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Blackberry Maker Facing Infringement Case In U.K. 138

Posted by Zonk from the they-can't-win dept.
xoip writes "As if the problems facing RIM in the U.S. are not enough, a second patent infringement case has been launched in the U.K. by Luxemburg based, Inpro Licensing SARL. A report published by The Globe & Mail says that the U.K. represents 10% of RIM's existing Blackberry subscriber base." More from the article: "At risk in the dispute is RIM's service to around 375,000 BlackBerry subscribers in Britain, about 10 per cent of its global total. If the Waterloo, Ont., company loses the case, it may be forced, along with licensees such as T-Mobile International AG, to stop selling or supporting the devices in Britain, according to lawyers representing the companies." Things don't look so good for their U.S. business either.
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Blackberry Maker Facing Infringement Case In U.K. More

Blackberry Maker Facing Infringement Case In U.K.

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  • Patents are force (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dada21 ( 163177 ) * <adam.dada@gmail.com> on Thursday December 01, 2005 @11:26AM (#14157598) Homepage Journal
    I got news earlier today that the U.S. trial is moving forward [159.54.226.83] as well.

    The article shows why I am so anti-government:

    Under U.S. law, a company can be guilty of violating patents it didn't know about.

    Try reading every law. Try finding a lawyer that knows every law. Now expand that to patents that even the Patent Office doesn't know exist.

    But a judge denied RIM's request to enforce a $450 million settlement the companies announced in March but never finalized.

    $450 million over basically a dream or a vision. Patents are ridiculous. How can anyone rightfully say that just announcing an idea without having at the minimum a justification for how to implement the idea is worth more than $0? Ideas don't have value. Words don't have value. Business plans don't have value. What has value is the ability to convert anything INTO a marketable resource.

    The typical slashdot reply is "without patents no one would develop anything" and "without patents drug companies wouldn't be able to protect their investment." I don't believe this at all. Even with rampant P2P, there are 10 thousand musicians right now trying to write music. Even with strict non-compete clauses, there are thousands of programmers writing the next big thing on their home computers. People will always develop, invent, dream and write. The key to making money is not just having the idea, but coming up with a plan on selling that idea before someone can knock it off. Sure, patent and copyright might restrict another company for a few years from selling the item (in some countries), but the instant a drug or a device comes out to the market, you better believe there are black market copies sold a few days later in some countries with more lacking patents.

    I am a firm believer in a very simple idea: if you have something of value, don't give it to others. Don't leave your gold on your porch in the open. Don't make your idea until you can find ways to capitalize on it.

    inventor Thomas Campana began acquiring patents for wireless communications. Campana co-founded NTP to collect royalties on them. He died of cancer in 2004.

    I can only hope that one we find that cell phones DO cause cancer and that this bastard got what he deserved from not having enough karma.

    • Couldn't have been said any better. I agree with your statements 100%. I was actually born and raised in the community were RIM is located and I feel a little let down that a company can collect on someone elses hard work. Patents need to be re-evaluated because one could patent anything and the idea will eventually become reality and they will collect.
      • The problem with patents is that (to me, an anarchocapitalist) evil begets evil.

        RIM probably has dozens (hundreds?) of patents in their product. Of course people will take advantage of the law until the law is dismissed, and the more there are people that rely on the law, the less likely a law will be dismissed.

        In part, RIM is only reaping what they've sown. (this entire post could be a cliche haha). They made their bed, they're sleeping in it. I'm definitely NOT defending RIM here, as I bet many of the

        • Re:Patents are force (Score:3, Interesting)

          by bhtooefr ( 649901 )
          You know, I'd like to see RIM just shut their entire service down, and hold their government customers hostage.

          I think the government would start singing a different tune, you know?

          • Re:Patents are force (Score:4, Interesting)

            by ajf442 ( 139842 ) on Thursday December 01, 2005 @11:59AM (#14157984)
            Guess what? I read yesterday, that if RIM has a injunction set against them, only residential and commercial users lose service...governmental service will continue on.
            • However, do they HAVE to continue service, or is the government simply allowing them to continue it for them?

