Thoughts on the Blackberry Dispute

[tofu]

What are your thoughts on the patent infringement case against the makers of the Blackberry?

http://www.modbee.com/business/story/11759016p-12480128c.html

For those who don't know, a blackberry is a device about the size of a cell phone. You can use it to check your email, that means that you don't have to always be near a computer to stay in touch with people.

There is a company named NTP that has sued blackberry claiming that it violates a patent that they own. Here's what gets me angry. The title of the patent is something along the lines of, "Sending Email to a Wireless Device" which, to me, sounds a lot like filing a patent for, "Delivering a Weather Forecast on TV." In other words, it's an overly broad, overly general idea. It's not an invention. They didn't invent anything.

And that's the other thing that gets me mad. NTP isn't even a real company. They don't make anything. They don't DO anything that benefits anybody! They are just a bunch of fat, lazy, [EXPLETIVE DELETED BY MODERATOR] that couldn't make a real company work if their lives depended on it. What they do instead is sit around in a room drinking starbucks frappicino spritzers and coming up with blindingly obvious things that anybody else can come up with, but then they patent it, and then they wait for some other company to actually do the work to develop the idea, then they sue that company.

They are the leaches of our society. All they do is take from other people.

Imagine if, a few hundred years ago, a bunch of leaches like this had filed the following patents:
"using corn to power an engine"
"using sunshine and puppy dogs to power an engine"
"using steam to power an engine"
"using ice to power an engine"
"using fermentation to power an engine"

Most of those ideas are bunk of course, but that's the way this scheme works. The leaches throw lots of things against the wall, most of them don't stick. Hell, it took them years to remember that they had a blackberry-like patent. They file so many patents that they forget most of them.

So anyway, later on someone with some actual talent invents a steam engine. See, the thing is, there's a lot to a steam engine. Just the idea isn't enough. You have figure out how to regulate the pressure and how to condense the steam so that you can reuse it. There is a hell of a lot of work involved in making a steam engine. So some hard-working inventor spends years of his life and puts a lot of blood sweat and tears into it, and then the leaches come along and say, "whaaa! He stole our idea! We patented it! It's ours! Whaaaa!! Mommy!!!"

Try to imagine where we as a civilization would be today if the industrial revolution had been hamstrung by something like this. God, it just makes my blood boil!

[SeanF]

Read the article you linked again.

The other option is for RIM to release a software upgrade to the BlackBerry that will work around the problem and keep e-mail service functioning without violating NTP's patents.
If NTP's patent was simply on "Sending Email to a Wireless Device," then changing Blackberry's software wouldn't accomplish anything. Plus, wireless laptop computers and PDAs were receiving email for years before Blackberry came along, and NTP isn't suing them.

I'm pretty sure there's something specific about how the Blackberry receives e-mail wirelessly that violates the patent, not simply that it does receive e-mail wirelessly.

[Halcyon Dayz]

Sounds a bit like the stunt Unisys pulled in 1994. link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gif)
They 'discovered' that Compuserve had been using
their patented LZW-compression technology for the
GIF graphics format for seven years, and then
started to collect royalties.
(Compuserve had presumed it was P.D.)

[ToSeek]

They are just a bunch of fat, lazy, [EXPLETIVE DELETED BY MODERATOR] that couldn't make a real company work if their lives depended on it.

Please watch the language and ad homs. Thanks.

[gwiz]

I was always under the impression that you had to demonstrate that your idea actually worked before you got a patent granted. Any patent lawyers out there that can explain what the situation really is?

[NEOWatcher]

What are your thoughts on the patent infringement case against the makers of the Blackberry? ...

Unfortunately, business is business, and I'm sure we don't have some of the technical details. They do sound like leeches, but so do so many other business practices (anything based on speculation - including Dotcom names) I just hope a solution is worked out.

My beef is the government's take on this (http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/01/technology/rim/index.htm?cnn=yes)
as to how an injunction can be implemented so as to continue BlackBerry service for governmental and other excepted groups...
I know it's a toy to some people, but it's just as essential to most people who have them as it is for the government and elite groups.

[SeanF]

Sounds a bit like the stunt Unisys pulled in 1994. link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gif)
They 'discovered' that Compuserve had been using
their patented LZW-compression technology for the
GIF graphics format for seven years, and then
started to collect royalties.
(Compuserve had presumed it was P.D.)
So you think NTP knew Blackberry was infringing on their copyright from the beginning and decided to wait until they were successful with it before suing?

I was always under the impression that you had to demonstrate that your idea actually worked before you got a patent granted. Any patent lawyers out there that can explain what the situation really is?
That was my understanding, too - and given the article's suggestion that Blackberry could get around the problem with a software change, I would think that NTP did actually patent a method and not just an idea.

[The Supreme Canuck]

Apparently, Blackberry is winning. They just had another ruling go in their favour. I think there's only one remaining before the whole thing goes away.

[tofu]

Apparently, Blackberry is winning. They just had another ruling go in their favour. I think there's only one remaining before the whole thing goes away.

I hope so. I think this whole issue is very bad for society.

And I should also point out that blackberry is a canadian company while NTP is american - so I'm embarrassed that my country let this happen.

[The Supreme Canuck]

It's not just in the US either. (http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyID=2006-02-02T113309Z_01_WEN9578_RTRIDST_0_TECH-RIM-UK-DC.XML)

[SeanF]

Apparently, Blackberry is winning. They just had another ruling go in their favour. I think there's only one remaining before the whole thing goes away.

Hmm. The article from the OP says:
RIM has been appealing the case since a jury found in NTP's favor in 2002 but has lost every judgment.

