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Patents Communications IT

More Patent Worries for Mobile Phones 128

Posted by timothy from the shouldn't-that-be-uspto.com? dept.
loekf writes "After the story about NTP suing Research In Motion over alleged patent infringement (do your homework, U.S. Patent Office!), there's another story on The Inquirer about a U.S. firm, Antor Media, suing a lot of companies over a 'Method and apparatus for transmitting information recorded on information storage means from a central server to subscribers via a high data rate digital telecommunications network,' see: U.S. Patent 5,734,961. When does the hurting stop!?"
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More Patent Worries for Mobile Phones More

More Patent Worries for Mobile Phones

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  • When does it stop? (Score:5, Funny)

    by ScrewMaster ( 602015 ) on Sunday June 12, 2005 @05:03PM (#12797626)
    When the pace of technological advancement reaches zero.
    • When the current software patents expire and the number of new patents reaches zero.
    • Technological advancement will realistically never stop as long as humans exist, but it can be made to slow down quite a bit.

    • Re:When does it stop? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Space cowboy ( 13680 ) * on Sunday June 12, 2005 @05:22PM (#12797754) Journal
      Fortunately (for the rest of the world), that's only the case in the USA. Of course, unless the EU gets its act together and *really* gets to grip with patents (in general, but especially s/w patents) it's curtains for the rest of us as well.

      Perhaps a patent ought to have a natural lifetime specific to the patent, which has to be claimed for in the patent application. Give the patent-examiners the right to barter the lifetime of the patent vs the generality, taking novelty into account.

      So, a patent has a default lifetime set up on a class basis (for-cars, for chemical-engineering, for software, etc.) and if a patent is truly innovative (in the opinion of the examiner), it gets a longer lifetime to start off with. Then the author and examiner can come to an arrangement ("yes, I'll exclude areas X,Y,Z but I want another 2 years" ... "most I'll give you is an extra year for that", etc.)

      Default lifetimes for different patents ought to reflect their industy-area (eg: software ought to be very small, say 3-5 years. If someone comes up with transparent aluminium via a novel process, they get 20 years for the process, as it relates to transparent-Al; 10 years if they agree to sell the rights for everything other than Al; or 5 years in general).

      This would allow the patent author to decide how to leverage the patent, make them relevant only to what the patent author has thought of (overly-general patents would be useless because of the low time-limit) and still keep the 'reward-a-good-idea' mentality that fosters exploitation of innovation.

      It'd require the courts (or perhaps a fair few more patent examiners) to oversee the increased workload, but it would kickstart the various industries again, and all the lawyers currently working on creating patents could work on overseeing them instead :-)

      Simon
      • Then the author and examiner can come to an arrangement... ..."2000 bucks for me for every year extra for you"?
        • Well, I had sort of assumed the 'public' part of the 'arrangement' was taken as read. Obviously not.

          So, in the same way as patents are currently disclosed, any arrangements would also be part of the disclosure. There would have to be some sort of overview, which is what I think you're saying - but what's the difference between my suggestion, and the current option '$2000/year if you pass the patent' option that the unscrupulous could offer today ?

          So, presumably there is already a checks/balances system in
      • I think you've hit the nail on the head - the US is the laughing stock of the world when it comes to "rights", where everything is geared towards the corporation as opposed to what's fair to all (although that does sound a little commie...)

        Put simply, what I think a lot of people are thinking in the US and over here in the EU is that Patent law needs to be scrapped, and that Copyright law needs to be changed slightly to allow a maximum licence period of say 10 years. After those 10 years, you don't have th

        • Re:When does it stop? (Score:4, Informative)

          by eric76 ( 679787 ) on Sunday June 12, 2005 @07:32PM (#12798420)
          alleged formula for Coka Cola

          The most important parts of the formula are obvious:

          1) Caffeine, a diuretic, to make you get rid of the liquid faster.
          2) Salt to keep you thirsty for more.
          3) Sugar (or other sweetening) to cover up the taste of the first two.

          After that, the other ingredients don't count.

          • 2) Salt to keep you thirsty for more.

            I'm not a doctor, but isn't salt (especially the sodium component) necessary to sustain your electrolyte levels? This is why Gatorade and other sports drinks have quite high levels of it. You can actually die of "water poisoning" if you exercise a lot and drink too much plain water without eating or drinking anything else to restore your electrolytes, because the electrolyte levels fall too low and your nerves stop functioning.