              As I understood what I've been hearing, it was that they were allowed to continue service for the government.
            • No. What was really said was that if RIM has an injucntion against them, they don't legally have to shut down service to governmental employees. It says nothing about whether they will choose to continue servicing governmental employees. Among the reasons not to, it may not be cost effective to provide service to the smaller customer base.
            • Not likely. You read that NTP thinks it's easy for RIM to keep just the gov't customers turned on. This is a potentially fallacious assumption, not to mention RIM have no real financial incentive to do so, and strategically are better off shutting down the whole country. If BB service is shut down in the US, the government service will go with it, trust me.
            • If PIM is forced to shut down service to commercial and private customers, I hope they just declare the entire system uneconomical to operate and pull the plug on the whole thing, government customers included.

              Perhaps, if congress is forced to do without their CrackBerries, they'll take a second look at the mess the USPTO (and their legislation) has created.

          • What I find interesting is that the government has not quashed the lawsuit. Look at those 3 guys with the underwater lazer coupler. They were just trying to get their due from a large military contractor and their lawsuit was quashed on grounds of national security. If the goverment use of the black berry is large enough, why not do the same? Just quash the lawsuit, let RIM get off easy and continue on with business.

            -Rick
            • Look at those 3 guys with the underwater lazer coupler. They were just trying to get their due from a large military contractor and their lawsuit was quashed on grounds of national security.

              Different situation. It wasn't the use of the device that was a national security issue, but rather the design. The device design is classified. Allowing the lawsuit to go forward would have exposed classified information. Blackberry devices aren't state secrets.

          • Except my idea is that the outcry from the entire customer base would prompt the governments to reconsider the state of affairs.

    • Re:Patents are force (Score:3, Interesting)

      by hsmith ( 818216 )
      Rothbard got it right with his ideas on patents. The whole issue could be avoided with contractual agreements. You agree to take the medicine and not reverse engineer it. Any violation is breaking of contract would be delt with in Civil court. it could be applied to anything that couild be patented.

      • Re:Patents are force (Score:3, Interesting)

        by dada21 ( 163177 ) *
        This is completely true, actually. Rothbard was really a remarkable theorist -- unfortunately he died before his third wave of fans came online.

        The difficulty with the civil aspect (Devil's Advocate here) is what happens if you sell me your cell phone and I sign an agreement not to reverse engineer it and I give it to my brother who does reverse engineer it? Most /. readers would argue that they have enough contracts to click-sign, they're not going to want to live in a world where every action is governe
    • As I understand it, the patent in this case covers sending emails to a pager. How stupid is that?
      • And how much money has NTP lost by RIM implementing it?

        NOTHING.

        Because they didn't have their own implementation to protect - the 'inventor's monopoly' that a patent gives the inventor.

        Patents should be enforceable, even though a patent on sending text (even if it is formatted in a particular way) to a pager (a device designed to show text) is clearly a waste of time.

        But an idea is worth nothing until it is implemented. Maybe the idea then gains some worth, but all the effort, research, etc is the real valu
        • Exactly. Isn't the standard suit "treble damages"? Well, three times jack is jack shit and that's exactly what NTP should get.

    • Re:Patents are force (Score:3, Insightful)

      by MemeRot ( 80975 )
      This is so annoying. Two companies hold patents on something that they never, ever, intended to turn into a product. One innovative company actually makes a wildly successful product and bam, lawsuits.

      GREAT way to encourage innovation.
      • And that is exactly what has happened. The way the patent system now functions encourages patent squatters whose business model is essentially litigation, and is beginning to sour the well for those actually producing products. The system is broken, but governments are either unaware or are in the pockets of those who wish to propogate an anti-free market system.
      • I'd have a little more sympathy had RIM not (successfully) sued Handspring over the notion of a thumb keyboard.

        RIM have been hoist by their own petards.
        • That's a good point. As much as I hate what NTP is doing, anyone who things a thumb keyboard is non-obvious has never watched my wife text message from her cell phone. I'm claiming prior art.

    • How can anyone rightfully say that just announcing an idea without having at the minimum a justification for how to implement the idea is worth more than $0? Ideas don't have value. Words don't have value. Business plans don't have value. What has value is the ability to convert anything INTO a marketable resource.