[Halcyon Dayz]

Sounds a bit like the stunt Unisys pulled in 1994.
They 'discovered' that Compuserve had been using
their patented LZW-compression technology for the
GIF graphics format for seven years, and then
started to collect royalties.
(Compuserve had presumed it was P.D.)
So you think NTP knew Blackberry was infringing on their copyright from the beginning and decided to wait until they were successful with it before suing?
I don't know, but I would not be surprised
if it turned out to be the case.
(What would be the point of (expensive)
litigation if there was no money in it?)

[Doodler]

What I find amusing is that NTP's patents are still pending, and just recently they were given a 'non-final' rejection.

They're standing on some pretty shakey ground, in my eyes.

[LTC8K6]

Tom Bearden's MEG seems to be patented, and it doesn't work.

You don't have to demonstrate that the device or idea works, apparently.

[Trebuchet]

James Randi has had multiple rants in his newsletter about the Patent Office issuing patents on various perpetual motion devices, dowsing meters, and other such nonsense.

[GDwarf]

James Randi has had multiple rants in his newsletter about the Patent Office issuing patents on various perpetual motion devices, dowsing meters, and other such nonsense.
The Wheel, A few years ago anything that had 'Internet' in the name, Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches...

A Patent is a way of saying 'I have an idea that I don't want anyone else to use', it doesn't have to work, and the only limit on it is that no one else can have applied (and received) the same, or a similar patent.

[tofu]

the only limit on it is that no one else can have applied (and received) the same, or a similar patent.

Fortunately, that isn't exactly true - YET.

In the US at least, we still have a "first to invent" system. What that means is that if you invent something, you can patent it, but if you don't patent it nobody else can. If you patent something that someone else invented, the invention will be cited as prior art and the patent will be thrown out. That has saved a lot of companies from getting taken to the cleaners by the leeches that I described in the OP.

There is a push by certain lobbyists to change the system to "first to file" and congress could make that horrible mistake with nothing more than the stroke of a pen. It could be snuck in at any time as a line item somewhere.

What "first to file" means is that the person who patents an idea or invention owns it - period, end of sentence. You'll hear people calling this a good thing because, they will say, it will remove a lot of the burden from the courts who are already clogged trying to figure this stuff out.

But the real reason is that the leaches know this will make it easier for them to be leeches. They will be able to, just to make up an example, go to a trade show and see what the hot gadgets are and patent those, or maybe go to Japan and see what's hot and then come back to the US and patent it. If they try any of that today, it wont fly. Today, you can't look at someone else's invention and then run quickly to get a lawyer to patent it. That's just an intolerable situation for the leeches. How are they supposed to feed their family if not by stealing the work of others? So naturally they are lobbying congress for a change.

How would you like to live in a world where somebody can invent something and maybe even decide to give it away for free, but somebody else sees that invention and then runs off to patent it so that he can extort money from the actual inventor.

As bad as that is, we already live in a world where some bottom-feeding slug watches Star Trek and hears the words "ion propulsion" then runs to get a patent for "A System of Propulsion Making Use of Ions" but really, that person has absolutely no clue what it is. Then, years later, talented and hardworking engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory actually do the work to make an ion drive for a probe named Deep Space One. Seeing this, the leech runs into court screaming and crying, "whaaa! They stole my idea!!" and demanding hundreds of millions of dollars in licensing fees. Does that sound like a fair society? Thankfully, I guess nobody thought of the ion propulsion thing, but it could have happened. Our present system makes it possible

[The Supreme Canuck]

Hmm. The article from the OP says:RIM has been appealing the case since a jury found in NTP's favor in 2002 but has lost every judgment.

Yeah, I just glanced at an article in the paper this morning. It must have been referring to the British case that I linked to.

[SeanF]

As bad as that is, we already live in a world where some bottom-feeding slug watches Star Trek and hears the words "ion propulsion" then runs to get a patent for "A System of Propulsion Making Use of Ions" but really, that person has absolutely no clue what it is. Then, years later, talented and hardworking engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory actually do the work to make an ion drive for a probe named Deep Space One. Seeing this, the leech runs into court screaming and crying, "whaaa! They stole my idea!!" and demanding hundreds of millions of dollars in licensing fees.
Actually, I don't think that's true. You can't just patent an idea like that. The original patent would have to describe how the ions are used for propulsion in order to sue a future inventor for patent infringement.

Again, that's why Blackberry could make NTP's lawsuit go away with a software upgrade. They'd still be sending e-mail to wireless devices, but they'd no longer be infringing on NTP's patent because the patent is more specific than that.

[aurora]

The patent system has problems (at least in the US, one major problem is that the patent office cannot keep up with the flow of submissions. Another is that things have been patented that shouldn't have been although some of that gets sorted out later in court).

But, the idea of patents is a good one.

I would point out that you cannot tell what a patent is about by just reading the title. In fact, you might not be able to figure it out from reading the text since it is written in legalese. So, as others have mentioned, just because the subject lines says something about wireless communication, you cannot assume that the patent is for all wireless communication.

[Tog_]

I had a few ideas a few years ago and looked ito getting a patent. Accordign to the recording at the patent office you need to submit a written proposal, diagrams, and a working prototype (which I don't have the skills needed to make). I may have been in a sub field though.

[The Supreme Canuck]

I thought they dropped the working prototype requirement over a century ago...

[aurora]

I thought they dropped the working prototype requirement over a century ago...

They did, at least in the US (although I don't know the exact year).

I seem to recall that there is a museum (Smithsonian?) that has displays of some really cool models that were submitted to the patent office back when they required a model.

[The Supreme Canuck]

Yeah. I'm thinking of one patent by Lincoln for a device to lift and rotate steamboats that have grounded themselves on shoals.