Last NTP Patent Tentatively Thrown Out 198
pcause writes "Reuters reports that the fifth NTP patent has been rejected. What does it say about the US Patent office and software patents that these patents have made it through trials, appeals, etc and only now has the Patent Office decided they weren't any good in the first place?" From the article: "The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has sided with BlackBerry portable e-mail device maker Research in Motion Ltd. by issuing a non-final rejection of a fifth patent at the center of its legal battle with patent holding company NTP Inc. The decision means the patent agency has now issued non-final rejections of all five patents at issue in a BlackBerry patent-infringement case before a federal judge."
Easy to side with RIM (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd like to know several things. First, what WAS the last patent? The article doesn't say - I'm sure someone could dig it up, though. Also, why was it rejected, and if there was good cause to reject it, why did it survive so much previous scrutiny? While the USPTO will accept almost anything at first - they don't do rigorous review of everything submitted, until it is challenged - they start scrutinizing them once court cases come up. So how did it survive previously if it could not survive now? Could this perhaps be only a political decision? The USPTO bowing to administration pressure?
It Says... (Score:5, Interesting)
It says that the USPTO has and will continue to issue bullshit patents on anything put in front of them, but that when a patent affects 25% of the government, regardless of validity, they will toss it out so they don't risk actual reform. No need to fret, however, any bullshit patents that only act as a cudgel for big businesses to kill or blackmail small businesses will remain inviolate.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
It shows... (Score:3, Interesting)
What does it say about the US Patent office and software patents that these patents have made it through trials, appeals, etc and only now has the Patent Office decided they weren't any good in the first place?
Re:Washington is playing favorites (Score:5, Interesting)
What exactly did the little guy invent? Delivery of email via radio waves? Was a protocol designed? Distribution system designed?
Kill the Amazon "one Click" patent (Score:3, Interesting)
At least the US Gov. could have been a little more transparent about it.
"Go back to bed America, You are free to do what we tell you"
Re:I vote (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the patent system should not be granted by a centralised and under-staffed authority like the patent office. Rather, patents should be peer reviewed. After all, granted patents become publicly disclosed anyways. The patent office simply acts like a program committee. The patent office receives patent applications and, depending on the domain of the patent, picks random reviewers from a pool. The reviews are returned and weighted differently depending on reviewer's association with the applying party. The patent office then chooses whether or not to grant a patent. All patent applications and their reviews are made public. Not perfect, but I think it's a good compromise.
First, companies or individuals can register as reviewers for specific categories of patents. They are then added to the pool of reviewers for said category. If patent applications are given to a pool of a dozen or so random reviewers, the odds are small that a small group of companies can collude to push their own stuff through.
Right now there's no penalty for companies to file a ton of patents. But a peer-review system ensures that anything they wish to patent will be pre-examined by their competitors. I think this will automatically push most things off the patent treadmill and into trade-secret territory.
Second, instead of patent clerks trying to digest the mangled legalese that most companies file, their competitors have a vested intrest in using their own lawyers to demangle and pick apart any application. The clerks then have access to a relatively clarified view of whether or not an application is valid.
Do something 703-312-6600 (Score:2, Interesting)
Call your senators [senate.gov] and ask them to please gut the patent system.
But more directly, you can contact NTP. NTP is a legal fiction of a business invented by an author of legal fiction by the name of Donald Stout. He is a partner at Antonelli Terry Stout & Kraus, LLP [antonelli.com]. Their phone number is 703-312-6600.
A thousand polite calls will be more effective than a thousand rude ones. Though honestly a few dozen rude ones wouldn't start WWIII.
Once you call, ask for Don Stout and then say "Please stop abusing the patent system."
Keep in mind that it is illegal to use an interstate communications device to harrass someone anonymously. So give your name on request! Then it's legal!
Not that I care about NTP... (Score:1, Interesting)
I mean, they did everything by the book, however sneaky, and now they're changing the book?
Doesn't that mean the USPTO is negligent - their actions directly not only cost NTP a lot of money, but damaged their reputation as well.
Excellent case (Score:3, Interesting)
We have 2 sides that aren't going to back down, one because they don't have anything to lose and the other because they feel they are on the moral high ground and should not lose. No one is going to quit the battlefield and run off with a settlement. Instead, some fundamental absurdities of the patent system are being exposed. An earlier article expressed incredulity over the fact that RIM could have settled for a few million, but now the issue could cost them billions. Yes, and the Union could have bought out all the slave owners and avoided the Civil War. Not that simple. Who's to say a hundred other patent holders wouldn't come after RIM if RIM caved to NTP?
It looks to me like NTP did make working prototypes, and tried to market their product. That 2nd step did not succeed, and we really can't say why. Was their design in some way impractical? Too expensive? Too bulky? Was there a technical reason why their product did not go further? Or are there other reasons, such as the partner never intended to play fair and was only stringing NTP along until they'd learned enough to make their own version? Questions like those are hard to answer, but for the patent system to work, we need answers to those sorts of questions.
Enter RIM. They apparently independently design a product that does the same thing NTP tried to do. Did RIM really independently do the work, or did they copy from NTP? In this case, it seems clear that RIM did not borrow from NTP. Didn't even know NTP existed. This puts up more questions: How can we know whether some idea was independently conceived more than once or whether it was copied? Maybe we can tell after a great deal of close examination of both sides, but such an effort may not be worth the time and cost. However, if the effort is made and the answer is they are independent efforts, then the next question is if it's "non-obvious" how come others also came up with the same ideas? And we need the answer to the obviousness question beforehand, so we know whether to grant a patent. What about the many fine shades of independent thinking? Many, many variations of many different ideas are needed. A great idea is a synthesis of many puzzle pieces, and each piece may be a synthesis of yet more puzzle pieces, with the pieces changeable and applicable to many puzzles. The law treats an idea or piece of an idea as if it has clearly defined boundaries, like a piece of land. In reality, ideas overlap considerably. There's more than one way to solve most puzzles. Where should the boundaries be drawn? Can boundaries be drawn? Why should any one idea be enshrined as the one and only solution to some problem, and all other solutions to the same or related problems be suspected as mere copies of the original solution? Since no one can tell about the obviousness let alone the other points, the patent office has taken the patentable-until-proven-otherwise route, granted a great number of dubious patents, then let the justice system decide boundaries (which may be undecidable) on a case-by-case basis, as disputes arise. Maybe it's just coincidence that that slant brings in more revenue.
In the court case, RIM's legal defense really blew it. Lied about prior art.
RIM has other blemishes. They have not hesitated to do unto others as NTP is doing unto them.
And now RIM is trying a wonderful new line. They've placed their head on the chopping block and showed their users, some of whom are lawmakers, that danger to RIM is danger to us all. They've really put the issue in the limelight. For the sake of justice for one "little guy", will the lawmakers do nothing and let the system hose everyone else, including themselves? So now the patent office has "tentatively" invalidated NTP's patents! They still don't know whether those patents should have been granted.
If NTP's case has merit under the current patent system, how should NTP be com
Non-final rejections aren't a big deal (Score:4, Interesting)
I went through this with a patent on game physics engines. The USPTO rejected some claims as an insufficent advance over prior art. So I sent in published reviews of games that didn't use my technology. "This game really sucked". "Worst game I ever played". "Game physics terrible". "Objects randomly flying off into space after a collision".
The USPTO then accepted the claims without any further argument. That's how you prove non-obviousness - show previous failure. If others tried and failed, but yours works, then you must have invented something.