      You are exactly right: ideas are worth zero. But before you go off on a tirade, you need to understand what a patent is. Patents must describe an implementation of an idea. Ideas themselves

      • So if two people, at the same time who live on opposite sides of the country invent a widget, the first one to patent should have exclusive rights to make it?

        how is that fair? that doesn't help push for innovation, it hinders it.
        • Doesn't it encourage the second inventor to develop an even better widget that doesn't infringe the patent of the first?

          The incentive presented by a patent is: if you spend the time to develop something truly new and valuable, you can have an exclusive right to profit from that development. How does the mere possibility that someone else might simultaneously invent and get a patent on the same development remove the incentive to create in the first place?

          I have yet to see a solid and convincing argument

          • Doesn't it encourage the second inventor to develop an even better widget that doesn't infringe the patent of the first?

            It more likely discourages the second inventor from inventing anything, since they probably blew a lot of their personal resources working on the concept & watched all their hard work get flushed down the tubes because somebody managed to file some paperwork faster. Even if they get another good idea (and have the resources to try again), how can they be reasonably sure that the same

    • I quite agree with you that people will always invent/compose/code, regardless of patents being present or not. They have for thousands of years prior to patent legislation. And I think the people who came up with the patent system knew that as well. The patent system is not designed to give people an incentive to invent. It's designed to give people an incentive to distribute the way they accomplished their invention. That's why there are provisions about non-obvious inventions - experts in their field can
    • Under U.S. law, a company can be guilty of violating patents it didn't know about.

      Try reading every law. Try finding a lawyer that knows every law. Now expand that to patents that even the Patent Office doesn't know exist.

      I honestly did not know it wasn't allowed to drive without this "license" thingy and run over children while drunk. I don't own a TV, and nobody told me when I bought the car. Does that mean I'm off the hook according to you?

      Patents: What is wrong is not that these companies aren't usi

      • I honestly did not know it wasn't allowed to drive without this "license" thingy and run over children while drunk. I don't own a TV, and nobody told me when I bought the car. Does that mean I'm off the hook according to you?

        Exactly! Pleading innocence because you're ignoring the law will be rejected by every court in the world, not just the US. This is a universal principle of law and the hardest to argue against.

        That being said, some laws are so utterly complicated and written in a way that not even

      • Slightly off topic for this perticular thread, but taking up from something mentioned...

        (one of them did try before Blackberry showed up and failed)

        So why is it that they don't try again since the BlackBery IS so hugely successful? Since the Treo is so hugely popular? heck, since email on your cell phone is so hugely popular now...why wouldn't they try to make something that would be equally as popular?

        Because it's easier to sit back and get money from other people than to actually do work yourself.

        I am s
    • > Don't make your idea until you can find ways to capitalize on it.

      Patents are supposed to encourage development by providing a way for you to capitalize on something useful by selling a patent rather than keep it as a trade secret. If you aren't in a position to develop your idea and someone else is, it's better that you get some money and the world gets a new product than you take the idea to your grave.

      How they actually work these days is another matter.

  • patenting obvious ideas... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rd4tech ( 711615 ) * on Thursday December 01, 2005 @11:27AM (#14157612)
    The company is asking a London court to invalidate a British patent held by Luxembourg-based Inpro Licensing Sarl... ...The patent is for a simple idea, which we say is either anticipated or obvious," RIM's lawyer, Antony Watson, told the High Court yesterday at the start of a five-day hearing.
    1. Can a company asks for a patent invalidation so then it can go ahead and sell it's own implementation of it?
    2. Aren't all patents for a 'obvious' ideas once one reads them?
    • the point is that some ideas are obvious before you even read them. for example, taking anything that already exists to do with phones or communication and adding the phrase "...on a mobile phone", or even more vaguely "...on a portable communcations device".
    • "Aren't all patents for a 'obvious' ideas once one reads them?"

      You have to keep in mind what patents are for. They are intended to promote investment in innovation and technology. The problem is that if you invest time and money into inventing something new, you may actually put yourself at a competitive disadvantage once you finish. Your competitors can now make the same product and sell it at a lower price, since they did not make such an investment. Patents are intended to solve this problem by guar

      • Now the reason the patent system is broken is the huge number of patents covering ideas that did not require investment to come up with.

