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Prior Art On Verizon Patents
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Apr 17, 2007 08:21 PM
from the taking-down-an-industry-on-a-sham dept.
from the taking-down-an-industry-on-a-sham dept.
greenbird sends in word that Techdirt has up information from Daniel Berninger documenting prior art in the Verizon patents being used to destroy Vonage. "...due to the fun way the patent system works, introducing that kind of prior art to the USPTO for it to review the validity of Verizon's VoIP patents will take quite a bit of time and effort — much longer than Vonage has to fight Verizon in court." From Berninger's note: "In particular, the claims in both patents were anticipated by open standards assembled by the VoIP Forum (H.323) in 1996 and published in January 1997 with the participation of members from Cisco Systems, Microsoft, IBM, Nortel, Intel, Motorola, Lucent, and VocalTec Communications, among others... The Eric Voit patent applications reflect, in particular, contributions made by VocalTec Communication to the VoIP Forum during 1996 and formally published at the same time as a separate document."
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Vonage Loses VoIP Case With Verizon 150 comments
cdrudge writes "A federal jury on Thursday said Vonage Holdings Corp. violated 3 of 5 patents of Verizon Communications Inc. and ordered the upstart Internet-phone company to pay $58m in damages as well as 5.5% in royalty fees per month per customer. Verizon said it would seek an injunction to block Vonage from using its patented technology. The jury did reject Verizon's claim of $200m in damages and that Vonage deliberately violated Verizon's patents. As you might expect, Vonage said it would appeal the decision and seek a stay if an injunction is granted. Judge Claude Hilton set a hearing for March 23 on whether to grant an injunction."
[+]
Vonage Goes To Court III - The AT&T Suit 113 comments
kickabear writes "AT&T has filed a lawsuit against Vonage, claiming patent infringement. This is the third major lawsuit to have been brought against Vonage by a major phone company. Vonage lost the previous two lawsuits, brought by Sprint-Nextel and Verizon. How much more money can Vonage afford to give away? How can Vonage educate a jury on prior art? 'It said in a filing to the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission that AT&T is seeking injunctive relief, compensatory and treble damages and attorneys' fees in unspecified amounts. Vonage said the lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court of the Western District of Wisconsin on October 17.'"
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Fun way? (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh okay. And I thought one of the basic ideas behind creating a dedicated body to examine and grant patents was to create a way to examine all important aspects. Clearly, prior art is not one of them - even if "the concepts in those patents were clearly discussed and published by others prior to the patent being filed. Berninger says that the ideas were discussed at the VoIP forum meeting in 1996 and published in January of 1997. The patents in question were filed after that."
The excuse... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well I don't buy it! I think the USPTO is broken in a few ways.
First off, the examiners are likely working to some sort of quota: Gotta process 10 claims a week or whatever. They can spend a reasonable amount of time investigating the application, or they can process it quickly. If they find some prior art, they send it back to the applicant who will send in a more supporting paperwork resulting in more work for the examiner to clear the patent application. The shortest route to clearing the patent is to just grant it. Come Friday and you're a few behind for the week, well they get slipped through double-quick.
Secondly Uncle Sam makes a bundle out of the USPTO. Each examiner can crank out a few grand's worth of work a day. Make it harder to get patents and less people will apply (and the processing costs would increase). It is easier to just make patents as easy to get as one of those credit card college degrees.
Thirdly, the USPTO is not held accountable to any quality measures. USPTO does not wear the costs of bad patents. Heads don't roll if patents get overturned. The lawyers love it. All the patent applications bring in money. Bad patents == more work. Nobody is motivated to improve patent quality.
Basically everything is stacked to delivering poor patents. I have a few patents, more than half of which I think are crap. I recently searched one of my patents and was suprised to see that other patents were granted for the same idea, even though the application quoted my patent. This really sucks. A patent is supposed to be property, but here the USPTO have clearly sold the same property many times over.
Is there a solution to this all? Perhaps. Firstly, patent quality needs to improve. That can only happen if the USPTO is help accountable. For example, if they grant a patent that is later overturned, then the USPTO could be held accountable for costs and losses incurred.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Granted, these particular folks would probably be bums at any job...