            I won't debate the caffeine part, howe

            • I'm not a doctor, but isn't salt (especially the sodium component) necessary to sustain your electrolyte levels? This is why Gatorade and other sports drinks have quite high levels of it. You can actually die of "water poisoning" if you exercise a lot and drink too much plain water without eating or drinking anything else to restore your electrolytes, because the electrolyte levels fall too low and your nerves stop functioning.

              It's a matter of ratios.

              If the liquid has too much salt, your cells will gi

              • Fortunately most of us don't get out enough or exercise enough for those to be problems.

                I used to ride bicycles about 3,000 to 5,000 miles a year. (I really need to start doing that again.)

                One Friday night I was riding slowly around the neighborhood cooling off after about 30 miles of relatively intense effort when I suddenly felt very weak and my heart beat slowed way down.

                On Monday morning, I went to the doctor about it. My doctor at the time was a former U.S. boxing team doctor and was easily th

            • The problem is with the electrolytic concentrations in the synaptic cleft. Too little and the transmission of nerve impulses between the axons of one neuron and the dendrites of another neuron becomes grossly inefficient or impossible.

              This shouldn't be a problem with coke. I don't know of any athletes who drink cokes to replinish their necessary electrolytes.
              • This shouldn't be a problem with coke. I don't know of any athletes who drink cokes to replinish their necessary electrolytes.

                I can't imagine any athletes drinking coke, because of the other additives like caffeine.

                However, my point was that most sports drinks, like Gatorade, have salt added in order to replenish electrolytes, so that's why I took exception with the original poster who put down Coke for having salt, saying it just makes you more thirsty. By that logic, sports drinks would be really bad
      • Perhaps a patent ought to have a natural lifetime specific to the patent, which has to be claimed for in the patent application. Give the patent-examiners the right to barter the lifetime of the patent vs the generality, taking novelty into account.

        That might now work as well as you might hope.

        To begin with, novelty, as applied to patents, is supposed to be absolute. They're supposed to be granted to ideas that no one ever thought of before. To consider the novelty of patents as being relative is to

        • Good points all, I think there's a definition of novelty that fits though - If you come up with something that (for example) depends on a new law of physics that you just invented, I think that could be regarded as 'better' than a new type of rubber for tyres that (I dunno) doesn't wear out as fast. They're both new (and I think a patent must be for something genuinely new, not just 'slightly' new).

          Perhaps rather than novelty, I mean 'insightful' or even just plain 'impressive'. In other words you get bonu
          • I like the idea of penalising broad patents and rewarding tight focus.

            Still, as I think Bruce Schneier in a different context, we have to look at the way in which things fail as well as they way they work. The principle risk here is that, having made the duration of a patent a subject for negotiation, it opens the door to the extension of undeserving but carefully worded patents. I'd expect to see companies striving to find wording that sounded superficially specific, but that could be interpretted very b

            • You can even burn it onto a dedicated chip and patent the device (although still not the software I should hope).

              Bingo, you've hit the magic point! Someone, lets say NickFortune, comes up with a genuinely new method of encrypting data. Suppose it's totally unpatentable as a piece of software or any form of set of instructions for coverting the data stream. Now NickFortune goes and takes a load of common basic unpatentable hardware and adds a burnt chip which does the actually en/decryption. What

              • If I write the laws then NickFortune's patent is little more then a copyright on the design of the burnt chip but it sounds like you believe in a system where embodying anything which can be reduced to software in hardware prevents others from doing the same thing a different way.

                Nope. Actually I agree with you, I just didn't phrase that especially well.

                If I write the laws then I'd be tempted to allow a device that does foo by a certain method to be patentable. However, I would say that any such pate

    • Re:When does it stop? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by leuk_he ( 194174 )
      When the pace of technological advancement reaches zero

      Wrong... 17 years after that! And at that moment they will switch to copyright & trademark infringements.

  • Fight insanity with insanity (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 12, 2005 @05:05PM (#12797636)
    Just make sure your network has a "medium" data rate, or "very high" data rate, but not a plain "high" data rate.

  • Vague. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by caluml ( 551744 ) <slashdot AT spam ... OT calum DOT org> on Sunday June 12, 2005 @05:05PM (#12797640) Homepage
    'Method and apparatus for transmitting information recorded on information storage means from a central server to subscribers via a high data rate digital telecommunications network,'

    Could it be any more vague? Sounds like a webserver to me.

