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Nest Labs Calls Honeywell Lawsuit 'Worse Than Patent Troll'
UnknowingFool writes "Over a year ago, Nest Labs launched the Learning Thermostat. The brainchild of Tony Fadell, former head of Apple's iPod and iPhone division, the Learning Thermostat promised a self-programming and wifi-enabled thermostat that would save energy costs. After some glowing reviews, Nest found itself in a patent infringement lawsuit against Honeywell. Nest responded with multiple claims calling Honeywell 'worse than a patent troll.' Among Nest's claims: Honeywell hid prior art (some on some previous patents that they owned) and inapplicable patents (patent on mechanical potentiometer when Nest's product does not include one). Nest's stance is that Honeywell filed the lawsuits not to extract money but to set back progress so that they can control the industry."
I thought allowing your products to succeed and preventing others from entering the market is part of the idea of a patent? Unlike a troll that has no product, at least Honeywell has one... Even if their claims do not apply. ;)
EA David Gardner -"... but the consumers have proven that actually what they want is fun."
Honeywell is turning up the heat on the competition...
Tony obviously didn't learn anything from Jobs. Tony should patent the shape of the honeywell thermostat and get injunctions against honeywell.
Honeywell is known for this type of practice. I remember the last sales rep that came to our office. His statement was along the lines of 'you should just buy from us because we own all the IP. Even if you buy from a distributor or competitor you are still buying from us.'
They want their section of the market and will do anything to keep it.
Nest's stance is that Honeywell filed the lawsuits not to extract money but to set back progress so that they can control the industry."
That would make this a Frivolous lawsuit , not a patent troll, and as such the defendant would be subject to compensation.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
So how do you feel about companies re-applying for a patent that they already received after the original patent has expired as a way of restricting competition?
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
TFA says:
and the patents in question should all be invalidated by prior art — even, in some cases, by previous Honeywell patents Nest claims the company hid from the Patent Office.
How did Honeywell hide previous patents that are, by the very nature of patents, publicly available? If they are expired patents that are relevant in proving prior art, Nest themselves should have found the patents in their own prior-art search. It's clear from the many patents that have been issued despite clear prior art that the patent office themselves does not do a sufficient job of searching for prior art.
While I do think that Honeywell is trying to shut out the competition, if they have a patent covering the technology that Nest is using, that's well within their rights. And since Honeywell does sell programmable thermostats, I think what they are doing is far less insidious than patent trolls that gather patent portfolios and using them to extract money from companies even though the troll has no intention of ever producing a product that uses the patent.
I've been thinking about replacing my home Honeywell thermostats (2) with Nests so that I can link, control, and monitor them more effectively. The news of this lawsuit has pretty much sold the deal.
I don't think Honeywell thought about the Streisand effect.
A patent troll will use IP laws to make money. Honeywell is using IP law to kill a startup that's brought new life into an industry that hasn't budged since its inception, and thus prevent progress in that industry.
The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
Since I am looking for a new thermostat this sounded like a cool thing. But this review by a fellow European warned me off trying this :
http://www.bjornsblog.nl/post/20583667249/using-the-nest-smart-thermostat-in-europe-not
To maintain their position and dominance.
This includes everything from managing the progress of technologies, to profits from the trade in drugs and armaments.
Law is your enemy. It was made without your representation, and adopted by managing your consent under a false pretense. Always treat it with suspicion.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
One of the claims in the case is that Honeywell patented things that were so obvious that they were simultaneously re-invented within Honeywell itself, by entirely separate and independent teams. These re-inventions that nearly prove the "invention" is too obvious to be patented where hidden and lied to during the patent process to make sure they would be granted.
At least that's Nest's claim. I do am curious how they got their hands on such internal Honeywell information, but if true this is indeed worse than patent trolling. For lack of a better legal term, I’d say this is fraud against the patent office.