A fine place for bums (Score:2)
Sure these folk would have been bums anywhere else, but then they'd probably have been fired too!
Re:The excuse... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:The excuse... (Score:4, Interesting)
That's not been my experience. Our company has had a very difficult time getting any claims by the patent examiners. The prior art which has been cited against us thus far (we're on our 7th patent or so) have not been particularly relevant, and we've easily overcome them. On the flip side, the examiners seem to reject before they accept, and that's a process that takes years to deal with, and is, of course, very expensive -- especially for a smaller company like us which is actively developing the products underlying our patents.
Parent
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While I am no opponent of accountability this is suing yourself.
The USTPO is *you*. They are supposed to represent the commons: To ensure that the patent system delivers the balance between commercial interests and The Public Good (tm).
Holding them accountable is ... errrm... how exactly can you hold them accountable?
Firing individuals makes it harder (more $$$) to attract new-hires -- so a more costly IP system with high turn-over and low knowledge
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This isn't a valid argument - right now the public is bleeding money to lawyers, because of lawsuits over patents. If the patent office were made liable to pay for these damaging costs whenever they are the result of its own mistakes, then it would have an incentive
A patent examiner is GS-5 $38K job to start (Score:5, Informative)
http://usptocareers.gov/jobsearch.asp [usptocareers.gov]
Key requirements (redux):
- US Citizenship
- Ability to travel
- BA or BS from a community college accredited by ABET _or_ 2nd year coursework in 5 of 7 areas: physics, chemistry, architecture, computer science, mathematics, hydrology, or geology
- Registered as a professional engineer by a state, DC, Guam, or Puerto Rico
- Pass a written test for "Engineer In Training" or professional registration test
- 60 semester hours of courses in basic sciences/physics/math/engineering
So you've got to really want to be a patent examiner, be willing to live with a salary far below what you'd get in private industry with the same paper qualifications.
And then you get to do the scut work for a couple of years.
If you want to have your pay grade go up, you need time in grade and even more qualifications.
So it's pretty much the same deal that entry level teachers get, only you don't get the summer off.
-- Terry
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Patent Examiner, GS-5/7/9 ($38,435/$47,610/$55,518)
or
Patent Examiner, GS-11 ($63,885)
Rates above are for starting salaries (Step 1 of 10 in each grade with step 10 being $11k-$19K higher than base)
You're not going to be staying at these beginning levels very long unless you're very slow.
As you gain proficiency (and pass qualification testing) you're looking at making up to $133,702 (GS-14, Step 10) without being in a supervisory position.
The
Re:A patent examiner is GS-5 $38K job to start (Score:5, Informative)
- US Citizenship
- Ability to travel
- BA or BS from a community college accredited by ABET _or_ 2nd year coursework in 5 of 7 areas: physics, chemistry, architecture, computer science, mathematics, hydrology, or geology
- Registered as a professional engineer by a state, DC, Guam, or Puerto Rico
- Pass a written test for "Engineer In Training" or professional registration test
- 60 semester hours of courses in basic sciences/physics/math/engineering
Parent
Re:Fun way? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
For the qualifications they're demanding, those are ludicrous salaries, and some of the qualifications themselves just don't make sense.
i use vonage (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
All Vonage has to do... (Score:5, Interesting)
I assume all Vonage has to do is say to the judge "We have found prior art. We'd like the injuctions extended until we can invalidate the Verizon patent. We can show you the prior art and we have an extremely good chance of winnnig".
What reasonable judge wouldn't go along with this line of thinking?
I just bought a router that has two phone ports for Vonage and I've been waiting to turn them on. As an aside I'm sorta freaked I can buy a router for $100 with a $50 rebate. I'm used to writing very big checks for routers.
But I guess that was in a different century.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re:All Vonage has to do... (Score:4, Interesting)
The USPTO only issues the patent initially -- it's exactly like Congress passing a law. If Congress passes a law, and that law is unjust or unconstitutional, when someone challenges the law in court, it can be rendered null. That's called checks and balances. You don't have to wait for Congress to say "oh you're right, that's a bad law." That's the whole point of the court.