    • Re:Vague. (Score:4, Funny)

      by ArielMT ( 757715 ) on Sunday June 12, 2005 @05:11PM (#12797680) Homepage Journal

      Sounds like a webserver to me.

      Shush! Don't give them any ideas! They'll just sue companies making Web servers like IIS by Micros--

      Hmm, this has possibilities. *Muwahahahaha*

    • Re:Vague. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Luddite ( 808273 )
      >> Could it be any more vague? Sounds like a webserver to me.

      The first thing that came to my mind was voice mail. Yeah, I know it's anything but "high speed" when it hits my ear, but the phone messages are stored digitally and transmited via fibre to subscribers, so I'd say the phone company is infringing...

      I would LOVE to see them try enforcing against the phone companies.

      • I would LOVE to see them try enforcing against the phone companies.

        It's be a shame if they had to break up the phone company or something.... oh wait.

    • Re:Vague. (Score:2, Informative)

      by slashflood ( 697891 )
      RTFP! It's about a music server, that plays disks to subscribers. Just read the abstract and you'll see that it is not that vague and it has nothing to do with webservers.
      On the other hand, it doesn't sound very innovative to me.
      • Or useful. I got the idea that the patent is decribing almost a Juke Box. Seems slow and pointless when you can just store all the crap on servers. I didn't read every claim though, so I don't really know

      • Re:Vague. (Score:3, Informative)

        by AngryElmo ( 848385 )
        I read more than the abstract, and it describes music, images, text and software (eg games) being made available to subscribers' "terminals" using a "high data rate telecomunnications network" (ffs - Basic Rate ISDN is given as an example).
      • It's about a music server, that plays disks to subscribers

        How is this different from video-on-demand, which was "invented" in the 1970's (or was it the 60's)? Even if you discount such blatent examples of prior art, this inevention fails the test of obviousness

    • Re:Vague. (Score:5, Informative)

      by anthropomorphized ( 567526 ) on Sunday June 12, 2005 @05:44PM (#12797869)
      The title of the patent is ALWAYS vague. The abstract almost as vague. And even the claims, which truly define the scope of the invention and are what is asserted as one's intellectual property, are vague when taken by themselves. It is usually not until you read the claims in light of the rest of the specification that you can really get a glimpse of what is being "invented." Unfortunately, even then, it is difficult to tell what subject matter is truly protected. You really need to look at the entire file history (all the communications between the PTO and the patent prosecutor) to understand what subject matter is covered by the patent. This is a problem that comes up time and time again when technologists/scientists read patents. Patents are written in legalese (come on! who says, "said one of said plural subscriber stations" instead of "one of the subscriber stations"?????) I am not defending every patent that is issued these days. I am simply pointing out that what is really protected by a patent may be the the tiniest of details in a patent, which may in fact be inventive, and not every word or idea expressed in the patent. Sadly, it takes someone who works with patents on a regular basis, if not a patent lawyer, to really be able to identify what is protected by a patent and whether a company should be worried. (semi-frivolous patents happen, and so do semi-frivoulous suits on patents(frivolous or not)).
      • And don't you just hate this? The idea of a patent is that it should make it clear to someone skilled in the area. If scientists and engineers were responsible for enforcing these, rather than lawyers, then 99% of patents would be rejected on the grounds that these are largely incomprehensible to anyone not also skilled in the art of law.

    • Re:Vague. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by scoove ( 71173 ) on Sunday June 12, 2005 @06:24PM (#12798068)
      Could it be any more vague? Sounds like a webserver to me.

      I just read through the patent and I'd be amazed if it didn't cover WAIS. I implemented Brewster Kahle's WAIS server (Wide Area Information Services, based on Z39.50 protocol) on high-speed networks back in the late 1980s through 1991, putting a campus newspaper, campus phone directory and a collection of wave files onto the DecStation 2000 running the server.

      It appears that the patent office must believe more in time travel than intellectual property registrations given the wealth of prior art available. Or perhaps the perspective I read that they're "the department of information, not information retrieval" was correct; e.g. USPTO blindly approves the applications and leaves it up to the courts to decide if they actually have any merit. IANAL but several IP atty associates have given me this perspective and explained that one does not want the USPTO rejecting anything as a bureaucratic clerk should not make law -- a court should (!!!).

