Five PC Vendors Face Patent Lawsuit

Combuchan writes "This article from internetnews.com caught my attention: While Linux lawsuits gobble up the IT community's mindshare, a lesser-known legal action is being fought seeking billions of dollars from five PC vendors. Patriot Scientific, a small, San Diego-based seller of embedded microprocessors for automotive and scientific applications, is suing Sony, Fujitu, Matsushita, Toshiba, and NEC, alleging infringement of a Patriot patent for what it calls 'fundamental microprocessor technology.'"

Well that's one way...

[filtur]

I guess suing is one way to make money, but not always the fastest.

Maybe things like this will help patents change?

[wmshub]

Look, who has the clout in congress to get the patent mess cleaned up? Big companies. Thus, the fastest way to clean it up, have big companies get harassed with expensive lawsuits like this. A lot. If Intel, Microsoft, IBM, etc., waste enough money fighting stupid patents (note - I know nothing about the Patriot patents, they may or may not be stupid), then you can bet that things will change.

Just a thought. Of course, laws would probably change in a way that makes it harder for anobody to sue big companies, but leave it just as easy for big companies to patent "one click instead of two to buy an item" type idiocy, but we can hope, can't we?

Re:GAAARGH!

[Kierthos]

This could all be solved by a careful and considered destruction of the current US Patent Office, and it's replacement by something that actually works.

Kierthos

Avoiding the big fish?

[LostCluster]

Why is it that they're suing Intel customers but not Intel itself... seems like they're afraid to go after somebody who might challenge them rather than settle...

Im in the wrong business

[t0ny]

It seems the only people making serious money from high tech are the lawyers.

Patent info

[Amigori]

Its funny how they decided to go after Intel's clients and not Intel [intel.com] or even AMD [amd.com]. This is similar to suing the local car dealership over a manufacturing issue, which only the auto manufacturer would have control over. Intel isn't resting on its laurels with this case either, as they have filed "a motion in the Northern District of California seeking a court order stopping Patriot from suing any additional Intel customers."

Here [uspto.gov] is the official patent from the USPTO. It was originally filed in 1998, but IC's have been around much longer than that, so I'm sure there's some prior art somewhere. This next quote could almost have come from the depths of the SCO complex:

"'Our Main focus is the IP [intellectual property] business now,'" he [CEO Jeff Wallin] said."

Kinda sounds like Rambus [rambus.com] and look where they've gone.

Amigori

Re:Screw this patent crap.

[dubdays]

And, on top of all this, this company has the nerve to go after Intel's CUSTOMERS, instead of the company itself. Personally, I think all of these lawsuits should, by default, be dismissed, since there has been no lawsuit against the "potentially" infringing company to determine the validity of the claim(s).

Assholes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Although Patriot has plans to move forward with its 32-bit processors and application-specific integrated circuits, Wallin said that product revenues were currently "negligible."

"Our main focus is the IP [intellectual property] business now," he said.

They don't actually make anything. They are a perfect example of why patents should be abolished - consumers and manufacturers all loose because of higher prices that support legalized protection rackets run by these thugs.

Re:Screw this patent crap.

[digitalvengeance]

From the parent: "we need to have some kind of IP court that determines whether or not a certain idea/algorithm/process deserves a patent to begin with. If not, no patent."

Isn't that precisely what the patent office is supposed to do? The problem is that they are inundated with so many requests that they don't have the resources (or desire for that matter) to adequately analyze and process each application.

I think the IP court you suggest would be subject to exactly the same problem, but with the added detriment of procedure in our never-ending legal process.

Though I haven't read the patent in question, it's possible that Intel's work in the 90s reflects prior art - but the patent office doesn't have time to find out one way or the other.

Re:Im in the wrong business

[Kierthos]

Replace "high tech" with lawsuits and you've got it. Seems every time I read about some multi-million dollar class action suit getting settled, the lawyers end up with millions, and the people affected end up with a buck and change each.

"First, kill all the lawyers."

Kierthos

Re:Avoiding the big fish?

[doormat]

Intel is actually being proactive in this situation. Patriot sys. is just trying to establish a weak case against relatively weaker companies. Plus system integrators are a lot less likely to be knowledgable regarding intel's patents (less equiped to deal with microprocessor details) than intel themselves.

