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Patents Government Handhelds The Courts Hardware News

RIM Loses NTP Case, To Pay $53 Million 256

Posted by timothy from the blackberry-owners-in-mourning dept.
theodp writes "A judge has ruled in favor of holding company NTP in its patent-infringement case against BlackBerry maker Research In Motion, awarding monetary damages and fees of $53.7 million and granting an injunction preventing RIM from making, using, or offering to sell handhelds, services or software in the U.S. until the date of expiration of NTP's patents, the latest of which is May 20, 2012. The court then stayed that injunction, pending an appeal by the Canadian company."
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RIM Loses NTP Case, To Pay $53 Million More

RIM Loses NTP Case, To Pay $53 Million

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  • So (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @12:15AM (#6623111)
    If you became employed by Research In Motion, would that be a RIM Job?
    • Actually, a friend of mine (and former co-worker) did become employed by them, and is moving to Waterloo, ON.

      Needless to say I've sent him the link to this story.
      I hope he doesn't come back and tell me he's been laid off already.

    • Re:So (Score:5, Funny)

      by CaptCanuk ( 245649 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @01:45AM (#6623498) Journal
      Actually, their recruitment literature is very specific in stating that they don't offer RIM Jobs. The free pen they gave out said it all: "RIM Careers". It's good to see marketing accounting for sexual innuendo.

    • But their earnings just took a RIM shot. (Ack! I should be ashamed of myself). -- MA
    • Yes it is, it's been an old joke since they were founded.
      Also they're a good employer, people would graduate or be on coop, get a job from RIM, and joke how they just got a RIMjob.

    • If you take a job at RIM after this ruling, there's no doubt that at the very least you're going to get bent over...

  • RIM said in a statement that it was gratified that the judge did not make the injunction take effect immediately. ...

    "It doesn't do NTP any good to shut RIM down, because its business is based on licensing...we believe that RIM will settle at some nominal licensing rate and while we view this as a short-term negative...the long-term effects will be minimal."

    In its earnings reports, RIM has been stating two sets of results, depending on the outcome of the infringement case. A negative ruling would bite in

  • Would it be legal for a wireless company to sell their existing stock of blackberries? Either way, there's about to be an insane black(berry) market on eBay. Max

    • Re:Buy existing stock!? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Vorgo ( 448106 )
      and that would be useful how?

      As a PDA and depending on the model, maybe a cellphone.

      If the injuction goes through then you won't be able to wirelessly connect a blackberry to the network because there won't be the essential key to their operation... RIM.

    • Re:Buy existing stock!? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by shepd ( 155729 )
      IANAL, but I'd say yes, CompUSA, etc can sell whatever they have on hand. The only company named in the injunction, afaik, is RIM. Which means RIM can't sell them to the US legally. I suppose if you aren't RIM, you could...

      But, I might be wrong on that.

      And yes, the market would be insane. As in, price drop from $500 to $5...
      • I think the point is, your RIM mobile device, talking with your company's BlackBerry server is useless since the service (and underlying network) that takes the message from your mailbox to your Crackberry ain't gonna be there. Making the device nothing more then a cool, but useless belt accessory, even if its only $5.

  • Well (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Shaklee39 ( 694496 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @12:17AM (#6623126)
    This verdict is quite a blow to Research In Motion, but an injunction against RIM to stop selling the BlackBerry would be devastating. I have to agree with Balsillie in his assessment that an injunction of that magnitude would be unlikely. The US$23.1 million dollar settlement could also be overturned in February. After all, anything can happen in a jury trial, and it is really not until an appellate court gets the case that the legality of NTP's claim is truly measured.

    I am sure that Handspring and Good Technology, companies that have felt RIM's legal wrath in the past, are happy to see RIM get a little taste of its own medicine. An interesting thing to note about NTP is that it has no commercial operations at all. It is simply a holding company that has the patents. Needless to say, owning and defending patents could easily be a source of revenue for a company. As it relates to this case it seems that type of business structure may be profitable.

    • Re:Well (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "Needless to say, owning and defending patents could easily be a source of revenue for a company."

      I remember my father, who reads Fortune and Forbes, telling me of companies that do just that. I think there was also some coverage on /. earlier this year.