      Unfortunately, this overloads the already taxed court system (district court here taking 12-18 months to get a date for civil litigation; 2.5 to 3 years for appealate court beyond that, meaning any civil action will likely take you five years to see a dollar starting from the day you file litigation, and assuming you have rapid discovery). It puts companies in limbo, causes hard working technology employees to be at constant risk (which they'll naturally migrate to other types of employment) and leaves the US uncompetitive.

      Nothing like a five-year time table to block up technology development. Guess the trial attorneys have ensured that the Chinese and Indians will lap US technology development, eh?

      *scoove*

    • Given that it is based on a French application form 1989, I would guess that it was inspired by, or perhaps directly related to, the Minitel system [wikipedia.org].

  • when the hurting stops (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kraada ( 300650 ) on Sunday June 12, 2005 @05:11PM (#12797679)
    The hurting stops when we get politicians who care. Right now the people who are in office simply aren't addressing this as an issue, because they don't see it as one. Their powerful lobbyists aren't pushing for patent reform nearly as much as other things (like laws which line their pockets better), so there isn't a real problem yet. When Microsoft, IBM and a few other big names start coming out and publically denouncing the patent system for screwing over innovation we might start to see some patent reform. But right now nobody cares, so nothing is going to get fixed anytime soon.

    (Note: I did call my congressmen and senators about this issue prior to the previous election. I also have a friend who is attempting to get a job with the patent office specifically to try and fix some of these problems. I hope he succeeds.)
    • When Microsoft, IBM and a few other big names start coming out and publically denouncing the patent system for screwing over innovation we might start to see some patent reform.

      You never know what [slashdot.org] will push them over the edge.
    • I think the point where it really stops is when non-US corporations start putting US corporations of business using patents. It's probably closer than we think, most of what the average joe purchases these days at Wal-Mart is already made in China. A pity that the people responsible won't be the most highly affected.

      A lot of people don't see India or China as competition due to the current state of their economies, but they're the two most populous nations on the planet. Their businesses are fully capable
    • I also have a friend who is attempting to get a job with the patent office specifically to try and fix some of these problems.

      But what can he do really? Does the patent office have the authority to deny patents based on prior art, or is that something that must be established in court?
      • Does the patent office have the authority to deny patents based on prior art,

        They not only have the authority, they have the legal responsibility to do so.

        They don't seem to be doing all that great a job of it.

  • Does this only affect equipment manufacturers? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by PornMaster ( 749461 ) on Sunday June 12, 2005 @05:12PM (#12797683) Homepage
    I'm curious as to whether or not, if this patent is legitimate, it's likely to lead to lawsuits against the wireless carriers as well as the equipment manuacturers.

  • Prior Art Date (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 12, 2005 @05:13PM (#12797685)
    A reminder that for something to invalidate this patent, it must have been known or used by others in this country, or patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country, before November 7, 1991. From the patent:
    This application is a division of application Ser. No. 08/196,765 filed Feb. 14, 1994, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,497,502, which is a continuation of application Ser. No. 07/784,450, filed Nov. 7, 1991 now abandoned.

    • Re:Prior Art Date (Score:3, Interesting)

      by strredwolf ( 532 )
      When was the Internet created? Back in 1977? How about FTP? When was Sun's .au audio format created?

      Or how about this: Find any audio file that was on a BBS before 1991, and locate the BBS's owner. Remember dialup?
      • When was the Internet created? Back in 1977? How about FTP? When was Sun's .au audio format created?

        Or how about this: Find any audio file that was on a BBS before 1991, and locate the BBS's owner. Remember dialup?

        This would invalidate claim 1, sure. But it probably wouldn't get you very far with the other 20 or so claims in the patent...
    • It has a priority year of 1989 (France). Even for that time its a stupid patent and an obvious invention. So you've got a CD changer and people can request files from one of the CDs which is then sent to them. Amazing! Big ideas like this keep us marching forward.
    • A reminder that for something to invalidate this patent, it must have been known or used by others in this country, or patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country, before November 7, 1991. From the patent:


      This application is a division of application Ser. No. 08/196,765 filed Feb. 14, 1994, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,497,502, which is a continuation of application Ser. No. 07/784,450, filed Nov. 7, 1991 now abandoned.

