Wireless Email Patents Vs. Innovation

Exactly a year ago Slashdot discussed Geoff Goodfellow's early contributions to wireless email and how they were conspicuously absent from the NTP vs. RIM patent fight. Techdirt points us to another early wireless email innovator, Nicholas Fodor, who recently came to the notice of the NY Times. Techdirt uses Fodor's story to highlight the problems with the US patent system that are by now so obvious to this community.

What's the solution?

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, so reform is needed. But what's the solution, though? Is it legislation-based? Is it market-based? We have to make sure the solution doesn't fuck us over more than the problem it's trying to solve.

A good example of how a good idea can go wrong is Digg. It addresses one of the sore spots about Slashdot: the ability for anyone to submit news, and immediately have it viewable by others. It also opens up the comment moderation system to everyone. It's the Digg comment moderation I'd like to consider for t

Re:

[zappepcs]

but if the entire Digg-like patent system moderation were only people like jcr, it would stand a better chance. Something like the electoral college (not that it doesn't have problems) in that the discussion could be public and you or I could write to any of the college members, but discussion on the board would only be by college members.

If the college members were respected industry people, I believe that it would moderate out any fanboyism, and their opposites.

The NTP patents are at best very marginal an

Re:

[Zonk (troll)]

Okay, so reform is needed. But what's the solution, though? Is it legislation-based? Is it market-based? We have to make sure the solution doesn't fuck us over more than the problem it's trying to solve.

It's legislation-based: software should be made unpatentable. As long as software patents exist there will be patent trolls and other abuse. Any other legislation will simply fuck things up even more.

enforce a warranty

[zogger]

As far as I am concerned, if something can be covered by a patent, it should have a normal consumer warranty (suitable for purpose, free from defects, etc) if it is sold or leased or licensed to use, exactly the same as any other patentable product. If companies insist on patents, they would either have to A) write some simply outstanding code, or B), stop with the software patents and leave it at copyright where it belongs.

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[morgan_greywolf]

A good example of how a good idea can go wrong is Digg. It addresses one of the sore spots about Slashdot: the ability for anyone to submit news, and immediately have it viewable by others. It also opens up the comment moderation system to everyone. It's the Digg comment moderation I'd like to consider for the moment.

I fail to see how your example is relevant to the discussion at hand. Slashdot and Digg are competing Web sites for geek news. They are run by their respective management and editors. It's no

You need to look deeper, Paco.

[Anonymous Coward]

I fail to see how your example is relevant to the discussion at hand. Slashdot and Digg are competing Web sites for geek news. They are run by their respective management and editors. It's not a matter of democracy -- each of the editorial and management staffs see different solutions to the same problem of how to run a geek news site.

Yes, but Slashdot takes the stance that the USPTO currently takes: a relatively small group of people making all of the decisions, be it which stories to publish or which pate

Deja Vu

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Have you posted here before? [slashdot.org]

Re:

[soupforare]

"jcr" must have hired some viral marketing firm to spam copy pasta. :P

Re:What's the solution?

[aplusjimages]

Okay, so reform is needed. But what's the solution, though? Is it legislation-based? Is it market-based? We have to make sure the solution doesn't fuck us over more than the problem it's trying to solve.

I've heard of a proposal where you pay a fee each year, but the longer you own the more the fee goes up. So for the first year it's $2, then it doubles from there each year. So if you are actually applying your patent to work, then hopefully your making a profit to cover the fee each year. The fee will eventually become so expensive that most owners of patents will have to stop paying. Once you stop paying the fee it becomes public domain.

This would prevent people from owning multiple patents that they do nothing with (unless you count suing people for using it.)

Re:

[simong_oz]

This is exactly how the current system works and the thinking behind the fee structure. You pay a fee in each territory each year. That fee must be paid whether the patent is in examination or has already been granted and the fee increases each year (up to year X - 20 in most countries - when the patent expires). Patents are published after about 12/18 months (unless withdrawn).

