Honeywell Vs Nest: When the Establishment Sues Silicon Valley

An anonymous reader writes with this quote from an article at TechCrunch: "Honeywell filed a multi-patent infringement lawsuit against Nest Labs and Best Buy yesterday. The suit alleges that Nest Labs is infringing on seven Honeywell patents. Honeywell is not seeking licensing fees. The consumer electronic conglomerate wants Nest Labs to cease using the technology and is actually looking to collect damages caused by the infringement. Damages? Bull****. This is about killing the competition."

Comments

Really?

[HexaByte]

Patent hold get to license the technology or not, based upon their own preferences. You can't FORCE a company to share it's patents.

Re:Really?

[Hognoxious]

I total agree's you.

Re:Really?

[crawling_chaos]

Yes you can, you simply change the law. Patents are not inherent to the organization of the universe, and a compulsory license requirement would be in no way unconstitutional.

Re:Really?

[SJHillman]

Isn't it the dream of every company to kill the competition? And isn't the point of patents controlling your innovations, including limiting your competition from using them? It seems to me they're taking a fairly normal and ethic (as far as businesses are ethical these days) route to the whole thing. It's bad business for everyone if companies believe they can get away with infringing patents and then just pay for licensing if they get caught.

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it the dream of every company to kill the competition?

I think you mean "blow the competition away."

Re:Really?

[Curunir_wolf]

You're obviously a legal genius compared to me, because I'm not even aware that such things exist. I'm sure you'll enlighten us all with numerous examples.

The GP was referring to RAND requirements. (Reasonable and Non Discriminatory, or something like that). Very common for industry standards organizations that accept patented technologies as part of the standard. If they do, they usual require RAND requirements from the patent holder.

Re:Really?

[Bobfrankly1]

Typically compulsory licensing requirements include that the price must be fair.

You're obviously a legal genius compared to me, because I'm not even aware that such things exist. I'm sure you'll enlighten us all with numerous examples.

Your sarcasm is as obvious as your lack of knowledge.
Here is a USA example Search for the term "reasonabl" (last character purposely left off so you can hit the variations of the word).
Here is a WIPO Study. Check out page 9. It seems to apply to the EU.
Next time, do your own homework. =D

Re:Really?

[Genda]

The entire point of patents was to promote invention and empower human economy. Honeywell killed off its remote thermostat product line long ago and has no intention of producing any more... they just want to make sure nobody else can enter that business either. That is expressly AGAINST the entire point of patents and their current use as a bludgeon to hold the world at large hostage has rendered them not only nonproductive but profoundly harmful to human enterprise.

The use of patents to cut up human IP into little fiefdoms, and turn corporations into despotic warlords, holders of IP to control and dominate society has become detrimental to human advancement, social well being and and the future of new businesses. We need to change IP laws to protect inventors, but prevent corporations from using IP as a means to destroy fair competition, promote monopolies and as such place the public in the stranglehold of sole proprietorship. It is a natural process as we move towards an information society to have IP become the currency of trade. It is therefore detrimental to society to put artificial boundaries on the free market of ideas and IP. We need to change the way that IP is managed, such that inventors are rewarded... specific people who hold patents on created works and are fairly remunerated for their inventions by both their companies and society at large. As such we also need to limit or eliminate the right of corporations to own patents, because they are compelled to use them as tools to dominate the market.

All of this is the mischief that descends from corporations having human rights without human limitations. It is also high time to define corporations properly as human enterprises, giving them the appropriate rights and freedoms to operate and thrive and remove the privileges that have proven so detrimental to society, human existence and life on the planet in general. We are at a historic nexus and our future demands that we stop and look at what contributes to our future and what threatens it. We carry tremendous baggage from the past, some of it wisdom, some if it atrocity. We need to consciously choose a future and invent who and what we are going to be. To do less, is take our hands off the wheel and simply hope that things will turn out. Good luck with things just turning out.

Re:Really?

[hey!]

And we probably should have some provision for mandatory licensing, if we're going to grant patents like this one:

A thermostat having a thermostat housing and a rotatable selector disposed on the thermostat housing. The rotatable selector adapted to have a range of rotatable positions, where a desired parameter value is identified by the position of the rotatable selector along the range of rotatable positions. The rotatable selector rotates about a rotation axis. A non-rotating member or element, which may at least partially overlap the rotatable selector, may be fixed relative to the thermostat housing via one or more support member(s). The one or more support member(s) may be laterally displaced relative to the rotation axis of the rotatable selector. The non-rotatable member or element may include, for example, a display, a button, an indicator light, a noise making device, a logo, a temperature indicator, and/or any other suitable device or component, as desired.

[US Patent 7159789].

So what is the invention here? A rotating selector that "rotates about a rotation axis?" What else would it rotate about? A rotating selector that can be used to set a desired parameter by rotatable position? How else would a rotating selector be used? A thermostat where the the temperature setting input is "disposed on" the housing?

What they're describing here isn't a mechanism, it's a *design*.

Get a Nest

[Myopic]

I have a Nest and it is awesome. Don't buy it because it will save you money (it may reduce your montly cost a little, but it'll take a while to make up for the cost of the device), rather buy it because it is a fun toy. It's very well implemented, looks nice, the software is great, and you can do cool stuff like connect to it from your pod.