Some friends installed a Nest recently and had issues. They spent an evening repeating the installation steps trying to understand what they did wrong and another evening on the phone with support, being told to repeat those steps again. Eventually they were told that their furnace didn't output enough power for the Nest thermostat and that they'd have to return the unit (to Amazon, I think) for a refund and pick some other thermostat brand.
They called up my dad the EE, who has no real thermostat or HVAC expertise but did install a new thermostat himself 20 years back. They described the error shown by the thermostat and their conversation with Nest support and he pointed out that "enough power" isn't a really relevant concept. He went over and tested the voltages on the well documented furnace connections and then on the relatively poorly documented Nest thermostat and found that the fault was with Nest. He called Nest support again and was told for half an hour that he was mistaken, then asked for a manager and convinced him that the problem was with their product, not the furnace. Once a warranty replacement arrived the problem was immediately solved.
It's just an anecdote, but it was impressive how much Nest support resisted and that the first unit arrived with a hardware problem. It made me wary of the company. Furthermore, the "learning" capabilities have been an utter failure for said friends. I think the current Nest thermostat is only meant to work for much more predictable people.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
Honeywell is notorious for running competitors out of business, or buying up competitors and then simply discontinuing all their products. Specifically to control the market.
A good example of this is the window fan market, which Honeywell has almost a complete monopoly.
Several years ago there was a company called Lakewood Engineering that made, by far, the most effective and silent 'economic' household window fan. Honeywell bought them, and discontinued the model irregardless of the fact that their entire fan line was significantly inferior.
I would imagine they looked at all of Honeywell's patents and the patent applications.
It is publicly available information, no need for internal documents.
There is no claim that Honeywell didn't realize they were re-patenting their own inventions, per the link it is thought it was done specifically to fuck over competition.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
This one is also covered by a previous patent that Honeywell owns. It's the patent for the Magic-Stat. It was developed by an inventor in Ann Arbor, Michigan back in the 70's or 80's. Honeywell bought that patent years ago. I knew someone who knew the inventor, and had one myself. That was it's big claim to fame - the thermostat "learns" your space's thermal inertia so as to achieve the desired temperature at the desired time. It also had the same schedule learning concept i.e. just jump up and adjust the thermostat when you feel uncomfortable, and the thermostat will eventually figure it out.
When I saw the Nest thermostat I yawned, since I had these features 20 years ago, albiet without Internet connectivity.
I'm in the aerospace industry where Honeywell is a major player, mainly in avionics. The last several years they have stopped to issue new repair/overhaul manuals for their units, prohibiting 3rd party shops performing maintenance on units. Honeywell obviously charges about an extra zero tacked to the end vs. anybody else to perform the same work. Just last week we recieved a copy of a 'repair manual' we requested that spent 50 pages talking about fault checking (we know the unit doesnt work....) and then a few pages with nice illustrations of how to package and ship the unit to Honeywell for repair.
A few years ago we were selling overhauled 'items' to the government for drones. These items were originally made by honeywell, when they found out they pulled the repair manuals and gave us a call, explaining their size vs our size in the industry and what they could do to us if they so choose.
Horrible company.
oddly enough I dont remember our round thermostat with a backlight, lcd or colors, it was that pukey fake bronze, with the majority of it on cheap plastic made up to look like crystal, that controlled a dial. it also has switches sticking out the top and bottom.
making something EXACTLY is not the same as similar, in your argument every rectangular music player should be sued out of existence by apple, and anyone else making a muscle car should be nuked by ford, but sorry, it doesnt work that way, honeywell does not own round.
Not quite the original idea.. that whole "keep exclusive so we have an incentive" came along later.
Brunelleschi (of Duomo Dome fame) got what was generally considered the first patent in 1421. And it was because it was for a way to move very large blocks of stone on the river, something that could not possibly be hidden as a trade secret. Therefore, he got the local duke (or whatever) to issue a document that said, Ol' Filippo came up with this cool idea, you're all going to see it, but you can't use it.