        That's definitely not the only reason the patent system is broken. It's also broken because:
        • It's so expensive to register and enforce a patent that small companies often don't even try it
        • Patents are good from the date of application filing, even if the idea was many years previous
        • Patents are given for a term of 20 years. In our society product lifecycles have decli
      • You have to keep in mind what patents are for. They are intended to promote investment in innovation and technology. The problem is that if you invest time and money into inventing something new, you may actually put yourself at a competitive disadvantage once you finish. Your competitors can now make the same product and sell it at a lower price, since they did not make such an investment. Patents are intended to solve this problem by guaranteeing a monopoly on the product for a limited time, so you can ma
      • "Now the reason the patent system is broken is the huge number of patents covering ideas that did not require investment to come up with."

        And unfortunately, you get the highest ROI when you have no investment. It's economically impossible to create a system that grants monopolies to encourage risk and investment; the maximum value is gained when you obtain the monopoly while not risking or investing.

        Further, as there is no 'budget' for the system as it's financed through monopoly rent grants there is no fis
        • It's economically impossible to create a system that grants monopolies to encourage risk and investment; the maximum value is gained when you obtain the monopoly while not risking or investing.

          I'm not sure I understand how your conclusion follows from your premise. The maximum benefit of most things occurs when one doesn't play by the same rules as everyone else, but that doesn't mean the system is broken. A few people obtaining substantial benefit with minimal investment is hardly evidence of rampant abu
          • "The maximum benefit of most things occurs when one doesn't play by the same rules as everyone else"

            In this case, one is playing by the same rules. The rules simply are that it's better to do as little costly and risky research as possible to obtain the reward. That means it's broken.

            "If you've seen numbers that suggest otherwise, I'd be interested to see them."

            It's not a question of the grants that cover existing products, it's a question of exacting monopoly rent from the market. The premium paid for pate

  • Patent Goodness (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Vicegrip ( 82853 ) on Thursday December 01, 2005 @11:30AM (#14157652) Journal
    Would one of the pro-patent people I see on these boards care to explain to me how this is a shining example of how patents foster innovation?

    • Re:Patent Goodness (Score:3, Insightful)

      by servognome ( 738846 )
      Would one of the pro-patent people I see on these boards care to explain to me how this is a shining example of how patents foster innovation?

      If a virus is found on Linux does it mean that open source doesn't work?
      The problem isn't patents as an idea, it's the poor implementation by the patent office and outdated length of protection with increasing rate of development and shorter time to market/profit.

    • Re:Patent Goodness (Score:3, Interesting)

      by thebdj ( 768618 )
      Do I really need to bring up the trade secret vs. patent protection again? The key to patent protection is the idea of full disclosure (at least here in the US). The idea is, you are guaranteed protection of your invention for a period to not exceed 20 yrs from the filing date of the invention, and in return you must disclose your invention to the public. It is this disclosure that is meant to foster innovation.

      There are ways around trade secrets; however, in some fields the time required to successful
      • "How many people throughout the years have claimed to have correctly figured out the formula for Coca-Cola. It is one of the most closely guarded secrets, and Coca-Cola has stated that the supposed formulas people have come up with are not the correct ones."

        But it doesn't matter. Coca-cola is mostly about marketing the product. Bring out an identical product is not a significant threat to coke. Bringing out a identical product with similar marketing and distribution could be-but then, why wouldn't someone j
        • One word: costs. If you can make something for less money and subsequently sell it for less money it is feasible to drive a competitor out of business by forcing them to lose money because their costs are too high. In the case of the small inventor, the patent system ensures them some sort of protection under this method. If person Y creates a new product, they can begin to make and sell that product. If it becomes successful, without a patent system, company Z could recreate the new product and because

  • Time to do away with patents (Score:4, Insightful)

    by hsmith ( 818216 ) on Thursday December 01, 2005 @11:31AM (#14157669)
    One company can patent something, sit on the patent and do nothing with it? How is that "innovation"?

    The whole system all needs to go.
    • Haven't you heard? It's an innovative new approach for lawyers to get rich.
    • I dont think its time for patents to go away. Inventors and companies need protection for the time and effort they put in to products. Now patent reform I believe is what is needed. In my eyes if you patent something and nothing comes of that patent within a resonable time (one to two years?)then it should be revoked or better yet be changed to a non-patentable 'idea' for all to use.
      • That's an enforcement nightmare. How will you police if people are doing anything with the patent or not?

