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Nigerian Company Sues OLPC
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Nov 27, 2007 11:53 PM
from the split-shift-key dept.
from the split-shift-key dept.
d0ida writes on the continuing troubles at the OLPC Association. Adding to the recent difficulties — the BBC has picked up the litany — a US-based, Nigerian-owned company has now filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against OLPC. Lagos Analysis Corp. claims that OLPC "made unauthorized use of LANCOR's multilingual keyboard technology invention in XO laptops." The suit was filed in Lagos.
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OLPC Lawsuit-Bringer Has Past Fraud Conviction 87 comments
d0ida writes "The Boston Globe has up an article about LANCOR's lawsuit over the design of the OLPC's keyboard. 'Negroponte said the lawsuit is without merit, because OLPC uses a keyboard programming technique developed in 1996, long before the Nigerian patent was filed. The founder of Lagos Analysis Corp., Ade Oyegbola, was convicted of bank fraud in Boston in 1990 and served a year in prison. Oyegbola insists his Nigerian patent is legitimate and said he plans to file a copyright-infringement lawsuit against OLPC in an American court.'"
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The scams are getting more ridiculous every day. (Score:3, Funny)
419 (Score:5, Funny)
I am Stella McBride, aged 21years old the daughter of Late Darl Makoba a politician
As a result of the on-going problem in our country, we must relocate US$500 million of intellectual property to an overseas account...
Parent
I guess the OLPC folks .... (Score:4, Insightful)
Better yet, just don't send them (Score:5, Insightful)
As pointed out in a later post, the OLPC project in Nigeria is basically charity.
If they continue having problems like this, simply don't send any to them. Let LANCOR explain to the Nigerian government and people how their greed and abuse of patent law is screwing up the education of Nigeria's children and putting them at a serious disadvantage to the country's neighbors.
Parent
Re:Better yet, just don't send them (Score:4, Informative)
In a related article [zdnet.co.uk], Gerald Ilukwe, the general manager of Microsoft Nigeria, said that the cost of software is not important, even though he admitted that the average annual salary in the West African country is only $160...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
CC.
Re:Better yet, just don't send them (Score:5, Informative)
IIRC the MIT Lisp machines had keyboards with "hyper", "super", "meta" and "greek" shift keys. That should be considered enough prior art (although I don't know if Nigerian law agrees with that).
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Better yet, just don't send them (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Better yet, just don't send them (Score:4, Informative)
Is that a patent troll? Doesn't sound like it.
I'm not sure about their choice of targets or especially their heavyhanded response to a charity organization though. I can only see this gaining them significant negative publicity and potentially torpedoing a good project.
Product Link [konyin.com]
Parent
Re:Better yet, just don't send them (Score:4, Insightful)
Patents were invented to protect break through designs which took a lot of time and money from being copied. Two people having the same idea isn't copying.
The Television was developed by three different people, if Baird had patented it we may have been using mechanical TV for decades.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I use this on my Thinkpad in Ubuntu. Pressing for example ^ while holding down the right Alt, enters the "put a ^ on the next character" mode. Right Alt + " + o gives ö. I think it's called "Compose" or something.
Pretty much necessary since I'm Swedish but I want a US keyboard since the retards that decided where to relocate all the keys necessary for programming placed them so you had to break your fingers to access the [ ] { } / \ | when you use a Swedish layout...
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It's not the modality of the input -- thats a very old idea to anybody who remembers the non-gui interfaces.
For example, in Emacs the sequence control-x, 8 means the next character is interpreted in "Compose Character Mode" -- a mode that seems to be a superset of the mechanism in question. In ISO Accents mode the various modifiers work more or less as described in the invention.
So it can't be using the keyboard modally to insert characters t
Re:Better yet, just don't send them (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, most third world kids don't speak the main language of the net, and won't have much use for what's currently on it. Actually, that's probably a good thing...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The whole point of being a student is to not have much use for the status quo, and to have a desire to expand upon it.
Henry Ford (I think) said that if you'd asked American consumers in the 1900's what they'd wanted, they'd have answered, "A faster horse." For whatever faults they had, he and his contemporaries were dissatisfied with the
Re:Better yet, just don't send them (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Better yet, just don't send them (Score:4, Interesting)
Obviously, you sprang as a fully-formed, English-speaking adult out of Zeus's forehead or something. Or not. No, instead you're just a dumbass who doesn't realize that children can learn, and moreover that the entire point of the OLPC project is learning, and that contrary to what you might think the children are most likely capable of learning English along with everything else!
Tell you what, read this: India: Hole-in-the-Wall [greenstar.org]. Then try telling me language is a real barrier!