Re:Maybe things like this will help patents change

[S.Lemmon]

Yes, they'll change so only big companies can file stupid patents. :-)

Re:Patent info

[cesspool]

From the state of their site, it looks like the company is still viable. It's an indictment of the US system that Rambus wasn't involuntarily dissolved and its officers punished, either by the courts or by their shareholders

PROFIT!

[chadamir]

I think that I have finally realized the missing part of this infamous formula:

1. Do X
2. ????
3. Profit.

The missing variable has been right in front of our eyes all along. It's sue everybody.

Japanese Companies Only?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone notice that ALL 5 companies are originally from Japan?
Coincidence?

Pay Attention

[ackthpt]

Does any company actually have a business plan that isn't based around suing people any more?

Pay attention to who they are suing. Japanese companies are famous for folding at the least sign of litigation (remember Rambus, anyone?) thus a likely first target to raise capital to start suing others. It would be rather nice if the Japanese sent some Yakuza over to negotiate.

Re:This is nuts.

[Qrlx]

if you make the losing party pay, you can pretty much guarantee that people like you or I will never, ever go up against a big corporation and their hordes of lawyers. If you lost, you'd be bankrupt.

chill, people

[dandelion_wine]

Seller sues vendors for microprocessor patent infringement. Not news.

Seller wins lawsuit against vendors for microprocessor infringement. News.

Let me know how it turns out.

big companies like it this way

[ajagci]

For big companies, the current patent system is great: big companies have big patent portfolios that they cross-license. So, they don't generally have to worry about each other. That arrangement keeps new competitors out of the market. And patent application and prosecution costs are high enough that the number of stupid patents filed and prosecuted by small companies are negligible in comparison. Occasionally, something like this slips through. But by and large, stupid patents are filed by the big companies themselves and then cross-licensed in an arrangement that helps big companies.

Re:WHY?

[kfg]

Because the manufacturers are more likely to settle. The producer of the OEM parts, whose entire business is based on the technology, is more or less obliged to put up a hell of fight.

These suits, although not legally, are basically extortionate. Nobody wants to actually go to trial, least of all the company bringing forth the claim. Said company just wants someone to mail money to their post office box in order that they be left alone.

Once one person buys a "license" they can then use this to spread FUD that said purchase "proves" their case. See SCO/Sun/Microsoft.

One possible defense approach is to argue that since the parts are purchased you are not the primary litigant at law. Plaintiff must first prove their case against the manufaturer of the part before you can be held liable for infringement. You may or may not be financially liable, but it isn't your job to defend the IP if you are not its genesis. If the argument is accepted by the judge this does not dismiss the case, but holds it in abeyance until the primary claim is settled.

Then the plaintiff must decide if they want to go up against the big gun or not. If they do not then the pending case will eventually be dismissed. If they do then at least the smaller fish has the big one as its ally, and if the big one prevails than the orginal suit may be dismissed as groundless.

If big fish loses then the settlement may be held to have sufficiently compensated the plaintiff and the suit against the smaller fish may be dismissed so long as they no longer infringe. Which they're not likely to do because the OEM source will have licensed the technology in order to continue to sell it.

While all of this is going on the legal issues become a bigger and bigger tarball encompassing more and more companies who are more and more likely to just settle and get it the bloody hell over with.

It's basically stealing the nerdy kid's lunch money.

KFG

SCO's motto

[www.sorehands.com]

For sure. Time to give up a career as a programmer and go back to school & join the Dark Side (IP law) - if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

It is "if you can't beat them, sue them.

Re:Patent info

[dj245]

I find this chip case to be identical to the case Henry Ford fought off starting in 1903 and lasting to 1911 or so. He wouldn't pay for the expensive "Selden" patent, which didn't apply to the type of gasoline engine he was making anyway, and the Selden patent holders sued him, and then sued his customers to make them quit buying Ford cars. His customers, like you say, had nothing to do with it. But stupidity persists in lawsuits, even 100 years later.

Obviously the Selden patentholders lost, as we have Ford Exploders and Ford Festivas in abundance today, but no Selden engines.