        There's a lot of loopholes in it too. You want patent examiners that are too stupid to refuse patents on completely obvious things to judge whether the company has brought the completely obvious thing to market or not?
        • actually, this is somewhat in place, but it's the inventor that has to make a decision on whether to keep something patented. This is done through Patent Maintenance Fees [uspto.gov]. So, it costs money to maintain a patent. Currently, the fees are $900 at 3.5yrs, $2300 at 7.5yrs, and $3800 at 11.5yrs. (Half if you're a "small entity") Since it can take time to make money from a patented idea, this forces people to make a "is it worth it to keep this thing" decision. Granted, one can argue if those dollar values ar

      • Re:Time to do away with patents (Score:4, Insightful)

        by robertjw ( 728654 ) on Thursday December 01, 2005 @12:12PM (#14158105) Homepage
        if you patent something and nothing comes of that patent within a resonable time (one to two years?)then it should be revoked

        Who decides what constitutes 'nothing comes of that patent'? Your idea would be good in a perfect world, but I fear in our flawed universe it would just result in additional beauracracy, lawyers making more money, more court time and unfortunately no change in the status quo.

        I agree that it would be nice to offer ethical inventors and companies protection for their ideas. Thing is, the current system is already so broken that true innovaters like RIM are in danger of being run out of business by patent squatters like NTP Inc. There currently aren't enough resources to validate the patents that are already on the books - the patent office is currently in the process of invalidating NTP's patents. I don't think creating additional work for the patent office and asking them to determine if a company has validated their patent by makeing sure something comes from that patent after two years is going to work.
    • The problem is coming up with a length of time that is suitably long for a poor inventor to try and bring his product into fruition and yet short enough to prevent squatting. Yes, there are legitimate reasons for time given to "sit" on a patent. I can come up with the Next Big Thing a year before Company X but not have the cold hard cash to do so, does that mean I should have to give up my rights to it? According to you yes... you're throwing out the baby with the bath water. There is good in the system. Us
  • After all, the blackberry maker also made everything else.
  • I thought the EU directive "on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions" was defeated. What is the legal ground for the lawsuits in the UK and Germany?

    • Re:Patents on Algorithms in the EU? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Husgaard ( 858362 ) on Thursday December 01, 2005 @11:48AM (#14157875)
      The proposed directive was simply an attempt to change the law to be closer to what the European Patent Office (EPO) is doing. EPO has changed their interpretation of Article 52 in the European Patent Convention to allow patenting just about all software and business methods.

      Although the directive was defeated, this hasn't changed the behaviour of EPO. The EU Commission is unable to control them [wiki.ffii.de].

    • I thought the EU directive "on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions" was defeated.

      There were 3 possible outcomes of the EU directive process:

      * Rewrite EU patent law to specifically include software as a patentable field (this was the original proposed directive),
      * rewrite EU patent law to specifically exclude software as a patentable field (this is what FFII et al were campaigning for), or
      * keep the same system we already have, which makes software patents a grey area that are difficult to

  • Has anybody considered..... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by 8127972 ( 73495 ) on Thursday December 01, 2005 @11:35AM (#14157715)
    ...... that people could be lining up to sue RIM as they perceive that RIM may be weak on the patent front? Basically, this lawsuit (and any that follow after it) are simply companies fishing for cash?

  • Patent Text? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by XMilkProject ( 935232 )
    I've been searching everywhere to actually find a copy of this patent. I was able to find some minor documentation of its existence but that was all in German and hard to sort through.

    Has anyone found the text of this patent? Or atleast a more robust summary of it.
  • From Wikipedia...
    The word Waterloo has entered the English language as a word signifying a decisive and final outcome. For example: "to meet one's Waterloo". It usually bears a negative connotation, since Waterloo was Napoleon's downfall.
    Maybe their fate will change with a re-location... :)

  • Oh no! (Score:5, Funny)

    by mrtroy ( 640746 ) on Thursday December 01, 2005 @11:50AM (#14157899)
    I hope this doesnt prevent my roommate from getting a RIM job!!!