      The one company (I forget names; I suck at names; hell, it took me 3 years to put fiber optics and lasers with JDS Uniphase) he was tellng me about--all they did was examine existing patents for loopholes, ways around the current patent, or something natu

    • Re:Well (Score:4, Informative)

      by mckeever ( 410646 ) <robm@ma[ ]om ['c.c' in gap]> on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @03:14AM (#6623718) Homepage Journal
      NTP used to be fairly large and provided a number of lightweight computers to the educational market. A few years back, a friend of mine worked there when they had offices outside of Vancouver, BC near where MoLicell opened the first rechargeable lithium battery plant. At the time, I was living just down the road. Then they transferred him to Ireland and shortly afterwards closed up operations. (Hi Kaari - I know you're reading this...)

      I don't know the extent of their claims or of their patent portfolio, but I do remember that they held quite an extensive patent collection in the handheld market. I agree that a judgment of that magnitude against RIM would be devastating for the Blackberry, but it might be warranted - who knows? Not you or I (small assumption about the reader, but probably not far off). Please also try to remember that both companies are canadian and that canadian patent laws likely differ greatly in key areas than their american counterparts.

      Sucks that it's one canadian company suing another canadian company. This could be another case of the all-too-typical SCO-style litigation. Only time will tell.

    • Patent squatting (Score:5, Insightful)

      by xixax ( 44677 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @03:25AM (#6623750)
      An interesting thing to note about NTP is that it has no commercial operations at all. It is simply a holding company that has the patents. Needless to say, owning and defending patents could easily be a source of revenue for a company. As it relates to this case it seems that type of business structure may be profitable.
      The rise of these sorts of companies demonstrate that the current patent system no-longer meets the constitution's stated objective of encouraging innovation (which is why patents are supposed to exist). What we are getting now is a legislated monopoly.

      Xix.

      • Re:Patent squatting (Score:4, Insightful)

        by blastedtokyo ( 540215 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @04:04AM (#6623868)
        I'm no fan of overbroad patents, but it's a bit of blanket statment to say that it's halting innovation. If a skeleton company acquires patents and and tries to profit from it, it's just time shifting the intent of the original inventors. The fact that the original business couldn't stay alive is incidental. If the engineers didn't have the promise of patent protection, they might have never developed it in the first place.
        • Thank you for tempering one of those overarching "this is whats wrong with the world today!" comments.
        • What do you want to bet that nobody had heard of these patents until RIM was sued? If the patents expire in 2012 (and that was the most recent one!) then they must have had some of these patents for almost a decade. Patents on handhelds? Is Palm next now that they got the little guy?

          Patents may be a necessary evil, but using "lets hide until Company X has a thriving market then sue them for zillions" as a moneymaking plan is more evil than necessary.

  • Sweet! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by shepd ( 155729 ) <slashdot.org@gmai l . c om> on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @12:17AM (#6623131) Homepage Journal
    RIM finally reaps what they sowed. [theregister.co.uk]

  • So, anyone got details on the patent involved? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Burnon ( 19653 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @12:18AM (#6623137)
    This sounds wild. The broad definition in the article seems like it could apply to pretty much any wireless technology these days, including cell phones and wi-fi systems. Why did Blackberry get singled out? Are most companies already licensing this patent or something like that?

    • Re:So, anyone got details on the patent involved? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by eyegone ( 644831 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @12:21AM (#6623155)
      I'm wondering that myself. Wouldn't radio telegrams, like the ones sent from the Titanic in 1912, constitute prior art?
    • Probably because they pulled the same stunt.

    • Its usual in cases like this for the weakest member of the herd to be singled out - as long as its worth suing.

      With a high-profile case like this NTP now have leverage against larger companies, who rather than litigate will end up settling for a fee ($53mill + lawyers fees is a lot of licenses).

      In practise of course this is just another example of the US Patent system gone barmy.

      As one of the next posters has said 'logical steps' should not be patentable.

      In fact this is one of the tenets of acquirin

      • That patent is gobbledegook! At some point someone has gone through it and done a global search and replace of normal words into patentese:
        • s/interface/one interface/g
        • s/interfaces/at least one interface/g
        • s/\(originating\|destination\) processor/one of the plurality of \1 processors/g
        • s/\(originating\|destination\) processors/at least one of the plurality of \1 processors/g

        The result is ungrammatical in many places ("...the at least one...". I think that should be reason enough to invalidate it. Can any

    • You seem to misunderstand how the patent system works (in the US especially). I am not too sure myself...