      The question is, what exactly did those now aband

  • Let the [patent] madness continue (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bogaboga ( 793279 ) on Sunday June 12, 2005 @05:14PM (#12797693)
    I wish the patent madness continues the more. This is because when it goes far enough to the point of hurting, things will change. Change will be faster when the madness begins to hurt sales/technology/growth.

    And when changes do come, the direction of change will be for the better. As Americans, we pride ourselves for being objective and reasonable, but I wonder why this madness cannot be seen by those on positions of power. WHY?

    • I wonder why this madness cannot be seen by those on positions of power. WHY?

      Those in power are benefitting both in terms of more power and lined pockets.

      ~Rebecca
    • It's like having car mechanics design cars. What's better a 3000 mile service interval or a 30000 mile service interval?

      They can see the madness, they made it, but they're also getting lots and lots and lots of money from the madness.

    • Well, while I agree with your sentiment, I think you'll probably find that while large corporations consider these kind of patents frivolous or cheating, they consider their own patents to be entirely worthwhile just by virtue of different ownership.

      Rather than try to abandon the patent system, they are likely to lobby for patents to be only granted if they are worthwhile, where "worthwhile" means granted to the company that is doing the lobbying in the first place (or legaleze that means essentially the s

  • When does the hurting stop!? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by iminplaya ( 723125 ) on Sunday June 12, 2005 @05:14PM (#12797699) Journal
    As soon as you all want it to.

  • Patents last too long... (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Patents need to expire more rapidly.

    The emphasis should be on continuing innovation and increasing the velocity of discovery. Why? Because global competition has nearly zero respect for US intellectual property, but also very little capacity to match our pace of innovation.

    If we want to preserve a world-class economy we've got to stop punishing those who can execute or pre-existing innovation and also shift our support to who can produce sustained innovation.

    In other words, Amazon.com's one-click was a
    • no, plenty of non-usa companies invent good stuff, ie in australia and uk and japan... but again they find it hard to hit the US market because US businesses are so US centric and only like to deal with other US companies, that was our experience, until you have a US office in the bay with a 1800# and a american accent.

      Its the business deals and partnerships which are HARD to do if your not american, thats why american cmompanies like amazon work because they GET THE DEALs.

      Good tax incentives help too, wh
  • they patented 'ls *' ('dir *.*' for you windows users) through a wireless connection...

    swell!!!
    • Actually, no. Looking at the document, you'd have to actually play one of the listed files through an audio player before it'd be an infringment. And it doesn't have to be wireless; it has to be over a "telecommunication network" (e.g. the Internet).

  • RTFP (Score:5, Informative)

    by slashflood ( 697891 ) <flow&howflow,com> on Sunday June 12, 2005 @05:29PM (#12797792) Homepage Journal
    Please read the patent, before you post anything like "that would affect webservers as well" or "they patented the internet". It has nothing to do with it. I'll make it easier for you:

    "[...]a magazine containing a very large number of disks, disk players, a controller for transfer of the disks between the magazine and the disk players, a central computer, a memory for storing information relating to the locations of the disks, and a multiplexer. Each of the subscriber stations includes a communication interface connected to the network, a computing terminal, a demultiplexer, a data rate expansion circuit, a digital-to-analog converter, and a transducer for converting analog signals into humanly perceptible signals. In one example, the invention provides for the delivery to a subscriber of a personalized sound program selected from a large directory of available selections."

    It is a music box server or something like that.
    • Yeah - I had a skim (seemed relevant to my current research) and I think you're right.

      If you look a bit further, where it's describing the diagrams (when there's already thousands of words, who needs to pay for the pictures?), it's all about actuators and servo arms for essentially behaving like an 80s jukebox; selecting and loading CDs into a drive and then buffering them in memory.

      So yeah -- it's the wireless jukebox podcaster, formulated in the days where hard drives were expensive and we still thought
    • Hmm, so, a magazine of disks and disk players and a robotic arm to move things around, a computer, memory, and a fancy computer program. This sounds like the backup and archive server at my school.