    And yes, I live in Waterloo, and yes, he is going to work at RIM.

    And finally, yes, I do abuse that joke daily.

  • Said it before and I'll say it again... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01, 2005 @11:57AM (#14157966)
    Screw the government!

    If the system has to shut down, throw the switch on EVERYONE, no exempting government users of any country. Let them lie in the bed of shit their asinine patent system has created, just like the rest of us.

    At the very least there needs to be a law that says you can't have the patent without doing something with it. None of this bullshit sitting on a great idea so you can sue someone who actually turns it into a product or service.
    • Your idea is nice in theory, but consider this:
      1. I have a fantastic idea, but I can't finance the production of it.
      2. I patent it.
      3. I approach a big corp and say 'I had this great idea, but I don't have the funds to exploit it right now, I will give you the rights in exchange for 10% of the profit'.
      4. Big corp likes the idea, so they go to the patent office and get the patent overturned because I haven't exploited my patent.

      I wrote an alternative suggestion here [theravensnest.org].

      • Simple: tough. You're outta luck.

        How do you expect your idea to work if you don't have the resources to actually implement it? I could write up a patent on an antigravity machine, make some stupid drawings of some magnetic spheres or something that sounds possible, and file this and get a patent. Would it work? Of course not. The only way to prove that an invention like this actually works is to build it. So as far as I'm concerned, if you can't actually demonstrate that your invention works, then it'
        • First, simulation. It's a lot cheaper to buy enough computing time to demonstrate that something works than it is to build it. Second, prototyping. I might be able to build a prototype device for, say, $2000. If a prototype costs that much, then the cost of setting up a factory to mass-produce said device is going to run to the order of a few hundred thousand dollars. To get the funding to go into production with something like this then you are going to need the backing of a large company. Large comp

  • Close Shop In Protest (Score:3, Interesting)

    by blueZhift ( 652272 ) on Thursday December 01, 2005 @12:10PM (#14158081) Homepage Journal
    The pundits won't agree, but I think that maybe RIM should just close up shop in protest. Clearly the way that patents are being used has gotten out of control, but nothing is going to be done to fix the problem until someone sufficiently powerful gets pissed off. Take away the Blackberry service for a week or two, and maybe the government big wigs and lobbyist will get the message that the predatory use of patents is a bad thing. It seems in this world that someone always has to die before anything gets done about obvious problems.
    • This is so true. The only thing that will ever correct the patent nonsense
      will be when there is great and obvious harm done by them. There needs to
      be a big company that is taken out and which affects millions of people.
      Something like patenting an airplane and forcing all airlines to remain
      grounded. Sooner or later it will happen; but the settlements so far have
      been cloaking this threat.

      Another problem is that patents are kind of like ICBMs. The only thing
      that keeps the whole economy from instantly being
      • > I don't consider terrorists on the other hand to even be human.

        Irrelevant though this is to the subject at hand, that is a serious mistake. Terrorists on all sides of the world's conflicts are perfectly normal humans, just exactly as everyone in Nazi Germany was a perfectly normal human being. [imdb.com] When we hide from the truth of that, we can miss warning signs and accidentally turn into terrorists ourselves.

        Your original analogy is bang-on.

      • I don't consider terrorists on the other hand to even be human.

        So then you can flight them to clandestine prisions to torture them, or put them in nobody's land where they can be abused.

        In other words, you can deny them all their human rights.

        Your problem buddy is that they are humans. They love people and have loved ones, they laugh, cry, get angry and tell jokes.

        And more worringly, you and your government are not judging them, in order to actually decide in a civilized way if they are what people claim th

  • Something i don't udnerstand about the NTP case (Score:3, Insightful)

    by brunes69 ( 86786 ) <slashdot@nOSpam.keirstead.org> on Thursday December 01, 2005 @12:10PM (#14158088)

    If the courts rule that the 450 million dollar settlement is invalid, and that RIM has to stop selling blackberries, doesn't that mean that NTP will not get any money from them?

    To me, this reads like NTP is going ot be losing out on 450 million dollars. Sure, RIM would be losing too, but my point is, how is this patent doing any good for NTP if they can't even legally license it to RIM?

    Sure, they could maybe licens eit to some other company who will start useing it to make devices, but that would liekly never happen.

