I don't think they are patent trolls, somehow.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BT_Group

Software patents have been around for almost 30 years. You say they've destroyed innovation - do you have any evidence? I think computers have advanced pretty far since the 80s.

The very first patent category mentioned under 35 USC 101 is "process". Are "processes" physical objects? That line has been in the statute since the mid-1800s, so patents clearly are not just for physical objects.

Sigh. You need to look at the actual claims. That line just describes what the patent accomplishes, not how.

Here's my poor non-lawyer summary of the patents for those too lazy to look them up.

Busioc granted in 2000 seems to be a troll patent on anything that reacts to detected network characteristics. TCP window size control since the 80s seems to be prior art, although anycast root DNS servers from the 90s would appear to be a close second.

Mannings1 granted in 1994 seems to be a troll patent on anything navigational that relies on a base and mobile part. Like LORAN from the 60s, or any of the moon shots from the 60s where the capsule relied on the IBM 7094 mainframe to run the calcs back home.

Titmuss1 granted in 2002 seems to be a troll patent where the the contents of a list depend on the location of the user. Like my Garmin GPS-12XL "nearest waypoint list" from the 90s, or any brick and mortar website with a "find the closest store" functionality.

Gittins granted 2003 seems to be a troll patent where you have a database server accessed over the network that has user based permissions. Like any mysql installation. It seems to be a pretty good description of the DB2 IBM mainframe server I was tangentially involved with about 20 years ago (%^&# source route bridging SDLC by mac addresses still gives me nightmares)

Mannings2 granted 2003 seems to be a troll patent where you have a Mannings1 system plus the result depends on the type of vehicle. Apparently providing different "walk" vs "drive" route results is safe because my shoes are not a vehicle, but providing "car" vs "boat" results would be a direct violation of this patent.

Titmuss2 granted 2004 seems to be a troll patent where a distributed architecture and network is used to store location information. Basically, any computing infrastructure storing location information that does not have an obvious single point of failure; The CLR/DLR circuit layout system from my previous telecom employer would seem to be a pretty good example of an infringing product; of course that was from the 1980s, and Ma Bell had much older networked location aware systems. Remember ma bell's weird V+H coordinate system? I do.

I believe this is a pretty accurate non-lawyer summary of the patents involved.

U.S. Patent No. 6151309

Claims
What is claimed is:

1. A service provision system for use with a communications network to provide a plurality of services to a network user, wherein data relevant to the plurality of services can be made available to the user dependent upon the location of the user within the network, and the user can select one or more services to be provided, said system including

control means comprising a plurality of software agents, individual agents of said plurality comprising data relevant to service provision the network,
updating means for updating data held by at least some of said software agents on a point-by-point continuous basis as the user changes location within the network,
the control means maintaining and communicating the updated data made available to the user and responsive to selection of a service by the user to trigger a process for providing the selected service to the user.

2. A system according to claim 1 wherein said communications network comprises at least in part a mobile communications network and the user has access to said mobile network.

3. A system according to claim 2 wherein the control means is responsive to transfer of the user between cells of the mobile network, said cells having different resources to offer in respect of services to the user, to update data made available to the user which is affected by said transfer.

4. A system according to claim 3 wherein at least one of the services potentially available to the user is affected by bandwidth availability in the cell in which the user has access to the mobile network, and the control means may update the data available to the user in terms of either availability of such service or the price at which it would be available.

5. A system according to either of claim 3 or 4 wherein at least one of the services potentially available to the user involves the downloading of data to the user, which downloading is affected by bandwidth availability in cells of the mobile network, said system further comprising means to store data requested by the user as a consequence of selecting a service, the control means controlling downloading of said data to the user such that it is stored at times that bandwidth is not available for said downloading, and downloaded subsequently when bandwidth becomes available.

6. A system according to claim 5 wherein the control means includes means for tracking the location of the user with respect to the mobile network for the purpose of downloading the data to the user by means of appropriate routing through the communications network or networks.

7. A system according to claim 1 wherein the data relevant to the plurality of services includes real-time pricing data such that the user can take the real-time pricing data into account prior to selecting a service.

8. A system according to claim 1 wherein:

a plurality of said individual agents are each allocated a facility for offering a common service,
each of said plurality of individual agents holding real-time data in respect of its allocated facility's capacity to offer the service, and
the system selects one of the allocated facilities on which to base notification to the user of current conditions under which a service might be provided.

9. A system according to claim 1 wherein at least one of said agents comprises means for storing an updatable business strategy, and the system accesses said business strategy prior to making cost-related service data available to a user, such that said business strategy can be applied to said cost-related service data to modify the data appropriately.

10. A service provision system for use with a communications network including a mobile communications sub-network to provide a plurality of services to a network user having access to the

Also probably because the patents are registered in the US, and Delaware happens to be where most companies are registered (incl Google, according to the action).

Its probably easier to win a patent case in the UK than in the US, but a US judgement will allow them to knock on the doors of other companies (hello Apple) and get royalties.

On the other hand, the lasttime BT tried to pull this off they crashed and burned rather ignominiously,

They can only sue where the patents are valid. If it's US patents - they have to sue in the US.

Britain har been much more restrictive in allowing software patents. So I doubt they got british patent
for those 'inventions'.

Carmack posted a better message about software patents right here on /. : http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=151312&cid=12701745 [slashdot.org]

[Citation needed]. The statute doesn't say "manufacturing process," it says "process". If Congress wanted to restrict it only to manufacturing processes, they could have at any point in the past 150 years.

No, we haven't (and yes, I am a patent attorney). There are no patents that claim "A system or method or process." A claim has to be directed to a single statutory category, by definition.

Yes, but you haven't said why. I understand you hate software patents, but you haven't come up with any good reasons to abolish them. Your statutory argument (process=manufacturing process) is incorrect, and your procedural argument (patent attorneys somehow game the system, contrary to the law) is based on a false premise.

... so few companies were writing software in the 1990s?!

I don't mean to be insulting, but really? The 1990s dotcom bubble? The growth of open source software? The founding of Slashdot, for chrissake?

Yes, and patents have existed this entire time. And look at where we are now. IF we were still using punch cards, then you'd have a good argument that software patents stifled innovation. But we aren't. You're agreeing with my point - software has advanced incredibly far over the past 40 years, so any claim that software patents stifle innovation has a really high bar to jump.

You still haven't showed that the marketplace is minimized.

I know you want it to be true that software patents are horrible things, but so far, you've only got the circular argument, "software patents are bad, therefore software patents are bad." And your evidence leads to the opposite conclusion - you've said "look at how far we've advanced since the 1960s, and the already-lightning pace of software development is increasing even over the past 10 years... so therefore software patents (which have existed the entire time) are bad, or something."

It is also a company that has had an Research wing for the past 91 years: BT Research [wikipedia.org]. And even before that, their (Post Office) engineers conducted research into fundamental technology advances during the 19th century.

BT may still be considered a patent troll (depending on your point of view) but understand that they are very different from the usual trolls - this is a company that has historically sold products developed from its own research, and which has a history of conducting research into communications technology that spans the better part of a century.

Before it became BT, the research wing was part of the Post Office. They carried out research with Marconi in developing fundamental wireless communications technology in the 1890s. One of their researchers went on to develop Colossus, which was arguably the world's first programmable computer, and pivotal in the war effort. In the 1940s and 50s they developed designs for the first all-electric telephone exchanges.

So no, not a typical patent troll.