Parent
Re:Better yet, just don't send them (Score:4, Insightful)
Even as you unthinkingly type your post, you would willingly deny people who can not afford to do the same the opportunity of sharing knowledge, beliefs and understanding from around the world. By the way, the laptop can also be used in the first and second world. It is not a third world computer, it is a computer targeted as an educational tool for children from around the world and the more sold the cheaper it becomes.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Where are they going to get all these books from? I haven't been able to find very many up-to-date and legally obtainable textbooks on the internet, so you can strike that off.
Well, you're not looking very hard...
Fiction Books
http://www.baen.com/library/ [baen.com]
http://www.anothersky.org/ [anothersky.org]
http://www.gutenberg.org/ [gutenberg.org]
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/ [upenn.edu]
http://manybooks.net// [manybooks.net]
http://www.archive.org/ [archive.org]
Audiobooks
http://www.librivox.org/ [librivox.org]
Textbooks
http://motionmountain.dse.nl/ [motionmountain.dse.nl]
http://textbookrevolution.org/ [textbookrevolution.org]
http://www.theassayer.org/ [theassayer.org]
http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html [mit.edu]
http://www.phys.uu.nl/~thooft/theorist.html#languages [phys.uu.nl]
http://www.hewlett.org/Programs/Education/Technolog [hewlett.org]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I have actually had a couple of the
So tempted (Score:5, Funny)
This is good news (Score:3, Insightful)
OLPC team -- don't get discouraged. As they say, if you're receiving flak, you must be over the target.
Re:This is good news (Score:4, Insightful)
They might actually have a point. It's not like they've sat on this for years - the public release of OLPC laptops is so recent that it's entirely conceivable that it's taken this long to examine them, document any violations, and file suit. And who knows what behind-the-scene negotiations, which may have delayed filing, have taken place between them and OLPC?
Is it just that the OLPC, being "free" and "open" and using Linux and all, are considered by
Sorry, not picking on you specifically - you're just the first in thread to mention the words "patent troll".
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Or are people suggesting that all patent owners are patent trolls? (A position with which I would largely agree, BTW.)
Not all patent owners are patent trolls. Only those that use their patents to sue people and get in the way of progress and innovation.
Re:This is good news (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:This is good news (Score:5, Interesting)
The only way that could be true is if Nigeria has a seriously defective legal system (quite possible), but even then the "truth value" of that statement would only exist within Nigeria.
Like someone who illegally wears a t-shirt that says "Vote".
The phrase "illegally reverse engineered" only weighs in favor of a case of this company being a "patent troll", it is not an argument to refute that label.
A further note is that all uses of the word "invention" appear to false. According to the article this is a design patent. At least in US law, design patents are not for new useful inventions, design patents are not for functional aspects, design patents are for aesthetic and ornamental aspects. Design patents are about "our product looks cool and distinctive". Design patents are trivial to work around, you just change the shape or arrangement of your product to any of a zillion other equally reasonable equally functional looks.
...ok a little Googling and yes Nigerian RD#### patent are "Registered Design" patents. This is not an invention patent, this is an ornamental design patent. It also turns out that there is no official website to look up Nigerian patents, not only is there no website for it but the Nigerian Patent Office official contact point is a Yahoo email address.
This company is suing a charitable high-tech project to aid 3rd world children, and doing it based on an ornamental patent registered with a government operating from a Yahoo email address. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
-
Parent
Re:This is good news (Score:5, Insightful)
They might in principle, but in practice, they don't. The OLPC keyboard differs from theirs, and there are decades of prior art in using multiple shift keys to reach multiple languages on one keyboard. Their keyboard is basically the "US International Keyboard" for Windows with the keys rearranged.
Parent
Re:This is good news (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
They hold the patent for first use (Score:3, Funny)
A _little_ more info on this. (Score:5, Funny)
Boy, did they pick the wrong mark (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Boy, did they pick the wrong mark (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
If LANCOR wins. . . (Score:5, Funny)
Wow.... (Score:3)
I feel this 1st class douchebaggery.
DEAR SIR (Score:5, Funny)
ATTENTION: THE PRESIDENT/CEO
DEAR SIR,
CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS PROPOSAL
HAVING CONSULTED WITH MY COLLEAGUES AND BASED ON THE INFORMATION GATHERED FROM THE NIGERIAN CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY, I HAVE THE PRIVILEGE TO REQUEST FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE TO TRANSFER THE SUM OF $47,500,000.00 (FORTY SEVEN MILLION, FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND UNITED STATES DOLLARS) INTO OUR ACCOUNTS. THE ABOVE SUM RESULTED FROM A PATENT INFRINGEMENT LAWSUIT, EXECUTED COMMISSIONED AND PAID FOR ABOUT FIVE YEARS (5) AGO BY A FOREIGN CONTRACTOR. THIS ACTION WAS HOWEVER INTENTIONAL AND SINCE THEN THE FUND HAS BEEN IN A SUSPENSE ACCOUNT AT THE CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA APEX BANK.
