Joystick Port Patented, Now the Lawsuit 222
Panaqqa writes "It appears that Fenner Investments, a Texas based patent troll, is at it again. This time, they are suing Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo for infringing a patent they hold on joystick ports. Perhaps they felt they needed a "Plan B" now that their lawsuit against Juniper Networks, Nokia, Cisco, Alcatel and Ericsson is not going so well."
Hopefully we see more of this (Score:5, Interesting)
Should be trivial to invalidate (Score:2, Interesting)
Prior art? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's been done before (Score:5, Interesting)
As near as I can tell from the text of the patent, this patent troll has patented the use of an Analog to Digital Convertor for converting the analog output of a joystick into a digital signal. I'm not 100% certain but it sounds like either an integrator type circuit or a PWM type circuit. The intriguing bit is the mentioned use of a VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) chip as a part of the design. This could mean utilizing any of the large fabric chips from the likes of Altera, TI, or Lord knows how many others are in the market nowadays. Heck, this could be interpreted to include the PIC chips in common use nowadays.
I'd have to look in my old college electronics book (Electronic Communications - vol 5 by Schrader) to see, but I think these types of ADC circuits were discussed even back then (circa 1985). If not, I know the Peavey DECA series of digital power amplifiers (circa 1988) utilized an integrator type ADC for doing converting the analog audio signal to a series of digital pulses (PWM) used for driving the MOSFET finals.
This is the patent office's fault (Score:5, Interesting)
I understand that business need to protect themselves, and I'm a lot more forgiving of hardware patents (because that make sense) but reading the patent all I see that MIGHT be new is the power saving circuitry rather than a novel joystick connection.
They do need more examiners and the second patent applied for each year should cost twice as much as the first to file. (This would curb blanketing the system hoping that one of them sticks).
This is my theory and it's mine.
Capping the maximum damages awarded. (Score:2, Interesting)
Then as an encore someone might be able to convince USPTO there isn't such a thing as software patents. Good reading materials: An industry at risk [mit.edu], So Small a Town, So Many Patent Suits [nytimes.com]
Re:Prior art? (Score:5, Interesting)
What we need, as part of patent reform, is the ability to call BS on a patent during these lawsuits, which puts the infringement claim on hold until the patent itself is reviewed and debated over. Start a seperate court case to review the patent, with both parties able to produce evidence and expert testimony about the technology in question. If the patent is ruled bogus, then it should be invalidated on the spot and the infringement suit dropped.
That would cull a lot of bogus patents and maybe discourage filing them in the first place.
=Smidge=
Re:Business based on law suites (Score:4, Interesting)
Not really. Parasites exist in most systems and represent a legitimate (though culturally reprehensible) strategy in game theory, economics, etc. "Patent trolls" exemplify parasitic behavior by trying to obtain resources (cash, reputation) without being responsible for original productive work. They live off of others efforts through a less-than-equitable exchange.
Think about how long criminal organizations have coerced others through various rackets - Mafia "insurance" rackets (e.g. pay me for fire insurance so Tony here won't burn your business down tonight). To many, this behavior is wrong (it certainly introduces greater inefficiencies), but at a minimal level, it provides the benefit of killing off the weak. Economies really want to see the weak removed as it punishes bad strategy and allows those who made better decisions to attain their reward. Parasitism is also a moderate risk strategy for those that speculate on the patent troll organizations as their capital invested to pay the legal bills is very much at total risk.
It just sounds like this corporation exists only to gather every patent it can get it's hands on
The real disappointment is that the U.S. legal system does not provide an opportunity for greater risk than the invested capital paid into these speculative patent troll firms. For example, if this firm loses in the joystick litigation and goes bankrupt, all those who invested in it only lose their capital they intentionally placed at risk. If you put in $100K for your shares, you're out $100K. A "loser pays" judicial system would help reduce repeat behavior as a troll firm once successful would likely rather liquidate and take the gains after one win, rather than expose it all to a second, so this type of reform would not really address the core problem.
I'd advocate a personal liability provision similar to the attestation liability that public corporation executives now have due to Sarbanes Oxley (e.g. they are personally at risk to significant criminal penalties for the integrity of their company's financial statements). If you really believe in your claims and seek to litigate on the patent issue, you'll be required to place a $500K bond with the court which will be forfeit if your case is determined to be frivolous. Combine this exposure with dramatically increased sanctions against attorneys for polluting the system with this junk (e.g. one year suspension of their license for the first offense) and you'll reduce this parasitism to a more normal frequency.
Fixing the system (Score:3, Interesting)
Company applies for patent, patent judge receives comments from university departments focused on that type of technology, judge reviews comments to verify if this is a revolutionary new idea worth granting a patent to or not.
I also liked the suggestion that the cost of patenting scale up the more patents one files within a given timeframe. This should keep a company from essentially conducting a "denial of patent review" attack by filing so many similar patents that the academics will simply give up participating in the system.