Congress needs to offer indemification

[utlemming]

This case seems like an attempt to captalize on unproven claims. By chasing after the end-user who does not have knowledge of the internal workings of the chip, it seems predatory. If there was really a valid claim of infringment then Patriot should have chased down Intel, not the end-users. But I guess this is the Intellectual Property game, chase down people that cannot defend themselves and then make money. Isn't that what SCO is saying they are going to do? File suit against an end-user that does not have the money nor the means to be able to prove that there is no infringment and then they win? Or make it so expensive to fight the claims that they cave-in and pay? Personally I would love to see laws that state that you can not hunt down end-users unless the claim for infringment has been proven. And then I would like to see penalities for filing suit against an end-user when someone by-passed the vendor, and the claims are proven wrong. It amounts, (IANAL) in my mind, to perjury -- making false claims in court and hoping that nobody catches you. So on the off chance that there is a closet-techie Congressman reading (heck I'll settle for a member of staff), Congress needs to make sure that intellectual property suits are aimed at vendors first, so the claims can be proven instead of the end-users.

Second, patents need to be tightened. Just because you come up with the idea of having a clock on the chip does not mean that someone else cannot come up with the a simular idea, but implemented in a different way, and make money.

You know, I have tempted to apply for a patent where URL's are spoofed using the latest Microsoft exploit for IE where the %01 is used to hide the real location of a web address. Then I'll sue Microsoft for violating my idea that I "came up with" in high school or something.

Re:Avoiding the big fish?

[13Echo]

I think that you guys are getting the wrong idea here. This is about CPUs geared for embedded application. All of the targets have their own RISC CPU products, or license CPU technology for their own products from other companies.

Here are some examples.

http://www.fme.fujitsu.com/products/micro/32bit/
http://www.toshiba-electronics.com.hk/eng/system /3 /homepage2.htm
http://siliconvalley.internet.com/ news/article.php /2212821
http://www.necelam.com/microprocessors/i ndex.php?S ubject=Home

Beyond these guys, there are even more companies that have similar products. Hitachi's Super-H line comes to mind.

Patriots hey?

[dbIII]

Patriot Scientific Corporation

Wasn't it said of Al Capone - "Patriotism is the last resort of the scoundrel". If all else fails wrap yourself up in the flag and don't look at the guy behind the curtain.

Re:This is nuts.

[prockcore]

if you make the losing party pay, you can pretty much guarantee that people like you or I will never, ever go up against a big corporation and their hordes of lawyers. If you lost, you'd be bankrupt.

I think it should go like this:

If you get sued by someone with a patent, and the patent is found to be invalid. The Patent Office should have to pay your legal fees, as well as other punitive damages.

The Patent Office currently makes a lot of money granting patents, and it doesn't cost them at all if they grant stupid patents. They should be forced to pay financially for granting invalid patents.

Re:STUPID STUPID STUPID

[Bastian]

If someone steals a TV, then goes and sells it to a resale shop, do we consider the owner of the resale shop to be a TV thief?

Then why the FUCK do we hold the reseller of a product they neither designed nor manufactured liable for patent infringement?

If there were any sense at all to the American legal system, there wouldn't be this stupid tangle of a case because it would never make it to a judge - the court's clerk would be allowed to immediately burn the motion and sprinkle its ashes in whatever drug and cleaning agent cocktail the company's lawyer was drinking at the time.

Cross-licensing doesn't work anymore!

[Flyboy Connor]

It just struck me that this lawsuit may have a single good effect coupled to it.

Until now, the major corporations used patents mainly to keep the small guy out of the market, and by cross-licensing ensured that they didn't have to fear anything from each other. Here we have a firm that, by its own admission, lives by litigation. So offering them a cross-licensing deal doesn't work. A firm that holds just ONE key patent, but doesn't need that patent (and patents held by others) for its products, is immune to the cross-licensing snare, and can cause a whole lot of trouble for the big guys.

I think that if a few more companies get into the litigation business this way, the molochs will start using their influence to get the patenting system overturned. Of course, the fact that Patriot is sueing Japanese firms and not American ones, may be an indication that they are afraid of exactly that. But I have no worries that IBM, Intel and their peers won't catch on.

