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NTP Gets a Taste of Its Own Medicine
Posted by
kdawson
on Thu Nov 09, 2006 12:41 PM
from the trolling-for-dollars dept.
from the trolling-for-dollars dept.
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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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?
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NTP Sues Palm, Alleging Patent Violation 121 comments
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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NTP (Score:1, Funny)
Lawyers FTW! (Score:5, Funny)
You know what they say (Score:5, Funny)
"unjust enrichment" (Score:5, Funny)
This should be good. (Score:3, Insightful)
re: more acronym fun (Score:3, Informative)
What NTP stands for (Score:5, Informative)
NTP, as far as I can tell, is simply "NTP, Inc" it is not an acronym like RIM (research In Motion).
"unjust enrichment" (Score:5, Funny)
Well if you can invade a country for simply suspecting unjust enrichment, I'd think being able to sue for it is a given. *Ba-dum*ching*
[Parent [slashdot.org]]
Come to Think of It... (Score:2, Funny)
THIS will bring about Patent Reform (Score:5, Insightful)
Clogging the (I assume federal) courts with patent related litigation will. Why? Because the courts will be asking for many more judges, clerks, infrastructure, (money$$$) to address the tidal wave of litigation.
Judges and their courts are much more expensive and much more respected than mere patent workers.
The more litigation related to frivolous patents, the better.
Re: Lawyers FTW! (Score:5, Funny)
Yes. The lawyers don't keel over and die when they're finished, like the should.
Pardon me if I am trolling.... (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
For an explanation, I refer you to one of my prior posts [slashdot.org] which explains this quite adequately.
leaving an inventor off a patent (Score:2, Interesting)
Can anyone comment who knows for sure?
NTP (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds Like... *Waves hands wildly* (Score:5, Funny)
Lisa: But then we're stuck with [lawyers]!
Skinner: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the [lawyers] simply freeze to death.
Anyone else? (Score:1)
clocks? (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Suing Peter to Pay Paul's Patent Suit (Score:2)
NTP will sue others on its patents to pay those who sue NTP on its patents. And a rhumba line of lawyers will all collect the fees, ultimately from consumers.
NTP stands for "New Technology Products"... (Score:3, Informative)
Qui-Gonn Jin says... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:leaving an inventor off a patent (Score:4, Interesting)
Inventorship is easy to fix but has potentially serious consequences. In the US, inventors are deemed to be owners of the patent unless or until those rights are assigned, usually to a company. An owner of a patent can profit from the patent without having to account to the other owners. In this case, for example, if this person succeeds in getting named as an inventor, and assuming that he is under no obligation through an employment or other contract to assign his rights to NTP, he can then potentially license the patents to Palm (who NTP is now suing), keep all the licensing proceeds, and effectively eliminate NTP's ability to collect anything from Palm.
It's about... (Score:1)
re: NTP (Score:2)
Need Those Patents (to sue for). That's what it means.
Meaning of NTP (Score:2)
"Need To Prosecute"? (Not sure if this term is right for a civil case)
"Naughty Tech Parasites"?
OpenNTP (Score:3, Funny)
Lawsuits solving problems (Score:1)
Yes. The lawyers don't keel over and die when they're finished, like the should."
HEY! I am a lawyer.
one of the patents... (Score:3, Funny)
NTP (Score:2)
What NTP really Stands for (Score:1)
Reply to a post (Score:2, Funny)
If you need to get it off your chest, it's not a rim job. There's another name for that activity.
I would have had more sympathy (Score:2)
Re: more acronym fun (Score:1)
there is a chance (Score:2)
But there is a chance for customers so that they do not have to foot the bill.
IMO those lawsuits are "investment" for the companies: they are financing it in hopes to later obtain income thanks to it and that income will cover this "investment" and gives also some bonus. Also lawyers are (at least partialy) being paid after the case (more precisely: after the successfull case).
So, at the end, if the customers does not buy t
Re: (Score:2)
That's the entire point of submarine patents. And the reason they should be outlawed, before even the entire patent system gets its necessary overhaul.
When is capitalism NOT about 'unjust enrichment'? (Score:1)
The proper functioning of Capitalism is dependent upon every participant being (equally) greedy. The theory is that since one gets screwed-over in transaction A - an inequal exchange of value - then one must in turn screw-over someone else in later transactions just in order to break even... but of course some people still manage to do better than breaking even. Sounds pretty ethical, don't it?
This story is just an instance of Capitalism w