      1) Almost any patent might be granted, even those to which prior art applies, or those that offer little or no innovative ideas. The only reason why you cannot patent, for instance, swinging sideways on a swing, is the fact that someone has beaten you to it (I kid you not).

      2) Almost any patent, however bollocksy, can be profitably enforced if you can find a victim who does not have sufficiently dee

  • Surprised (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PktLoss ( 647983 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @12:20AM (#6623148) Homepage Journal
    I think that recent conversations about patents and such talk about how foolish patents like this are: infringed on its patents covering the use of radio frequency wireless communications in e-mail systems.

    I really dont think logical next steps should be patentable. I would like to patent using nano technology to make monitors as easy to read as print, or, using light below the visible spectrum to read optical information at even smaller wavelengths, or...

    Besides, I think that RIM has really done a lot to immprove the state of communications in large corporations

    • You can't patent that. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MickLinux ( 579158 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @01:13AM (#6623385) Journal
      You cannot patent that, because the price of a patent and the price of enforcing a patent has been set way above the assets that a normal person will be able to afford.

      Nor can the company you work for patent it; if they do, they won't profit from it, because they will simply be sued for some cross-licensing issue.

      Sorry, but patent barratry is a privilege reserved for the nobility: the pure legal attack firms.

      I need not say it again, but I will: Patent law is inherently broken.

    • Broad patents screw over innovation (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gotr00t ( 563828 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @02:05AM (#6623555) Journal
      Holding companies do nothing more than brainstorm very general ideas and then patent them, but the consumers get no benefit from an idea without a product. This is another example of how broad patents really don't benefit consumers.

      I agree that a company that has designed and created a working implementaion of a product would be entitled to sue another company that has created the same product. However, in this partictular case, it seems that the company that is being sued is the one that has created a successful working implementation, and the only reason why NTP actually gets anything is the simple fact that they got to the very general idea first. The patenting of the very concept of wireless e-mail is just whacked.

      This lawsuit is good only for one company: NTP, and terrible for RIM and the consumers. NTP is merely a holding company that creates no innovation, just hogs ideas before other companies who have intention to make a working implementation and create a functional product. The consumer market would be held back from a good product if RIM goes out of business, and the Blackberry may very well rise in price if they don't.

  • It must be their karma coming back to haunt them (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @12:21AM (#6623149)
    Research in Motion's company nickname is "Lawsuits in Motion". Live by the sword, die by the sword.

    Good luck on your appeal RIM, because you are really going to need it given your karma deficit. ....

  • Personally, to make it relevant to myself:

    1. I have to get a handheld;
    2. I would need to appreciate the coolness factor of uploading/downloading to and from a PDA with a wireless connection, when the computer's right there.

    Yes, it's nice to investigate the technology, and there may be benefits if you're talking about downloading stuff from two or three different comptuers in the room. For the moment, though, this technology isn't useful enough to warrant my time, so the lawyers involved have my personal per

  • USPTO: Asleep again. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tokerat ( 150341 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @12:28AM (#6623188) Journal

    I know, let's take another two innovative inventions and put them together in an obvious way, then we can all be rich!

    I think I'll patent wireless car audio. Less messy hookup, easily swap your system out when it breaks/gets old, etc. Aside from some probable technical difficulties, once this comes out I'll be rich. I'll just sue.

    Seriously, could this mean that I can't get mail on my cel phone anymore? Or is this specifically limited to devices designed to provide such a feature exclusively? (And wouldn't SMS pagers infringe, since that is a form of wireless electronic mesaging?)

  • What a pain. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ratfynk ( 456467 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @12:28AM (#6623189) Journal
    Innovation by litigation things are getting rediculous and the only people to profit from this nonsense are Lawyers.

  • Glad NTP won (Score:5, Funny)

    by sharkey ( 16670 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @12:39AM (#6623252)
    I was afraid my clocks would drift hopelessly.

  • This is bogus. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Vip ( 11172 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @12:43AM (#6623267)
    Look at the patents at http://www.uspto.gov

    None of them are anything beyond taking what is commonly done via hardware and adding the word "RF" in there.

    They also own the patent on frequency modulation to send data.

    NTP Inc btw readily admits that this is it's business model.

    Vip

  • sure, they violated the patent (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 73939133 ( 676561 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @12:50AM (#6623299)
    If the jury was asked whether RIM violated the patent, they probably made the right decision in saying that they did.

