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Motorola's Most Important 18 Patents
quarterbuck writes "Bloomberg has a story on Google's acquisition of Motorola and quotes IP lawyers who claim that 18 patents dating to 1994 are probably what Google is after. These patents cover technology essential to the mobile-device industry, including location services, antenna designs, e-mail transmission, touchscreen motions, software-application management and third-generation wireless."
Which 18 patents are they? You'd think in a 23-paragraph article they would have found space to list them.
Errr .. because email was around way before 1994. Maybe not in it's current form, and maybe not as prevalent - but it certainly existed way before then
Outlook and Exchange weren't around in 1994. POP3 and SMTP most certainly were.
Email actually hasn't changed much at all since 1994.
It is clear: Google wants to get into the hardware business.
Or the patent troll business..... ?
From what I've seen over the past few years, the two are synonymous. You can't be in the hardware business if you can't counter-sue.
SMTP is described in RFC 822 dated August 13, 1982.
By 1994 e-mail was pretty much as it is right now. Maybe without current spam-blocking techniques.
I don't know where you heard that... All I've heard is 20 years or 17 years, which is what's pretty well summarized here:
Quick quote from it:
For applications filed before June 8, 1995, the term is 17 years from the issue date or 20 years from the earliest claimed domestic priority date, the longer term applying.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_patent_law
I'm actually on the board of a technical standards committee (The South African Bureau of Standards) that does all official standards for our country. FRAND (where I am anyway) *only* applies in cases of standardisation - where implementing a patent is the only way to meet a National Standard *and* the patent holder was part of the standardisation process.
Not sure where you get the idea that FRAND applies to anything that is widely used, or is a defacto/ad hoc standard. It applies only in a very narrow use-case.
I sincerely doubt that email is a National Standard.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
6 patents from Illinois 1 lawsuit:
5,311,516 Paging System Using Message Fragmentation to Redistribute Traffic
5,319,712 Method and Apparatus for Providing Cryptographic Protection of Data Stream in a Communication System
5,490,230 Digital Speech Coder Having Optimized Signal Energy Parameters
5,572,193 Method for Authentication and Protection of Subscribers in Telecommunications Systems
6,175,559 Method for Generating Preamble Sequences in a Code Division Multiple Access System
6,359,898 Method for Performing a Countdown Function During a Mobile-Originated Transfer for a Packet Radio System
6 patents from Illinois 2 lawsuit:
5,359,317 Method and apparatus for selectively storing a portion of a received message in a selective call receiver
5,636,223 Methods of adaptive channel access attempts
6,246,697 Method and system for generating a complex pseudonoise sequence for processing a code division multiple access signal
6,246,862 Sensor controlled user interface for portable communication device
6,272,333 Method and apparatus in a wireless communication system for controlling a delivery of data
7,751,826 System and method for E911 location privacy protection
6 patents from Florida:
5,710,987 Receiver having concealed external antenna
5,754,119 Multiple pager status synchronization system and method
5,958,006 Method and apparatus for communicating summarized data
6,008,737 Apparatus for controlling utilization of software added to a portable communication device
6,101,531 System for communicating user-selected criteria filter prepared at wireless client to communication server for filtering data transferred from host to said wireless client
6,377,161 Method and apparatus in a wireless messaging system for facilitating an exchange of address information
Yes, but spam didn't become a major phenomena until two Utah lawyers published a book on how to make money fast by plundering Usenet, just as e-mail viruses didn't proliferate until Outlook, the Sendmail and Vax Mail scripting bugs notwithstanding.
The good news is that Queen Elizabeth didn't start using e-mail until 1974, so she's not to blame for unsolicited mass mailings.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)