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NTP Sues Palm, Alleging Patent Violation

Posted by Zonk on Tue Nov 07, 2006 08:45 AM
from the thrilling dept.
Patents Government Handhelds The Courts Hardware News
mikesd81 writes "The Seattle Time reports that NTP is now going after Palm for patent infringement on technology used in their devices. The suit asks the court to bar Palm from continuing to infringe on NTP's patents and seeks monetary damages for the alleged past infringements. At issues are eleven patents, dating from 1995 to 2001, according to the lawsuit. Five of the patents were part of NTP's lawsuit against RIM. The Palm complaint also centers on products, services and systems that integrate e-mail systems with wireless communications, including the Treo, Palm VII, Palm i700 and Tungsten products." You may recall NTP from the just-finished Blackberry case. Good to know they're staying busy.
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Related Stories

[+] RIM Settles Long-Standing Blackberry Claim 295 comments
David Jao writes "Research in Motion has agreed to pay 612.5 million dollars for a 'full and final settlement of all claims' resulting from the NTP patent lawsuit against the makers of BlackBerry. According to the article, the settlement is 'on the low end of expectations', perhaps because the patents in question had earlier been preliminarily ruled invalid by the US Patents & Trademarks Office." Many article submitters characterize this move as 'giving in' to NTP's tactics. What do you think?
[+] NTP Gets a Taste of Its Own Medicine 49 comments
UltraAyla writes, "NTP's patent suits seem to have attracted the attention of Oren Tavory, a man who claims to have worked on a project with NTP founder Thomas Campana back in 1991. From the article: 'In September, Tavory filed a lawsuit against NTP in U.S. District Court in Richmond, VA, demanding that a judge issue a court order naming him as co-inventor on seven NTP patents, and accusing NTP of copyright infringement and unjust enrichment.'"
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NTP Sues Palm, Alleging Patent Violation 50 Comments More /

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  • If you don't manufacture anything... (Score:4, Informative)

    by pete.com (741064) on Tuesday November 07 2006, @08:48AM (#16750581)
    .... you have to make money somehow. Seems NTP's choice is to extort money using the court system.

    • you have to make money somehow. Seems NTP's choice is to extort money using the court system.

      We all knew it was extortion the first time.

      What will truly be interesting is now that it is an American company on the block will the courts descion be any different? The fundimentals are exactly the same. So in theory Palm needs to cough up a lot of cash.

      Until of course there is a anti-preditory law to put the NTPs out of business.

    • As per usual, the US patent system is doing a great job of stifling even the most minor innovation.

      Email over a non-copper transport. Wow. What an intelligent patent. Using wireless IP networks as they were designed.

      My contempt and disgust for what passes for "justice" south of the border knows no bounds. Justice is dead -- long live the court leeches!

      • I see the solution to the US patent roulette as simple: Don't establish a US office. Force all customers to contract with a head office in a nation that has SANE laws that aren't sold to the highest bidder. Force them to deal with fair courts, and cut them off if they don't abide by agreements.

        If necessary, establish offices in a jurisdiction like Germany where innovation and privacy trump companies that have no products.

        • RIM is a Canadian company, and that didn't work for them.

          Even if your offices are out of the US, US courts still have the jurisdiction to shut down your operations in the US.
    • It's the new American Way!

      1) Patent something
      2) Sit on it until someone does something similar
      3) Sue!
      4) Profit!

      Now we know what goes in place of "???"

      Yes, this is a repeat! That's actually one of the worst parts -- that this stuff keeps on happening!

  • That's why I set my clock manually... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2006, @08:51AM (#16750619)
    Just as I thought... NTP is an evilcompany (tm) that wants to hurt me personally.
    Although I have two palms (and two hands, two arms, etc), I don't like the fact that the Network Time Protocol has suddenly gone through the Intarweb tubes to the lawyers and is taking legal action against parts of my body.
    What's next? HTTP suing my big toe? Telnet suing my liver? When will it all end?!? Ohh the humanity...

    TDz.

  • eBlackMail (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Doc Ruby (173196) on Tuesday November 07 2006, @08:52AM (#16750631) Homepage Journal
    When you pay a blackmailer to leave you alone, even if they do, you've paid them to stay alive long enough to bother someone else.

    And when the cops won't stop them, they're unstoppable.
    • And when the cops won't stop them, they're unstoppable.
      When justice fails, people turn to vigilanteism. I'm surprised that the USPTO hasn't been firebombed long before now.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Doc Ruby (173196)
        Vigilanteism usually reacts in the mode in which it was incited. So I'm not surprised that people in the info biz, like programmers, are so casual about violating these kinds of bonds, like piracy and enthusiasm for open source. What's the patent version of building a gallows? Is it contributing to Linux?

