple, third gear, MS, fourth gear, overdrive? Things could really start heating up in laptop land.
...I'll sue every bar in the US after revealing a patent on water-based ice.
Furries make the internet go.
Have everyone install a distro with Linux kernel 2.6.37 or higher, cooling problem solved!
“The invention monitors a processor’s activity and its temperature. When there is no activity for the processor, a slow clock frequency is used, thereby saving power and lowering the thermal heat produced by the processor. On the other hand, when there is activity for the processor, a fast clock frequency is used. However, when prolonged activity (i.e., sustained fast clock frequency) causes the processor’s temperature to become dangerously high for proper operation, the clock frequency is reduced so as to maintain processing speed at a reduced speed while preventing overheating.“
Filed in 2007, this sounds exactly like Intel SpeedStep that was invented a decade or so ago.
Yes and women who willfully allow themselves to be raped should be stoned to death. See how fun this logic is?
Uh...
First: Your analogy should be "women who willfully allow themselves to be raped should forfeit relevant patents. I've never forfeited patents or been stoned to death, but I assume the former is slightly less harsh.
Second: Someone should make a law about internet debate and rape similar to Godwin's. I've noticed whenever law arguments degrade into "lets compare this situation to rape," No reasonable debate continues. Patent infringement is not the "brain rape."
when is the law going to drop the hammer on these IP trolls?
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Crucifiction's too good for 'em.
(I seem to be bit short of tolerance today).
In the comments for the linked article (http://www.conceivablytech.com/8274/business/patent-troll-goes-after-notebook-cooling), someone pointed out that downclocking to prevent overheating was already used in the Socket 775 Pentium 4.
Which was on the market before the patent was even filed, and as a mass market product from the world's largest CPU vendor, its features were widely reported. So it seems likely that this particular patent troll filed the patent while knowing there was prior art.
C - the footgun of programming languages
Patent filed in 2007? Here's a video of a Pentium 4 throttling down due to overheating, from 2001
That's what we need to deal with patent trolls; swift, silent, professional. And with their work done: a great leap forward in tech, unfettered by bottom-feeding extortionists.
> the company appears to be establishing its case by suing Fujitsu and Lenovo over the use of its invention in the Lifebook and Thinkpad series of products ..
What 'invention`, a temperature controlled variable CPU clock frequency ...