    But that's because NTP's patent is ridiculous. Who are they going to go after next? TabletPC users who happen to use a wireless connection? People who read E-mail through a handheld connected to their cell phone?

    RIM is right in having this patent re-examined. Now, I think RIM itself is a thoroughly disgusting company when it comes to stupid patents and that if this infringement claim holds up it would be poetic justice. But that is little satisfaction in the long term: if these kinds of patents hold up in court, it is bad for the industry.
    • Now, I think RIM itself is a thoroughly disgusting company when it comes to stupid patents and that if this infringement claim holds up it would be poetic justice.

      There is a fundamental difference between RIM and NTP: RIM makes a product, NTP doesn't. Patents are supposed to give companies that make innovative products a short term monopoly because that encourages companies to innovate. I would say that RIM is doing what was intended, and NTP is not.
      • RIM makes a product, NTP doesn't.

        The rewards of the patent should go to the people who invented the technology, not the people who happen to make a product. That is the intent of the patent system, and it is what is needed in order to encourage innovation. It is nice when inventor and manufacturer coincide, but they don't have to.

        For example, a generic drug maker could make a patented drug tomorrow if they liked, but it's the original patent holder that paid the cost of developing the drug in the first

    • But that's because NTP's patent is ridiculous. Who are they going to go after next? TabletPC users who happen to use a wireless connection? People who read E-mail through a handheld connected to their cell phone?

      I say they (NTP) should take on Sony-Ericsson next. My latest phone from them (a T68i, in case anyone is interrested) comes with tcp/ip, pop3 and smtp support. It can automatically check my email every some timeinterval and notify me if anything new arrived (as if it was an incomming SMS). Also,

  • I can't stand it when people overload acronymns. It's a bad situation in a field when there are literally books of acronyms, but when you use NTP, I would surmise that the vast majority of people think the Network Time Protocol (which my advisor [udel.edu] invented) as opposed to Non-Thermal Plasma. It's not acronymns I have anything against, it's just using the obscure ones that conflict with much better known ones.
    • Back in the MacOS 7 days ATM for me could mean:
      Automated Teller Machine
      Asynch Transfer Mode
      Adobe Type Manager

      Now, pretty much the only ATM I need is the one that gives me cash. Much simpler.
    • Get with the times, man... it's going to be popping up more and more, because with our current set of laws (now to be enforced on a WTO level), there is free,legal theft, without risk available.

      The only problem is that the thieves, if successful, will destroy the economy, resulting in feudalism and some level of starvation. But for them, if it occurs to them at all, I suspect that seems okay, since they're figuring that they'll have more assets and be able to buy the food.

      Just be aware: they are wrong.

  • Prior art? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by xtal ( 49134 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @01:06AM (#6623358)
    X.25 based ham radio bulletin boards have been in existance for a long, long time - including e-mail and text messaging in addition to binary file transfers. The patent issues seem pretty thin here.. does anyone have more information on their claim?
  • While the remaining re-examination and appeal processes may take several years to complete...

    Several years? Great. So in about 5 years there'll be a post on Slashdot with the title "Suit against RIMjob company some old Internet protocol is finally over"
    [that is, if Slashdot becomes overrun with immature pre-teens in the next five years.... oh wait, what am I saying]

  • Patent Law (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Mark_MF-WN ( 678030 )

    Patent law is thorny enough, but how bad must internation patent law be?

    Incidentally, does anyone know if the US and Canada have automatic patents between them? Are patents in the US enforceable in Canada, and vice versa? You'd think so, what with the close trade ties and all.

    • Re:Patent Law (Score:2, Insightful)

      by toofanx ( 679091 )
      Not just the U.S. and Canada, but virtually the whole wide world is governed by the Patent Cooperation Treaty [uspto.gov] . I know there are other treaties also, but I forgot their names.

      • I was under the impression that the patent treaties granted an automatic "reservation" for a patent, but no patent itself. This allows one to get "patent pending" type status in many countries at once without too much trouble. But before you can enforce any rights, you have to file all the paperwork (and pay the fees!) of each coutry in which you want to get a "real" patent.

        I looked into this a few years ago, and there's a very good chance that I'm flat out wrong. Someone please correct me if I am.

        I'

  • Compulsory licensing (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gad_zuki! ( 70830 ) * on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @01:37AM (#6623472)
    This country is badly in need of compulsory patent licensing like they have in Europe. This isn't just important in the tech industry but in pharmecutical industry as well.