  • NTP (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2006, @08:53AM (#16750649)
    What products does NTP make? I was thinking of performing a boycott of what seems to be an overly-litigious company, but can't find any targets.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Ilex (261136)

      What products does NTP make? I was thinking of performing a boycott of what seems to be an overly-litigious company, but can't find any targets.


      Sadly their products are lawsuits.

      Pity there isn't a way to boycott those :(
        • Wow, SCO still exists! I thought they'd have gone bankrupt by now - I can't inagine many people buying anything from them voluntarily and last time I heard that court case wasn't going too well...

    • What products does NTP make? I was thinking of performing a boycott of what seems to be an overly-litigious company, but can't find any targets.

      Their product is legal extortion. There are no avenues for you or I to boycot them. And since it worked the first time, the investors of NTP are looking for a second big payout. It would take an act of congress, literally to stop them. So write you congress person is the best you can do.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by asuffield (111848)

      What products does NTP make?

      To expand on what others have already said:

      NTP is a classic example of a patent troll [wikipedia.org]. They purchase patents from other companies and then sue people for violations of those patents, and try to get people to pay them protection money ("license fees") to leave them alone. At no point do they produce or use anything, so they are completely exempt from "defensive" patents - nobody can countersue NTP for patent violations because NTP do nothing that could violate any patents. Similar

  • Only the even ones? (Score:4, Funny)

    by fitten (521191) on Tuesday November 07 2006, @08:54AM (#16750665)
    At issues is even patents, dating from 1995 to 2001, according to the lawsuit.


    The even ones? How many is that?

  • Dear NTP (Score:2, Insightful)

    by fnj (64210)
    Dear NTP:

    Please eat excrement and die.
  • Regulation is good.
  • I would wish everyone that worked for this company would burn in hell. Well, here is hoping for a painful death for all of them anyhow.

  • Palm's Response (Score:5, Informative)

    by Scyber (539694) on Tuesday November 07 2006, @09:18AM (#16750875)
    http://investor.palm.com/pressdetail.cfm?ReleaseID =217480 [palm.com]

    The NTP lawsuit claims that certain Palm products infringe seven NTP patents. All seven of the patents asserted are being re-examined by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) and have been rejected by the re-examiners as invalid. Palm also noted that the NTP patents disclose a pager-based email service that has nothing in common with the mobile-computing devices invented by Palm. Palm has been in occasional contact with NTP concerning a license to these patents. When Palm last communicated with NTP many months ago, however, each of the patents already was the subject of re-examination proceedings by the PTO. Palm is disappointed that, after many months of silence and repeated rejections of NTP's claims by the PTO, NTP has chosen to sue on patents of doubtful validity. Palm respects legitimate intellectual property rights, but will defend itself vigorously against the attempted misuse of the patent and judicial systems to extract monetary value for rights to patents that may ultimately have no value at all.

    • I was reading an editorial in a trade magazine at work a few months ago on the RIM patent case with NTP and where things would go now that RIM had settled. The article suggested that NTP's next target would be Palm and then went on to explain their rationale and that NTP had stirred the pot perhaps a bit too much as many of their patents were up for re-examination.

      I hope for once that NTP gets their ass handed to them when they have no patents left to assert in court, but that's wishful thinking. The Slashd

  • Well, another example that the world is reaching new extremes, and US is (usually) the first place for any extreme to occur. SO now it's perfectly normal to make money doing nothing, more: using the system that should provide the protection to the inventors to further encourage the development of new stuff.

    Sometimes I really believe that self-destruction (or more often, self-mutilation) is something that people cannot live without.

    • See now. With all the jobs being outsourced and offshored, we don't have much more to do that see if we can get patents into the lame Patent Office and sue so we can continue to drive 3mpg Hummers and 10mpg SUV's and live way out in the boonies so we have to drive everywhere.

      (FYI, I work from home and drive a 52mpg motorcycle when I have to go somewhere. :) )

      [John]

  • Great, Another Lawsuit (Score:5, Funny)

    by CrankyFool (680025) on Tuesday November 07 2006, @09:45AM (#16751157)
    I hope the judge doesn't give them the time of day!

  • So typically editors, edit submissions to some degree and make sure some basic guidelines are followed. One of those is making sure acronyms are defined the first time they are used, especially if it is a really common acronym like Network Time Protocol, but you're using it to mean something else. For more information please read the Chicago Manual of Style.

  • make those ambulance chasing personal injury lawyers look good. They do not manufacture, implement, design, or even simply "dream up" anything to do with technology. They simply acquire patents (which are bogus in my humble opinion) and sue based on someone else's hard work.