    • Here's what I don't understand. It sounds like the patent office is going to invalidate all of NTP's patents anyway. Why doesn't RIM just pay them whatever the heck they want and sue them for all their money back in 6 months when the patent office gets off their lazy ass?
      • "Here's what I don't understand. It sounds like the patent office is going to invalidate all of NTP's patents anyway. Why doesn't RIM just pay them whatever the heck they want and sue them for all their money back in 6 months when the patent office gets off their lazy ass?"

        The patent office sounded like it was going to inavlidate Eolas patent, and they instead confirmed it (much to MS's chagrin). And the reason RIM won't pay right now is 1.) doing so implies a settlement, and the USPTO may stop re-examining
    • The ruling isn't that NTP can't settle with RIM. It just says that that particular deal will not be enforced. NTP claims that the deal was not finalized. The ruling doesn't prevent NTP and RIM from reaching another agreement. NTP is holding out for more money from RIM. The number I heard on the radio yesterday was "around 1 Billion".

      Clearly NTP thinks they'll get more by not accepting the 450 million.

  • RIM has a better chance in the UK (Score:4, Informative)

    by Sanity ( 1431 ) on Thursday December 01, 2005 @12:11PM (#14158093) Homepage Journal
    The UK Patent Appeals court has recently been demonstrating quite a bit of sanity around the issue of software patents, rejecting a number of different patents and appeals on the grounds that the patents in question were excluded by the European Patent Convention (EPC) on the grounds that they simply covered a computer program. here [theregister.co.uk] is one example. This may be a result of the European Parliament's clear message that they did not want to weaken the exclusions in the EPC by rejecting the software patents directive.

    As such, if these are simply software patents, I think RIM has a much better chance of winning in the UK than they did in the US - so lets hope they put up a fight.

  • As I sit in a Math lecture and post slashdot comments from my blackberry7250, I come to the reality that I have become totally and completly dependent on this thing. Some points the media has been leaving out of its article... 1) RIM "allegedly" has a work around that "works around" the NTP patent. 2)RIM will have an impossible task of finding out who is government and non government. Especially when the government uses commercial wireless carriers like Verizon. 3)They will find a settlement before shuttin
  • I have been following it from the beginning. And once in a while, I get a call from T-Mobile or Sprint offering Blackberries to me. When I ask about the status of the legal problems they admit to knowing about it but are confident that it will all "...be worked out in the end." Lately, I have my doubts. I'd like to see this case turn tragic for Blackberry and its users. Sometimes a major disaster is the only way to make these sorts of issues into the public's eye. They don't care what is going on with

  • The Sun Still Rises (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Thursday December 01, 2005 @12:49PM (#14158497)
    The Sun rose and the Earth turned to meet a new day before anyone had a RIM Blackberry. The same will still happen if Blackberry goes away. A Blackberry is hardly essential to life.

    That being said, I completely agree with previous posters who have said that if Blackberry service is shut down for all subscribers for a few weeks that some long overdue revision of the patent system will have a greater chance of happening. After all, Blackberry users are more likely to be Movers & Shakers than the average population. Getting them all angry at once might not be a bad thing.

    From what I've heard, 7 of the 8 NTP patents have already been overturned, and the final one is in jeopardy. Would RIM get all their money back (plus damages is too much to expect) if all the patents are ruled invalid? They should!

    • I completely agree with previous posters who have said that if Blackberry service is shut down for all subscribers for a few weeks that some long overdue revision of the patent system will have a greater chance of happening.

      Yeah, and if some big record company like Sony/BMG were to release audio CDs with buggy, privacy-violating copy protection; I bet the government would jump right in with a long overdue revision of the copyright laws. $sys$NOT!

      • Yeah, and if some big record company like Sony/BMG were to release audio CDs with buggy, privacy-violating copy protection; I bet the government would jump right in with a long overdue revision of the copyright laws.

        Which does the government depend on more, and which would more of them miss first -- their Blackberry, or a crappy (aren't they all, these days?) Sony-BMG music CD that hides its infection of your computer?

  • Has anyone noticed just how silent the major carriers have been so far about this?

    1) Verizon Wireless
    2) Nextel
    3) T-Mbile
    4) Cingular ...etc

    These companies ALL have major contracts with RIM to BRAND the phones and service to their networks...