Cross licensing

[Linus Sixpack]

The whole process is really bad.

I'm not defending Patriot but I think the reason that you get litigation only companies going after big companies is created by the patent process.

A small company with a few influential patents would be silly to try and stay in the technology business once they entered a legal dispute with a bigger company. If I have 2 patents and I sue you, I'm going to be counter sued and there are going to be patents I haven't considered that will force me to close my business. Bigger portfolios of patents will shut down active companies. Before you sue a bigger portfolio you have to shut down your own company to protect against countersuits.

The system doesn't serve anyone but lawyers.

Intellectual Property Under products?

[servicepack158]

You know they are a bunch of lawyers when they have a menu option called "Intellectual Property" under products. That is not a product. They should be thrown out of court. Besides, everyone knows the aliens invented the transistors for us :D

Re:This is nuts.

[Almost-Retired]

If you get sued by someone with a patent, and the patent is found to be invalid. The Patent Office should have to pay your legal fees, as well as other punitive damages.

Where do I sign up to vote for this? I'm gonna make sure that everyone in all the local cemetaries is also registered and votes for it.

Seriously, this, if it weren't for the USTPO being paid for by taxpayer dollars in the first place, and therefore any punitive action against them translates directly to a punitive action against the public at large, while they are still insulated from the results of their usually brainless actions. This has got to stop, and do so without allowing politics into the picture.

So the first step is to privatize the USTPO, making someone at the top responsible for the agencies continued financial viability, maybe even with jail time for a proven in the courts failure. If damages were against them for granting a bogus patent, you can bet your ass that efficient means of searching for prior art would be just a perl script away from reality.

As it exists today, it appears that the USTPO has no real incentive to "waste time on all that folderol".

So yes, I'm in favor of a large, smoking, hole in the ground where the present agency resides, but we also have a very very real need for something that actually works.

We'd have to pay the top person well enough to make the job appealing even while holding that person punitively responsible for failures. That would go a long ways toward assuring that a granted patent in indeed a patentable idea, unclouded by any possible tainting by prior art.

Fees for fileing a patent would of course have to go up, way up to the point that the only way I could afford to file one is if I sold 90% of myself to somebody in the VC business. As thats often the case today anyway, I don't see that as all that huge an impediment if the idea itself is a valid, patentable idea. That would make the VC people do some real investigations themselves, which cannot help but be a Good Thing(tm).

There would of course have to be severe criminal penalties, including hard time in the federal ass pound for VC's who betrayed that trust by attempting to steal the idea after the inventor has revealed enough to them to generate their interest and help. The inventor deserves to be protected from such pond scum.

Re:Stupid idiots at USPTO

[Lars T.]

Furthermore I don't see where Intel or their clients could be violating it except for the speed throttling overheat protection in the P4 and family processors.

Err, how about speed throttling to use less power (in notebook processors), a la Speedstep and successors?

Re:Sound Familiar?

[Bigman]

This situation is just what real inventors need. This shows that patents do not automatically encourage advancement in technology - the main argument used to justify software and technology patents. I think that in order to enforce a patent the holder should have to show that thet where at least attempting to exploit it - and not merely squatting on the patent in order to sue when someone else puts their time and money into developing the idea. Sueing for IP rights when you are otherwise not actively using those rights to develop or bring to market a product (or raising funding to do the same) is morally wrong, and the governments of the world need to have this fact rammed down their throats until they take notice. *sigh* /rant

Re:oh for fucks sake

[jfengel]

I love the part that says, "I'm certainly impressed with its range of coverage, basically representing the dominant means of accelerating internal microprocessor clock speeds." In other words, the industry analyst they went to for a quote says, "Wow, they've patented what everybody is already doing."

Re:chill, people

[Cranky_92109]

Ugh! I hate this head-in-the-sand attitude.

Would you rather hear that a family member has been diagnosed with cancer or not find out until they die from it?

This lawsuit is news and I'd rather know about it now when there is still a chance to express my opinion whether it matters or not.

Reminding you....

[Anonymous Coward]

That most of the Government is made up of lawyers, and ex-lawyers turned politicians.

Likewise with the higherups in the Military.

I say it's not a bad idea.