Fuck Honeywell. If their patents have been violated, then where are their Nest-like products? I smell another patent troll.

Re:Get a Nest

[Myopic]

You just compared a learning thermostat to a programmable thermostat. That leads me to this question:

Nest $249
Oranges $1.29/pound

So who is more expensive?

Thanks, Honeywell!

[mepperpint]

I had no idea these Nest Thermostats existed, but they look awesome. Now that I know about them I can go out and buy one and enjoy an increased quality of life. Thanks, Honeywell, for bringing them to my attention!

Re:the thing is

[Trepidity]

They are indeed extremely lame-looking patents, even by the usual standards of patent lameness. Several of them are an attempt to patent early-20th-century button/knob technology, and several others are an attempt to patent standard 1930s-50s control theory. Oh, except with the phrase "used in a thermostat" or "in an HVAC system" added, which makes it totally novel.

One of the patents is for this earthshattering invention: a system that can change from an initial temperature to a second temperature, while indicating on a display an ETA for reaching the target temperature.

Another one is for this: a display with a circular housing over it, where rotating the housing, by means of a potentiometer to which it is attached, changes an HVAC system parameter.

And yet another one is this: a display that asks a user questions in natural language, displays a menu of possible responses (such as "yes" and "no") among which the user may select, and then adjusts an HVAC system's configuration as a result of the user's response.

Common technology in large HVAC systems

[Animats]

Large buildings already have control systems that do this, and Honeywell manufactures many of them.

The "Nest" device may well be mostly hype. (What is "far-field motion detection", anyway?) There's only so much you can do with input from one location and nothing but on/off control over heating and cooling.

Compare the EcoBee, which does the same job, and probably better. EcoBee can handle remote sensors for outdoor air temperature. It measures humidity, which "Next" doesn't claim to do. It can be set up to control fans and dampers. (One of the biggest wins in HVAC management is figuring out how much air to take from outside and how much to recirculate.)

Nest is a status symbol, not a HVAC management system. It looks cool. It creates the illusion that it's doing something "green". It probably helps a little.

But the patents can be BS

[DeadCatX2]

TFS doesn't say (probably to drive more views to the linked page) but this is all about thermostats.

Some of the patents include "thermostat is round and can be rotated", "thermostat asks the user questions", and stuff like that. Considering how skeptical many people are about Apple's "design patents" on "rounded rectangles with touch screens", I would be skeptical of some of these as well.

Now some of the other patents, like leeching power off of the main system, may hold up under more scrutiny (though this technique has been in wide use throughout the industry; I recall two-wire sensors that derive their power parasitically from the data line, and if the patent covers similar technology then it should be revoked).

Also, FYI, you can compel some patents to be licensed. FRAND patents, for instance; Samsung got into hot water when they tried to use FRAND patents as a weapon against Apple.

IMO, you shouldn't be able to use patents to shut down competitors. Especially competitors that outsmarted you by building a better product than you could.

Re:But the patents can be BS

[DeadCatX2]

>.> Reading comprehension fail?

Honeywell's thermostat is parasitically powered, not their sensors. I'm saying the general technique - drawing power from other devices over e.g. data lines - is obvious to anyone skilled in the art of circuitry.

Here's a Maxim DS18S20 1-wire parasite-powered digital thermometer chip. http://www.maxim-ic.com/datasheet/index.mvp/id/2815

Arduino parasitic power. http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Learning/OneWire

Hell. RFID chips derives power parasitically from the transmitter.

Re:the thing is

[sjames]

Personally, I liked the one about 'diverting' power from the home's electrical system to power the thermostat. You mean like every electrical appliance in existence?

Saw it coming - MagicStat

[jtara]

I kinda saw this coming, but didn't grasp the implications, e.g. patent issue.

When I saw Nest, I chuckled at their claims that this was such a revolution. Why, the thermostat will learn your usage patterns by itself!

Scroll back like 30 years or so ago when I lived in Dertroit. A friend of a friend, I think in Ann Arbor, invented this thermostat call MagicStat. It learned your usage patterns all by itself. That's why was was unimpressed by Nest's claims. Yawn. Long, 30-year yawn.

Honeywell bought the MagicStat patents. I presume they've maintained those and taken out new ones throughout the years.

Here's the Trademark record - 1982

[jtara]

Here's the trademark listing for Magic-Stat which was issued to QuadSix Corporation of Ann Arbor, Michigan filed in February, 1982, and subsequently assigned to Honeywell Corporation. One

http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4008:kk95v8.3.2

(I realize the trademark has nothing to do with patents. Just using the trademark to help fix the date and origination of the "learning thermostat" idea.)

So, it looks like Nest took 30 year old technology and created a buzz by giving it a bit of Apple shine.

I actually had one of the original Magic-Stats, before it was sold under the Honeywell label. I was reasonably happy with it. The unique feature is that it would learn the inertia of your system, so that it would achieve the desired temperature at the time that you wanted. That, and the unique simplified user interface. e.g. you just set it to the desired temperature when it doesn't seem right, and it learns your pattern from that.

It just amazes me how much buzz these guys got over something that was invented 30 years prior.