    What really gets me about the RIM patents (and other wireless patents) is that there's nothing there. Any wired technology can be made wireless, its no biggie. Running out and getting a patent on "wireless email" is the equivalant of getting a patent out on progress.

    In the end, this patent nonsense hurts the consumer and hurts business. I hope more cases like this keep happening to show the public, patent lawyers, and politicians that the "patent everything" mentality just doesn't work.

    • Re:Compulsory licensing (Score:5, Informative)

      by harriet nyborg ( 656409 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @04:22AM (#6623911)
      What really gets me about the RIM patents (and other wireless patents) is that there's nothing there.

      well, if you don't read the patent it makes sense that you would conclude there's "nothing there."

      here's a novel idea: let's take a look at the patent in question (US 5,625,670) and see what is actually says...

      first, look at the filing history (on the first page of the patent)

      This application is a Continuation application of U.S. Ser. No. 07/702,939, filed May 20, 1991, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,436,960; Ser. No. 07/702,938, filed May 20, 1991, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,479,472, and Ser. No. 08/247,466, filed May 23, 1994, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,938,611; which is a Continuation of U.S. Ser. No. 07/702,319, filed May 20, 1991 (now abandoned).

      without having the text of the correspondence in front of me, it seems that this patent is the progeny of a series of patents filed earlier. more likely, what happened was that NTP realized their original claims were not being infringed and they needed to modify the patent in order to obtain claims which were being infringed.

      this is the "trick" used to great success by lemmelson. file a fat application, watch what other people do, and then file a continuation application with some new claims covering this use. as long as there is support in the original application, this is perfectly legal under US law.

      note that under current US law, the patent will expire 20 years after the earliest claimed date of priority - or may 20th 2011. (the application filed in 1994 might have an impact on this, but it's hard to say.)

      next look at the amount of prior art which was cited. 14 prior art patents and 9 non-patent references. not much... which suggests there wasn't much prior art. Curis Kuntz, the primary examiner at the USPTO for this case, is no pushover - patents with his name on them usually are pretty solid - so let's give him the benefit of the doubt.

      now, let's take a quick look at the claims.... of which there are 276.... the poor examiners... this is really abusive. a multiple warhead nuclear bomb... really hard to shoot down all of them. try reading 100 of them, and then try reading 100 more, and then try reading the last 76 and see if your head doesn't explode. remember that examiners don't get paid in 6 minute increments of an hour (as do attorneys) and have a limited amount of time to do their job...

      i don't know which of these 276 claims were at issue in the case, but one can certainly feel sorry for RIM... it's hard to avoid a patent claim when new ones are being shot at you all the time... this may have had something to do with the judge not issuing an injunction.

      it would probably be a fair assumption that the claim at issue - probabaly only one of the 276 - is valid and infringed.... NTP had all the information they needed from discovery to know what they needed to say... and they probably scoured the earth for prior art during the process... and they had unlimited time to craft just the claims they needed.

      what stinks is that an applicant for patent can do this.

      while there is no such thing as compulsory licensing in Europe - where on earth did you read this? - there are far stricter limits on the tricks you can play with adding new claims, or filing continutation applications.

      a sensible reform of the US patent system would be to make the applicant stick to the original claims as filed... limit the number of claims to give the examiners a chance to properly do their jobs... and not to allow ex post facto modifications like this. if the applicant didn't claim it at the time of filing, then he or she shouldn't be able to claim it later.

      congress - once again - is the problem. not the USPTO.

      one thing is for certain, we americans do indeed have the best politicians money can buy!

      • "there is no such thing as compulsory licensing in Europe - where on earth did you read this?"

        you are wrong.

        English law provides for compulsory licensing if certain (fairly wide) conditions are met after 3 years from the date a patent is granted. This has been the case for at least a hundred years. Most other EU member States have similar laws, and there is some limited EC law on the subject as well.

  • RIM is no better than NTP (Score:3, Interesting)

    by The Revolutionary ( 694752 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @01:43AM (#6623493) Homepage Journal
    Slashdot readers should understand that RIM is in no way less guilty of abusing the patent and copyright systems than is NTP. As seen in a link from the article, RIM has pursued similar measures against Good Technology, who, so far as I can tell, appear to be writing software for RIM's platforms which allows users to use the devices with Good Technology's competing services.

