EFF Patent Busting - Prior Art Needed for VOIP 170
JumperCable writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation is seeking to bust an overly broad patent by a company called Acceris. Acceris claims patents on processes that implement voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP) using analog phones as endpoints. These patents cover telephone calls over the Internet. Specifically, the claims describe a system that connects two parties where the receiving party does not need to have a computer or an Internet connection, but the call is routed in part through the Internet or any other 'public computer network'. The calls must also be 'full duplex', meaning that both parties can listen and talk at the same time, like in an ordinary phone call. To bust these overly broad claims, we need 'prior art' — any publication, article, patent or other public writing that describes the same or similar ideas being implemented before September 20, 1995."
Prior art should NOT be the problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is ridiculous. All this patent covers is bridging between the Internet and POTS networks. It shouldn't need "prior art" to be struck down, it should be struck down merely because it's fucking obvious! I mean, it'd be one thing if it were a patent on one particular clever method of connecting the two networks, but the idea in general should not have been patentable in the first place.
Re:Prior art should NOT be the problem. (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think it does count as that obvious. If you remember the earliest days of free internet telephony, the biggest limitation (aside from the annoying lag) came from needing both parties to have a computer with an always-on connection (or risk missing calls).
Companies like Vonage exist to make a free service un-free solely because they act as a POTS bridge. Think about that. People will pay for something free (well, "free" presuming you would have intenet access anyway) because that one little "fucking obvious" step counts as such a massive leap forward in functionality.
The USPTO has made some phenomenally bad calls in the past, but I don't know if I can really disagree with this one.
Simon Hackett's Etherphone? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Artisoft LANtastic could do this (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Prior art should NOT be the problem. (Score:1, Insightful)
Only solution (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes they have, and in a sane world that would in itself have ended the discussion at the USPTO. Since the first telco stuff was crude circuit switched equipment a better example would be ATM, which also easily predates the patent. But apparently the USPTO and the courts are still allowing a fresh patent for doing ordinary old things by simply adding "over the Internet" to them. We seriously need a law of one single paragraph:
"No patent may be issued or upheld if the only thing unique about it is that it extending an existing practice to the Internet. This is one of the designed purposes for the Internet; using something for it's designed purpose is NOT original or difficult for one skilled in the art so knock it off you idiots. This law is intended both as an order to the USPTO and binding guidance for the Judicary."