    If Dante were still around, he would have a special place in hell for these bastards.
  • Dear NTP,

    Palm is a company dedicated to innovation and a fair marketplace, and as such would like to offer a conditional out of court settlement in this matter.

    The conditions of the offer are as follows:

    1. NTP issues a public statement withdrawing it's claims of patent infringement against Palm.

    2. Agree that this settlement will indemnify Palm, it's directors and any third-parties licensing our technology against future claims.

    3. This agreement by bound by the laws of the State of Californ
  • I can't believe that the Network time Protocol would sue anyone.
  • No surprises here. As long as there's no penalty for using the patent and legal system as an ATM, companies like NTP will continue to do so. Even as their patents are being found to be invalid, they continue to sue. Oh well, I guess allegedly evil companies and allegedly evil lawyers have to keep busy.
  • You may recall NTP from the just-finished Blackberry case. Good to know they're staying busy.

    You mean, as in filing baseless lawsuits over patents that have been rejected by the USPTO? You're glad that blatant extortion is going on? It seems to me like fertile grounds for a countersuit on extortion grounds if nothing else
  • Too bad it's illegal to kill extortionists.
    • The question is why is it possible under the law to have a company that produces nothing and sue all the companies that do produce? This is absurd, patents should not exist at all, but ok let's pretend that they are useful for something, the company that hold the patent should at least have a product (or products) that each of the details in the patent contest.

      This is my opinion, patents are road blocks to innovation and even to freedom. As it is today every programmer in the world has already breached at l

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by k12linux (627320)
        I just want to know how they were harmed that they deserve damages. Was the sales of their non-existent products harmed by sales of Palms?

        The patent itself is rediculous and a perfect example of why software patents must go. You have a PC-like device capable of displaying and inputting text. Just how inventive do you have to be to think, "Hey, you could use this for email!" That's patentable??

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by edwardpickman (965122)
        This particular company is looking leachlike but the intent of patents is positive. Without them there would be very little incentive to develope new technology. Why spend a 100 million developing a new computer chip when six months from now a competitor can have a knock off on the market and under cut your price because they don't have to repay development costs. It's one of the reasons China has embraced piracy, it saves a bundle. Most of the world is getting tired of it and they are starting to threaten
        • So disallow patent rights to those who cannot produce commercial quanitites for sale, or require mandatory precriptive licensing fees, set by the USPTO, for those who do not or cannot produce. Since different patents have different market sizes, set the bar based on end units produced, with fees due on an annual or biannual basis (to allow time for quantities to be determined). Start at $1,000 for single unit quantities, and drop the amount by $5 for every unit produced until you reach $5. After 1000 units

    • Re:It is all wrong... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by El Torico (732160) on Tuesday November 07 2006, @09:19AM (#16750881)
      Yes, it did work the first time and I don't see how anyone could be surprised by this. According to the article, NTP contacted 3Com (Palm's parent company) the same time they contacted RIM. Basically, NTP "annexed the Sudetenland" and RIM appeased them, thus setting a precedent. We all know how well appeasement works to deter aggression now, don't we?
        • Actually, Gulf War 1 is a more accurate analogy than Gulf War 2. However, please note that in both wars Iraq's army was annihilated in weeks.

          The current situation is the result of long held animosities in Iraq, interference by Iraq's neighbors, and a lack of planning and good judgement on the part of the soon to be former Secretary of Defense. Winning a war is one thing; nation building is quite another.

    • Probably because MS has enough money to slap them back with a legal team worth more than RIM's settlement itself.

      You got it! They looked at their competitors in the lawsuit-as-business-model industry [sco.com], saw how well they were doing [groklaw.net] in their lawsuit with a truly deep-pockets company [ibm.com] and opted for a much smaller target.

      Microsoft may not have quite the nazgul that IBM has, but they definitely have the pockets and know where to find them.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by eck011219 (851729)

      Indeed. And what really chaps my butt is that a year from now, a Treo is going to cost me $50 more than it otherwise would have because Palm has to figure out how to pay the lawyers they'll need to defend against this silliness. I think a lot of people (not so many here on Slashdot, but people in general) forget about that aspect of the frivolous lawsuit -- no matter who wins or loses, the attorneys get paid. And this creates higher prices, wipes out the companies with tighter margins (but possibly better

      • I dont think they can as microsoft's webservers and e-mail applications are from the "old wired web" NTP is talking about the new, hip, totally different wireless internet. That is a great point though because if that got out everyone would be like "hey, wait.. its the same damn thing with an invisible cord! Fuck NTP!!"

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