      Subscriber station is a communications interface (NIC), a terminal (computer), a demultiplexer (What is that exactly? A part of the NIC? A part of the OS?), a data rate expansion circuit (AKA a decompressor, like for a gzip archive), a digital-to-analog converter (graphics card), a transducer (monitor)

      So, the
    • I claim:

      1. Method of receiving information from one of a plurality of information systems via a high data rate telecommunication network in response to a request from one of plural subscriber stations, said method comprising the steps of:

      initiating a two-way transmission from subscriber computer means of said one of said plural subscriber stations to one of said information systems via said telecommunication network,

      outputting on output means of said one of said plural subscriber stations data related to
    • I read the patent, and yes those comments are absurd. However, it seems just as absurd that companies like NEC, RIM, Virgin Mobile, LG Electronics, Palm One, etc. are getting sued.

      Think back to 1995 when this patent was first written up. They're trying to invent a CD jukebox that can transmit over a network. Sounds like they were trying to play the actual CDs in CD changer magazines, but good for them for using the language they did.

      "Digital disks or compact disks", in fact meant CDs at the time, but t

  • Satellite radio and cable tv affected? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by shking ( 125052 ) <babulicm&cuug,ab,ca> on Sunday June 12, 2005 @05:31PM (#12797805) Homepage
    Will this affect satellite radio and digitally transmitted cable tv? Video on demand? How is this tech not obvious to someone skilled in the art?
  • http://www.ipmenu.com/archive/AUI_2001100012.pdf [ipmenu.com]

    a patent for a "Circular Transportation Facilitation Device"

  • "a method and apparatus for transmitting information recorded on information storage from a central server via a high data rate digital telecommunications network to subscribers connected to the network"

    The patent text seems overly broad. Are they gonna sue Nullsoft next, for Shoutcast? Maybe Time-Warner for their cable systems? Maybe the reverse-911 systems that some local governments use to warn people of certain events? When is this patent stupidity going to stop?!
  • The patent appears to be so vague that it could apply to the teletype. Or perhaps even the telegraph.
  • The # of people "in" the OSS community that meaningfully contribute to the community (beyond just the contribution of expanding the user base by 1 person) is smaller now. There's many more ways to contribute than just coding too, that's the sad part.

    Patent reform needs the same thing many OSS projects need - leg work. There is a review period, where people can make public comments. The major patent reform is for the area of simply improving the public review process; if we let them know that public revi
  • I'm sick of this, there is only one solution.

    There should be a public enquiry, Macarthy style into the USPTO. It's directors should be jailed, the people who granted the patents should follow.

    Too extreme? These people are crippling the economy of the world! They have broken their mandate and gone out of their way to turn the whole patent system into a joke.

    I think jail time for those responsible for issuing patents like this isn't out of the question,

  • This reminds me of a little story (Score:5, Funny)

    by iminplaya ( 723125 ) on Sunday June 12, 2005 @06:26PM (#12798080) Journal
    A guy walks up to his friend and sees him hitting himself on the head with a hammer. "Why are you doing that!?", he asks. "Because it feels so good when I stop.", was the reply.
  • When I first read the title of the post, I was sure it read "More Patent Whores for Mobile Phones." Not ebtirely inaccurate, really.
  • When does the hurting stop!?

    As soon as we find a way to put a bullet in patents that are so loosely worded as to enable a company to sue (almost) everyone in sight. The pain for consumers, programmers, and others will continue so long as the USPTO and companies continue to be greedy and our representatives in government continue to look the other way.
  • They patented the internet! ('cause it's a telecommunications thingamybob you subsribe with your ISP for, and you download stuff off it!).

    How about an IQ test for the USPTO employees? Something along the lines of 'how many fingers am I holding up?' would improve things....and a pay raise if their response is 'hey! Stop giving me the bird!'.
  • i patent the method of filing for a patent. I'm gonna be a bazillionaire!
  • TFA mentions a bunch of companies they're suing. Apple isn't one of them.
  • According to the ffii newspage http://wiki.ffii.org/SwpatcninoEn [ffii.org], there is a European equivalent to this patent: http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOC&IDX=EP04 74717+&F=8 [espacenet.com], which has been expired.

    In the legal status document (http://v3.espacenet.com/legal?DB=EPODOC&IDX=EP047 4717+&F=8&QPN=EP0474717 [espacenet.com]), it also says opposition has been filed by Philips and that it has been expired because the patent owner failed to pay it's yearly fees.

  • I'll just pop in to say that nothing from that department is able to surprise me anymore.

    That is apart from the ability to sustain incometence this solid over so much time.

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