    However, that doesn't mean that RIM, if they ultimately lose the appeal, will get what they deserve. Patenting a system of using wireless radio to transmit and receive email from a handheld device is a blatant abuse of the patent system.

    Yes, perhaps 15-20 years ago it may not have been obvious.

    However, given the introduction of small scale radio transmitters/receivers (er, which isn't exactly new), and powerful small scale electronics, it is absolutely obvious.

    This is analogous to being awarded a patent for "a car which uses a 'gravity shield' to hover and propel itself along several feet above the surface", and then at some point in the future when a large scale and low power 'gravity shield' is invented (hah!), trying to enforce that patent.

    A wireless network of handheld devices for email is an absolutely obvious application of existing technology. It was not even an "adaptation" of existing technology. It was just a matter of doing the obvious: 1) we transmit data which is email, 2) we wirelessly transmit data, 3) we have powerful electronic devices that can fit in the palm of one's hand, and it is obvious that 4) we can wirelessly transmit email to handheld devices.

    5) be awarded patent on obvious combination of existing technology but fail to develop or implement it yourself
    6) ???
    7) Profit!

  • Screw Them (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cmacb ( 547347 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @01:48AM (#6623505) Homepage Journal
    I have no use for RIM. However a group of my friends convinced me to get the RIM pagers when they were bundled with Yahoo Instant Messaging a couple years ago. The pagers themselves were still outrageously expensive considering what they did. The service itself was spotty at best I spent more time twisting and turning and moving from one spot to another to actually receive a signal and about 1 message in 3 that I sent actually got anywhere. Since the monthly price for the service was better with the Yahoo version than with the standard RIM service (about a third I think) we all put up with the shoddy service.

    But after only 6 months, RIM pre-announced that they would not be continuing their deal with Yahoo, and that our only option would be to discontinue the service or convert to the much more expensive RIM service (which actually didn't even have instant messaging at all!) This was a pure bait and switch deal as far as I was concerned.

    The combination of 802.11 devices coming down in price as well as initiatives such as Verizon's putting wireless hot-spots at all the phone booths will obsolete this technology real fast.

    If this puts them out of business, good riddance!

    (Who ever said I don't hold a grudge?)
    • You are deciding that because a company provided bad service to you then it is OK if they are brought down by one of the IP protection rackets that are becomming the more profitable, less productive "businesses" in the history of mankind.

      Bad service a by a company that actually implemented something is bad. Broken patent law, judges and juries without a clue, and goverments intent in making things even worse are patently an uglier option.

  • Don't patents have to be original? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by aaaurgh ( 455697 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @01:54AM (#6623529)
    Perhaps it's different in the U.S. but I recall a case maaaaany years ago in the U.K. where a patent was refused because the idea had previously been seen in a children's comic.

    The idea was for an automatic cat flap that opened when the trained cat pressed on a pad. Apparently the patent office clerk either saw a similar design on his son's comic (The Beano or The Dandy, U.K. comics for the under ten) or spoke of it and the son brought the comic to his attention.

    Either way, the patent was knocked back for not being an original work - the idea had been presented before, albeit as an act of fiction in a comic. I'm fairly sure this is genuine, it made the headlines (mumble) years ago "when ah were just a nippa".

    Surely the same approach is used today in that, if an idea is already in general use, then it can't be an original work and therefore cannot be patented!?

    • Re:Don't patents have to be original? (Score:5, Informative)

      by BobTheLawyer ( 692026 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @03:39AM (#6623796)
      in theory this is the approach in the US and most other countries.

      In practice, the US patent office is totally out of control and accepts almost all the applications it receives. This, together with jury trials and the absence of a "loser pays" rule, rewards abusive patent applications and speculative litigation.

      If the US doesn't get control of its patent system soon it's going to seriously affect the US's innovation and competitiveness.
    • A reference has to enable a person of ordinary skill in the field to use the invention. Therefore, 20000 Leagues Under The Sea by Jules Verne is not enabling of nuclear powered submarines, and does not prevent patenting such. This is a case where the idea "it would be cool if..." doesn't have a solution in the field.

      Not that patents are limited to that. Lifting one end of a widely used printing press used for printing large city newspapers sped up the process by a factor of 3. The invention was in figu
    • I also remember reading years ago of a patent that was refused. (Sorry, I don't remember the jurisdiction.) The 'invention' was to deliver chemicals that form plastic foam when mixed together to the interior of sunken ships. When the chemicals mixed in the hold of the ship, the plastic foam would then lighten the ship (by pushing out the denser water) and allow the ship to float to the surface.

