U.S. Bans Some Cellphones For Patent Reasons 173
runner_one writes "According to the New York Times, A federal agency has banned imports of new cellphones made with Qualcomm semiconductors because the chips violate a patent held by Broadcom. The International Trade Commission said today that the import ban would not apply to mobile phone models that were imported on or before June 7." Update: 06/08 13:05 GMT by KD : Glenn Fleishman notes that Apple's iPhone will be allowed into the country, since it doesn't use any 3G chips. He adds that Apple "might have the most advanced smartphone on the market unless President Bush or his trade representative overturn the ruling (which they have the power to do)."
Re:US Patent office should pay compensation (Score:5, Insightful)
How exactly does the free market go about fixing limited duration government granted monopolies (a.k.a. patents)?
Re:ITC press release (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously they've patented everything that can use a battery and reduces power usage by modifying the frequency of scanning for access ports. And then they further patented the ability to shut down unneeded parts of a wireless chip.
Unless I'm reading the patent wrong which I hope I am.
Once again, patent system blocks progress (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Personal use? (Score:4, Insightful)
patenting use of old algs to new problems is naff (Score:2, Insightful)
The primary and secondary examiner are listed... has anyone found an online resource that provides ranks or rates these guys? Some googling turns up proposals for community participation in the patent review process but nothing like a 'hot or not' site for examiners
Re:what phones use this? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you need a state-protected monopoly to turn a profit, maybe your invention wasn't so damned good after all...
Re:what phones use this? (Score:2, Insightful)
Company A spends 5 million dollars researching how to design and manufacture widgets. They release it into the market. Company B then buy one of the first run, spends 100,000 dollars reverse engineering it, and sells it for 25% of the price Company A offers. Company A now goes out of business.
It's really not that hard to understand, unless you're on Slashdot, where everything someone else came up with is obvious and stupid, but only once they've come up with it.
Re:US Patent office should pay compensation (Score:3, Insightful)
If there were penalties for issuing patents which are later invalidated, we'd see the USPTO put more effort into researching the patents they receive, rejection of overly broad patents, and probably eventually start seeing fewer patents requested in general. Then truly innovative inventions would receive patent protection, and every Microsoft, Broadcom, and Qualcomm wouldn't issue patents on every tiny thing they do in an effort to protect their research.
It seems to me like you're acting more like the troll, pedantically focusing on one single term that the poster got wrong rather than reading his post and understanding his point. You're like the guy who points out the fact that someone misuses the word 'infer' and uses that to try to tear down the entire argument.
Re:US Patent office should pay compensation (Score:3, Insightful)
When the patent system is abused, it's not a free market. The people attacking the current abusive patent practices a trying to restore the free market.
The real qustion then - is overturn likley? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:US Patent office should pay compensation (Score:3, Insightful)
We will just stop them from expiring, like our perpetually extended copyrights.
Re:US Patent office should pay compensation (Score:1, Insightful)
Most importantly, when people who actually try to teach novel, non-obvious concepts to others write articles and textbooks, they make an effort to explain their ideas in the simplest possible way (but not any simpler), and even then it takes a concerted effort for the reader to actually understand the concepts. As a way of publishing technical ideas, the patent process is a mere caricature of the actual process of publishing novel technical inventions. I'm sure patents are great for patent lawyers, but that's just a demonstration of the inanity of the entire concept.
Re:US Patent office should pay compensation (Score:1, Insightful)