Similarly, if there exists prior art or the invention covered by a patent does not satisfy non-obviousness conditions during the course of patent litigation, the court can immediately find the patent without merit with respect to the case at hand. That doesn't mean the patent is invalid in all other cases (only the USPTO can actually retract the granting of a patent), but it DOES mean that you'll have a hell of a time enforcing that patent against any similar institutions.
However, most people have no clue how patent litigation really works anyway. The patent holder has a (moderately) narrowly-defined patent, and attempts to broaden the interpretation of that definition as much as possible. For example, I might argue that my definition of a "telephone" also covers a "wireless telephone". Meanwhile, the opposing party attempts to show how that narrowish definition is in conflict with prior art, or how their product or the source of the complaint doesn't actually conflict with the narrowish definition. For example, I might say that my phone is not a "telephone" or a "wireless telephone", but an "uncorded interpersonal communication device". Obviously the definitions are more technical and nuanced than that, but you get the point.
If this prior art DOES in fact apply to the case at hand, you can be sure that Vonage's lawyers have dug it up. Sad truth is that recent patent rulings favor patent holders anyway, establishing a precedent that encourages holders of frivolous or over-broad patents to sue and win. So big companies are just buying up patents and shooting off the litigation. No big surprises there, eh.
Parent
doing Vonage's job (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, but it would take a lot longer than that to convince them that the documents cover the patent claims in question, especially if Verizon is claiming otherwise.
Re: (Score:2)
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Of course. But that's not the point. People want Vonage to win because the system is broken and in serious need of fixing. It's being abused in order to squash competition, which is bad for all of us.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Scamming the patent office (Score:2)
no (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:no (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And the lawyers don't get hammered for recommending such a willful disregard of due diligence? There's part of the problem right there. It sounds to me like they're effectively advocating fraud against the federal government.
Re: (Score:2)
Why would a company submit information with their patent application showing they weren't the ones that came up with the idea to begin with? Wouldn't that negate the whole purpose of applying for a patent.
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Isn't the whole point of a patent examiner to search out this evidence to start with?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"In the United States, inventors and their patent agents or attorneys are required by law to submit any prior art they are aware of to the United States Patent and Trademark Office so that the patent examiner can take the prior art into account when examining the patent application."
Now is a telephone company going to claim that they had no knowledge of discussions within a standards setting body which was setting standards for making telephone calls over IP - the very subject of this patent
Re: (Score:2)
A method or device for extracting a Patent Examiner's head from his or her ass before reviewing Patent Applications.
To be fair, examiners surely have some specialized knowledge that I lack, just as I have knowledge in the field of software that they, chronically, seem to lack. Software patents are debatable, but there's no doubt that tech companies with deep pockets are totally scamming the PTO with crap like this.
If Vonage goes under trying to defend themselves against a patent that wi
So, the deal with patents and prior art ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Saying that a patent describes "just another way" to do some obvious thing, and is therefore trivial, is missing the point. It's exactly that "just another way" that a patent is intended to protect. Patents covering radical ideas are the exception, not the norm. If you have some obvious thing you need done, but you can't find "just another way" to do it that someone else hasn't already patented, and you don't have a license covering one of those other ways, you are S.O.L.
Re:So, the deal with patents and prior art ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:So, the deal with patents and prior art ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately, Verizon patented the very fundamental underpinnings of doing VoIP at all. The patent claims are so broad they don't just cover particular ways of:
- Using a server to advertise a route from a VoIP client to another user's POTS phone.
- Using a server to advertise a route from a VoIP client to another user's VoIP client and a backup route to his POTS phone.
- Using a server to advertise a route to a wireless handset with a VoIP client or POTS connection.
They patented DOING IT AT ALL.
The prior art is not another way of doing something equivalent. It is a particular way of "doing it". So it infringes on the patent claims.