WE ARE NOW READY TO RECEIVE THE FUND OVERSEAS. IT IS IMPORTANT TO INFORM YOU THAT AS CIVIL SERVANTS, WE ARE FORBIDDEN TO OPERATE A FOREIGN ACCOUNT; THAT IS WHY WE REQUIRE YOUR ASSISTANCE. THE TOTAL SUM WILL BE SHARED AS FOLLOWS: 70% FOR US, 25% FOR OUR LAWYERS AND 5% FOR LOCAL AND INTERNATIONAL EXPENSES INCIDENT TO THE TRANSFER.
THE TRANSFER IS RISK FREE ON BOTH SIDES. I AM AN ACCOUNTANT WITH THE NIGERIAN NATIONAL PETROLEUM CORPORATION (NNPC). IF YOU FIND THIS PROPOSAL ACCEPTABLE, WE SHALL REQUIRE THE FOLLOWING DOCUMENTS:
(A) YOUR BANKER'S NAME, TELEPHONE, ACCOUNT AND FAX NUMBERS.
(B) YOUR PRIVATE TELEPHONE AND FAX NUMBERS -- FOR CONFIDENTIALITY AND EASY COMMUNICATION.
(C) YOUR LETTER-HEADED PAPER STAMPED AND SIGNED.
ALTERNATIVELY WE WILL FURNISH YOU WITH THE TEXT OF WHAT TO TYPE INTO YOUR LETTER-HEADED PAPER, ALONG WITH A BREAKDOWN EXPLAINING, COMPREHENSIVELY WHAT WE REQUIRE OF YOU. THE BUSINESS WILL TAKE US THIRTY (30) WORKING DAYS TO ACCOMPLISH.
PLEASE REPLY URGENTLY.
BEST REGARDS
He's in Natick, only 19.2 miles from OLPC! (Score:5, Informative)
phone 339-987-9249, fax 508-647-4702
Put that into Google maps and have a look.
It's a house on a 100 foot square lot.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
*ring, ring*
Home Owner: Hello?
You: Dent? Arthur Dent?
HO: Yes, that's me.
You: Arther Phillip Dent?
HO: Yes?
You: You're an arse hole!
*hang up*
If this helps (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~crb002/ie574final.pdf [iastate.edu]
I bet it kicks their designs all the way to Timbuktu, which isn't too far from Nigeria
what this is (Score:5, Informative)
It's about using two extra shift keys for the non-ASCII characters. On his keyboard, he calls them "Shift2" and "Ng". This is a nice way to do languages that use the latin alphabet with a few abnormal extra characters.
It's not like the mode switch key used for Arabic. There, you press the key once to switch modes. (more like a caps lock)
It's not like the dead keys often used for European accents. There, you press an accent key followed by a letter key. The accent key does nothing until you press the letter.
It's not like the combining accent keys used in Microsoft Word. There, you press the accent key after the letter key. (so the software must display your "A" before knowing if it needs an accent)
It's not like the fancy stuff used for Chinese, etc.
He's claiming that two keyboard layouts are in violation. The first one is Nigerian, now used for all of western Africa. The second one is "US International", which is QWERTY plus stuff like the Euro and various odds and ends.
Re:what this is (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not like
It's not like
It's not like...
It's not like
But it *is* like CTRL and ALT, except that they're just for generating characters rather than calling arbitrary functions.
(Btw, anyone who refers to a new interface for accessing more characters from the same keys as "technology" is an idiot.)
Parent
Re:what this is (Score:4, Informative)
It is like the use of the right Alt key on European keyboards to get extra accented characters. The key is called "Alt Gr" on many European keyboards. On a German keyboard, you press Alt Gr + some other key to get things like the Euro sign, the backslash, the pipe character, the tilde character, curly braces, or the @ sign.
I've written a couple of keyboard macros back in the WordPerfect days that used Alt Gr plus other keys to get extra accented characters for transcription of Arabic (and, ironically, for Yoruba, which is one of the major languages of Nigeria), which I'm ready to submit as prior art if it should have to come to that.
Parent
Could be legit (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess the old proverb is still true... (Score:5, Insightful)
Translation error (Score:4, Funny)
Dan East
the layouts are quite different (Score:5, Informative)
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Keyboard_layouts [laptop.org]
Here is the Konyin layout for the US (you have to click on VIEW LAYOUT under UNITED STATES):
http://www.konyin.com/?page=home&menuitem=1 [konyin.com]
Maybe Konyin thinks that they invented making additional languages/scripts/special characters available via additional shift characters, but that's ridiculous; here is the Windows US International keyboard layout:
http://www.usna.edu/LangStudy/US-InternationalLayout.html [usna.edu]
See, lots of special characters via AltGr.
Prior art? (Score:4, Interesting)
What a strange coincidence (Score:4, Interesting)
Putting my tinfoil hat on for a moment, it's not possible that this company is a stooge for Intel or Microsoft, is it?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)