I would also like to see some sort of financial pentalty applied to corporations who attempt to patent existing work. In this case, if the court finds the patent should never have been granted, I would accompany the dismissal of their lawsuit with a hefty fine. Force companies to conduct solid research instead of just filing some paperwork and seeing what they can slip through the system.
Re:Aren't the approaching it wrong? (Score:3, Interesting)
USB (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Business based on law suites (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't like loser pays for one reason, the underdog never has an advantage. If you are an inventor with a patent that a large multi-national corporation steals, what is your recourse in loser pays? Not only do you have to fight an uphill battle because the large company has more money, more lawyers and more time than you, but if you lose (and not necessarily because you are wrong, but because the system isn't 100% perfect), the downside is huge. You now have to pay for the huge, expensive legal team.
Now to be fair, I don't have a better idea, but I just think that as an overall strategy, loser-pays will be abused just like the current system is.
Also, I don't believe loser-pays will prevent patent-trolls. Once incorporated, the people behind the troll company are reasonabliy well protected. They win one lawsuit, pay out to the investors, and start up with round two. As the company has virtually no assets, there is nothing that can be taken to pay out should they lose. Now you could change the rules regarding corporations, but that would have widespread effects far beyond the issue of patents.
If you really believe in your claims and seek to litigate on the patent issue, you'll be required to place a $500K bond with the court which will be forfeit if your case is determined to be frivolous.
Again, this is an idea that hurts the small inventor. If I have a patent that somebody infringes, not only do I have to fund the suit, but I now have to come up with another $500k bond? Sure, I could try to find some investors, but in a David vs. Goliath fight with a large corporation, good luck. Especially if it were a loser-pays system.
Something needs to be done. Better checking of patents. Quicker expiration of patents. Maybe required use of patents or they expire much more quickly. But I think the ideas behind loser-pays or bonding hurts the small guy and does nothing to the well organized patent troll.
-dave
Re:Business based on law suites (Score:3, Interesting)
And obviously if you Brits have that opinion of us, it must be true.
people can sue McDonalds for not warning people that their coffee will be hot
Have you actually read about the facts in the case? It's not quite as frivalous as it might seem.
It's sickening to always hear of the idiocy and apparent corruption in the legal and political systems over there.
And it's what you hear about because it's sensationalist. Obviously you aren't going to hear about the thousands of small companies that are started and grow to become successful. Nobody wants to read about that, especially when it's thousands of miles away.
I'm hoping the pet one was an urban myth, but somehow.. I don't think so.
I think this statement says it perfectly. You have no clue what the reality is, but you are willing to assume that these stories are true.
Believe me, there are plenty of stories of idiocy and corruption about the UK and other countries that I hear about, yet I am able to realize that, one, these are generally not the norm of that society, and two, that what eventually makes it's way over the pond is generally the entertaining stuff.
-dave
Re:very creative (Score:2, Interesting)
So to get definite prior art, you just need to find a soundcard with a standard 0x201 gameport address, with the game port hardware implemented in a CMOS ASIC. Which is really easy, considering the patent was filed for in 1998. Even in the early-mid 90's, cheap "AOpen to Zoltrix" soundcards consisted of a single ASIC which handled the ISA or PCI interface, A/D+D/A conversion, 0x201 game port, MIDI interface and the works. And there's a 100% chance that said ASIC is a CMOS process.
What I find silly is that they're suing Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo over this... I seriously doubt that any of their hardware uses a timer approach for digitizing analog inputs - I'm willing to bet they use true ADC's. The 556 timer hack was useful in the 80's PC days when silicon was expensive and discretes and PCB space were cheap, but today when a $2 PIC microcontroller can have almost a dozen 10+ bit ADC inputs, there's no point anymore.
Join the USPTO! (Score:2, Interesting)
That being said, ultimately, it is the responsibility of the patent examiner to determine whether or not the claims of the patent are indeed patentable (useful, novel, nonobvious, etc.). However, don't blame the patent examiner. These poor souls are overworked and underpaid, and the backlog for many applications awaiting examination nowadays are in the 3-5 years range. For example, if you look at the public PAIR information for this particular patent here [uspto.gov], you'll see that this particular application (App. No. 09/113,503) was initially assigned to group art unit 2635. In general, art unit 2600 is really swamped.
So, what can you do? Rather than bitchin' and moanin' that the patent system of the U.S. is "broken," become a patent examiner! Take a look at a partial list of employment opportunities here [uspto.gov] and apply! If you want a faster link, here's the actual Patent Examiner Employment Application [uspto.gov].
So, do your civic and scientific duty today and join the ranks of the PTO!
Re:Prior art? (Score:1, Interesting)
Bring 'em on (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This is junk (Score:2, Interesting)
Personally I think that if a patent is found (In court) that it is not valid, it should be taken from the patent whores and givin to the Public Domain.
I wonder if it is possible to file for a patent, and donate it to the public domain directly. Then "Patent Heros" could file for simple, and basic patents, and then just give them to the public, where they belong!