      The patent was refused due to prior description. This was a Donald Duck comic book where Donald and his nephews

    • Because the UK patent office has the sensible rule that you can only patent something that is novel in that its not obvious to a person well versed in the "state of the art".

      Unfortunately I'm not sure how well this will play together with the upcoming EU laws on software patents, since there is no software function that is not obvious to a person who knows about IT, everything has been done or discussed before.

      I hope the Eurocrats dont break our patent system, its one of the rare things that does work wel

  • Patent holding companies (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ogerman ( 136333 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @02:15AM (#6623577)
    This particular use of patent holding companies should be outlawed. If someone wants to patent something, they should be required to actually make innovative use of the patent within a short amount of time. Otherwise, holding companies just become minefields for industry and encourage bogus patents such as this one -- where some unethical weasel files for hundreds of patents on obvious technologies and then just waits for someone to come along and bump into them. Absolutely disgusting.
    • Otherwise, holding companies just become minefields for industry and encourage bogus patents such as this one

      And your evidence of bogosity is what? Was the judge hoodwinked? Did RIM not have an opportunity (and awesome incentive) to make every argument available to them as to non-infringement and invalidity? Looks like all evidence, at least, of the claim being "bogus," is to the contrary.

      -- where some unethical weasel files for hundreds of patents on obvious technologies and then just waits for so
    • In other words, if you're a small inventor and can't afford the legal fees to search out infringements and sue over it, you should just bend over.

  • I think the patent (Score:3, Informative)

    by davidm25 ( 606820 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @02:45AM (#6623651)
    is a bit more focused that most people here think. I thought that it covered the idea of using store and forward technology and the like which is a bit more complex than just using IP to talk to a server wirelessly. And it should be noted that the inventor is an individual. He just hired a law firm (proobably on contigency) to enforce his patents.

  • Live by the sword, die by the sword... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JohnA ( 131062 ) <{johnanderson} {at} {gmail.com}> on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @02:50AM (#6623672) Homepage
    Don't forget that RIM is the same company that received a U.S. patent [uspto.gov] for "A hand-held electronic device with a keyboard optimized for use with the thumbs"

    Just ask Adobe [slashdot.org] and Macromedia [macnn.com] for a real world view of how ludicrous software patents have become.
    • to be fair, this may be an example of "defensive patenting" where companies protect themselves against future litigation by patenting absolutely everything they can. Criticise them if they start trying to enforce this, but not for applying for it.
    • Don't forget that RIM is the same company that received a U.S. patent for "A hand-held electronic device with a keyboard optimized for use with the thumbs"

      Yes, but remember 2 things:

      1) The keyboard was innovative, particularly for the time it was used.

      2) RIM actually MAKES the darned thing, so at least they're using the patent system as intended.
  • This seems to be an emerging business plan, sue a company on shkay grounds, demand a licensing fee les than a strung out court case would cost, and... PROFIT!

    It seems to be a new legal version of the old fight club formula, you know, cost of a reacall/lawsuit...

  • The patent isn't wireless email (Score:3, Informative)

    by davidm25 ( 606820 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @02:52AM (#6623682)
    http://www.delphion.com/details?pn=US05625670__ A very convoluted system for doing email over a page network. The best part is that all these patents are almost obsolete. Wireless IP is the only way to go for email these days IMNHO. I am sure Nokia, Qualcom, and the like have all the good patents on that:)

  • Bad news for waterloo (Score:2, Informative)

    by xRelisH ( 647464 )
    Hopefully RIM can recover from this. U of Waterloo relies on quite a few donations from RIM, and a lot of students get co-op jobs ( and very good jobs at that ) at the company.
    Hopefully this doesn't bring another round of layoffs.
  • That the patent system is broken, one needs go no further. NTP, which never did any significant research itself (I think), trying to shut down the company that spent a tons of money making wireless e-mail practical. Hopefully it will attract attention of some Canandian politicians and induce them to put some strict limits on patents.

  • they patented the PDA! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by drakewyrm ( 573759 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @03:39AM (#6623797) Homepage Journal
    Has anybody else actually read (well, browsed) this thing [uspto.gov]? It describes any PalmPilot or Handspring (they come with email software) that has a cellular modem! Or any pager that can receive text.