It also invalidates them. But getting that into "judicial notice" before Vonage dies is another can of worms.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
So help me out here because I'm confused. I work in a niche research area which involves concepts of considerable commercial value. Our small startup company, which has extremely limited funds and cannot afford to take out patents, protect ourselves by publishing key algorithms and concepts. None of the board, CTO, engineers or managers believe in
Re:So, the deal with patents and prior art ... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Is the US patent system absolutely bat-shit psychopathic lunatic insane?"
Yes.
"Could this be used to harm or destroy our business in unpredictable and random ways?"
Yes.
Any more questions?
Parent
Re: (Score:3)
It's not the Supreme Court's job to fix stupid laws, only unconstitutional ones. Patent law is actually pretty clearly within the constitutional domain of Congress. It's up to Congress to fix the law, not the courts.
Think about it--do you really want the least representative branch of government in charge of making laws AND ruling on their validity? There's a balance of power fo
software patents... (Score:5, Insightful)
Consider who you are dealing with.
The way to win the software patent game is to not play it, don't participate. Let it fall upon itself to flush out the reality of software not being patentable.
By fighting againts software patents via prior art, you are doing so in a supporting the existance of software patents.
The real fight is exposing and getting the general population to recognize that due the nature of software it is simply not patentable and any organization supporting software patents are commiting fraud against others.
Democracy? (Score:3, Insightful)
what happened to democracy?
This has actually been my point for quite some time now, that "one (wo)man, one vote" doesn't mean shjit anymore. "One million dollars, one policy" is more like what we're calling democracy today. While far from perfect, Canada has been trying hard to limit the impact of political contributions by (at least) limiting individual contributions. There's still lots of work to be done
It's more basic then this (Score:5, Informative)
The article links to a wikia article [wikia.com] on the subject, which provides a very nice summary of the arguments. My question is how is this stuff even patentable?
Patent 6,282,574 clearly states that no one except Verizon can legally translate an IP to a telephone number and vice versa. The rest of the patents are basically saying Verizon owns the only right to transmit other various phone communications over TCP/IP.
WTF? How can someone be awarded a patent for their idea for an application layer protocol that depends on something like TCP/IP to even opperate?
what is it with stupid questions? (Score:2, Informative)
you apparently want me to spell it out so i will..
c - o - r - r - u - p - t - i - o - n
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Wow. So Verizon invented the mapping table. Whod'-a-thunk it?
Re:It's more basic then this (Score:5, Informative)
Upheld - claim 27 of the '574 patent.
26. A method comprising:
receiving a name translation request at a server coupled to a public packet data network;
translating a name included in the request into a destination telephone number associated with a name included in the request; and
transmitting a reply containing both the destination telephone number and a packet data network address of a telephone gateway coupled between the public packet data network and a telephone network through the public packet data network to a calling device.
27. A method as in claim 26, wherein the address is an Internet Protocol address.
Claim 26 is spurious because the phone companies had been doing network-based address translation over public packet networks for many years. This is how 800 number lookups worked, for example - the 800 number is mapped to an area code+local exchange number suitable for routing over the PSTN. The classic telecommunications packet networks used by the phone companies are different than the TCP/IP data networks we're familiar with - the links are synchronous and connections have to be set up and physically reserved in advance. But they're still packet-based.
As for Claim 27, that seems to be a good description of the Domain Name Service which existed for decades. Now, Verizon's lawyers may argue that it means something other than that. Tough, it's ambiguous because the terse way it was drafted ("A method as in claim 26, wherein...") can be interpreted in any number of different ways. They shouldn't be allowed to impose the most convenient interpretation for themselves many years after the fact.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Claim 26 is using a domain name server (or some other database server connected to the internet or some other PUBLIC net) to translate a name to a (POTS bridge server address, phone number) tuple.
It doesn't cover the old 800-number translation because that request went to a server that was connected to a phone-system internal net that wasn't accessible to the general public. This claim covers emulating the behavior using a publicly-accessible server.
(In other words they're patenting letting the g
Re:It's more basic then this (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
There's only one thing left to say.... (Score:2)
Too Late (Score:3, Interesting)