    If RIM shuts down tomorrow, its not entirely RIM who will bear the brunt of the suffering here..

    Example: If your organization has 500 T-Mobile Blaackberries, and tomorrow the service just STOPPED.. Your going to immediately blame T-Mobile, since its their branded phone/s
    • Hmmm, as someone who works for one of the larger(largest) carrier it is very much an issue. But then again it is almost akin a bomb threat when there probably is no bomb.

      If all companies concerned were to tell their blackberry users"Hey, check this lawsuit out, that service you rely on, and that fancy device you paid for, we might just have to turn off cause their is this HUGE lawsuit". Well, that would not bode too well. Everyone immediately would want to cancel service, want their money back, etc, the m
  • "I'll sue you! I'll sue you in England!"
  • Please, please, please let RIM get beaten! I've recently been tagged with one of these poxy things and I hate it. Mostly it just lies in the bottom of my rucksack and I make vague excuses as to why I never respond to mail when away from the office.
  • Honestly, I hope they lose both cases and I hope they're ordered to shut down.

    That is the *only* way that I see the EU and the US to understand what a sick state of affairs the software patent racket is in. I don't know about the UK, but in the US the Blackberry is almost standard government issue. I know that if RIM is ordered to shut down here those will likely stay lit, but if someone important could lose Blackberry access because of this I will be very, very happy.

    Then, these hideous software patent l

  • How about this solution? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dmatos ( 232892 ) on Thursday December 01, 2005 @01:35PM (#14159037)
    The injunction states that RIM must halt Blackberry sales and service to everyone in the US, excepting people who work for the US government. Now, I've seen estimates that 10% of the US Blackberry users are government employees. I'm sure people here on Slashdot would agree that it's not fair for RIM to take a huge revenue (and profit) hit to protest this ruling, thus:

    RIM turns off all commercial service, except for gov't employees. The service fee for those employees increases 10x. Total revenue = same. Economic impact on gov't = large. Service impact on wealthy CEOs, who complain to gov't = total. Amount of time before injunction is repealed = ??
  • Due to long-running patent litigation by Inpro against R.I.M. in the U.K., U.S.A. and E.U. regarding their patent on the period R.I.M. will hold off on suing the O.P. for infringing their patent on the gratuitous use of periods in acronyms.
  • I'm amazed about several aspects of this case. For example, didja know there's a thing called the http://www.freeprotocols.org/rimBBPatentProblem/ma in.html [freeprotocols.org]>Whiteberry which seeks to avoid the patent pitfalls now dogging rim?

    I myself am working a a new version of this technology that adds the capability to change the "ding" sound the device makes when a new message arrives.

    Because of this new feature (which I will patent shortly) it will be called the Dingleberry.
  • Of course IANAPL, so I don't pretend to know what I'm talking about, but I remember hearing that patent licensing maxes at $50MM or so.

    If this case is strong enough to potentially shut down their core business (not judging on the merits of the suit myself) then why wouldn't they just pay it and be done? I realize that they think they have a shot at winning, but there are probably millions of customers and potential customers thinking the company might not be around to provide the service, so they are moving
  • I remember reading an article on the RIM guy - sounds like he's very down to earth and has not become a lavish spender, despite his wealth. Canada loves BB - it's "our" thing so I'm sure RIM would be able to continue to service Canada and make some profit. If I were him I'd be tempted to pull the plug in the US and pull out. Remove all assets and data etc, hand the keys to the corporate shell that remains over to the plaintiff. Hell, do it right and it'd be like one big fat white elephant. Life for RIM
  • I just want to emphasize what rights patents confer. A patent does NOT confer the right to make anything. In fact, patents confer the right to EXCLUDE others from making "the invention" disclosed in the patent. Specifically, 35 U.S.C. Section 271 [uspto.gov] confers this right.

    While a generalized rationale is that patents spur innovation by forcing others to design around the disclosure in the patent, a patent can also be used offensively to prevent others from gaining a particular foothold in a relevant market. Fo
  • Doesn't NTP have an obligation to mitigate their damages? How is sitting on a patent and waiting until the product is popular to sue an example of mitigating damages?

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