  • Proprietary Pish (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @03:39AM (#6623801)
    RIM dont have anything. They rant about how brilliant push email is yet to do this your blackberry has to sustain a 24/7 GPRS connection - continually pinging a server so it knows where and who it is. How this is better that using a standard RFC protocol such as pop or imap and checking at regular intervals I don't know.
    And then they launch their consumer version, which is strongly denied by RIM to be Pull and Push because their whole "uniqueness" is push (put it pulls froms your pop account and pushes to you).

    Its all a load of crock - the whole business model is based on hype, CEO masturbation and obfuscation. Why the RIM server cannot do pop or imap collection is pure cynicism - its not like there are hard protocols. But, as one of RIM's sales people informed me, its all about upselling.

    In the UK an exchange licence for 5 users is 1200UKP. The RIM server is 2500UKP. So for 3700UKP plus hardware costs you cant have this wonderful push pish across a 100% proprietary set of protocols. A Rim guy tried to convince me that it wasnt propietary because they used triple DES encryption - thats like saying its not proprietary because we use ASCII. But your email is secure? Whats the point of securing your email from your mail server to your client when it was plain and dandy when it travelled around the internet to get to your mail server.

    No thanks, Ill take my linux mail server with unlimited email accounts and free, proven software and a load of Sony Ericsson P800s set to check for mail every minute. Then I will tell everyone that its push (they will never know the difference).

    (btw the 7230 blackberries are currently more expensive than the P800)

    Sorry about the rant - just been through 3 days of trying to find out about blackberries for some customers that have fallen for the hype. Oddly all are US owned companies trading in the UK. With a bit of luck blackberries wont get much further.

  • When I first heard abou the RIM devices, they were already pretty well known. This was about two or three years ago. Since then I've seen them become fairly wide spread. (look at the federal government)
    It seems that in order to "actively enforce" a patent or copyright, you just have to wait until a desirable amount of royalties or licensing fees have been accrued before you defend your IP in court. As far as I can tell -- from their claims, at least -- my transmitting this message through slashdot violates

  • I have never touched, or even seen a Blackberry, so humor this as an honest question.

    Can someone please explain to me how this is in any way superior to using any old phone (or a Bluetooth phone/PDA or even Treo) to check and send mail via GSM/GPRS? As an added bonus, for small sized message, you get direct phone-to-phone SMS...
    • Can someone please explain to me how this is in any way superior to using any old phone (or a Bluetooth phone/PDA or even Treo) to check and send mail via GSM/GPRS? As an added bonus, for small sized message, you get direct phone-to-phone SMS...

      Certainly.

      The main difference is that:

      1. It sits on your Exchange (or Notes) Server.
      2. It not only forwards the emails that you receive but also stores all the emails you sent back.
      3. It allows for wireless calendar: So if you're not in the office but someone sen

    • Basically, it's because it's designed from the ground up to be a messaging device, rather than a phone with messaging bolted on.

    • Seeing one might make it obvious. Here's a picture. [blackberry.com] Note the screen size.

      It's "always on." Mail is delivered to the handheld automatically, instead of check-retrieve. See the website [blackberry.com] for the list of benefits.

  • RIMs aren't only for email (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dstutz ( 639854 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @08:05AM (#6624466) Homepage
    Some of you are saying these RIM devices are useless and who needs wireless email anyway, but you're missing the point that they can do a LOT more than that. RIM has (had?) an SDK available for free download on their website in the past so they obviously intended people to develop their own apps for these things. My company (IBM) is one of them. I don't use it as much now, but for at least a year I was depending on one of these things to support me as a technician in the field. Our whole service-call system runs on our RIMs and it saves soooo much time and headache. We receive, update and close calls with a few clicks/turns of the thumbwheel as well as filling out the form to send back to IBM detailing what happened (used for billing/parts tracking among other things). Without these, I would have to either call a human being or dial in with my laptop. Two things that aren't much fun when you're driving all over the place trying to get work done.

    I was curious about what this settlement means to our use of these devices, but then I was reading through and saw how people think that RIM will most likely license the technology. Losing these things would suck for us techs.
  • Cases like this make me finally realize what is meant by "patently obvious". It means its as obvious and inevitable as patentable technology.
  • RIm is still allowed to sell to the U.S. for now. The injunction has been stayed [yahoo.com]. I'd still sell my stock, tho.

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