The system is not as broken as slashdotters seem to think it is, there is just an incredible amount of ignorance of how it actually

Re:

[jedidiah]

The system is broken by design.

Other areas of patent work much better because there is a 200 year history of the patents that the PTO itself can draw from. Choosing to patent a new type of invention all of a sudden is just a remarkably BAD idea. All of a sudden you have a land grab going on to claim title to simple things that have been state of the art for years.

Everyone would do well to remember that this problem is an effect of SOMEONE ALTERING THE STATUS QUO.

It's much like copyright in that respect. The

Re:

[eison]

Nonsense. Link to something support your completely wrong claim?
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/qs/ope/fee2007 february01.htm#maintain [uspto.gov] says they charge a pittance to keep a patent going.

It really as broken as people claim it is.

Re:

[kimvette]

A good example of how a good idea can go wrong is Digg. It addresses one of the sore spots about Slashdot: the ability for anyone to submit news, and immediately have it viewable by others.

The same is true here: http://www.slashdot.org/firehose.pl [slashdot.org] -- although you do have to be logged in to access it.

old is new...

[tomstdenis]

What about the folks using packet BBSes in the 80s? Surely that's wireless email :-)

I think a large problem with patents is that society as a whole doesn't remember anything past 5 years ago. Kids honestly think that "hotmail" for instance, was the first e-mail provider or most significant, (mostly because they're so young that the oldest computer they touched was a P4 in 2000 or whatever).

That being said I hate crackberries so I'm kinda for RIM getting screwed.

Re:

[sumdumass]

I don't think the BBS in itself is an example of wireless Email unless you consider all the Ham Radio hackers who did the packet relay with the ham stations. But even then It is more like wireless internet then Wireless Email. My understanding is that the controversy centers around the program interacting with the mail server, pulling the mail, associating it with a user, then sending it to a unit automatically- similar to a paging system.

An I know about the kids not knowing nowadays. I just had a conversat

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[mackyrae]

Please tell me that kid was somewhere around 8 years old. I consider myself a "kid" but I don't think anyone my age is that dumb...er, I hope.

Re:

[sumdumass]

NAh. He was a teenager maybe in his early 20's.

I meet him when picking my nephew up from some after school thing a few weeks ago. He wasn't in the same class but was there to walk one of the other kids home. My niece is nephew is friends with whoever he was picking up and thats how I meet him. And of course kids related to you think your superman at whatever you do which sparked the conversation about computers in the first place(I was being bragged about).

I don't know. This guy tries to pass himself off as

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[mackyrae]

If he's in his early 20s, then I'm younger than him, the family fix it girl (hell, for the sake of the "girls can't code" argument last week at school, let's point that word out), and I know better than that. What an IDIOT.

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[sumdumass]

When you have a collection of "Just another anecdote of evidence" it generally points to a trend. Some jump to conclusions faster then others. Being that I work on computers, I see a lot more anecdotes of evidence.

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[Jtheletter]

kids honestly think that "hotmail" for instance, was the first e-mail provider or most significant

Well don't I feel dated now, I had a hotmail account when it was originally Rocketmail. :/

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[tomstdenis]

I remember my goplay account which was after i had an account on tattle net and was a regular on fidonet, transcanada, tattle and a few other mail exchanges.

Sadly things like UUCP and what not were before my time, but at least I wasn't naive enough as a kid to think we had invented networked computing.

Raise your hand if you remember a time before cell phones were ubiquitous. :-)

Tom

Should not be able to patent something so general

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Using wireless communications to deliver electronic mail is such an obvious solution, it should not be patentable at all. The patent office is over worked and such patents would definitely slip through. But definitely we should be able to challenge and have the patent invalidated. How did RIM manage to lose such a case? I think it was a business decision by RIM, to lose the case. Though it lost some 650 million dollars, it gave tremendous credibility to the patent and thus all future competitors would be shut out. Since the patent holder does not really provide any services, RIM is left to be the monopoly intact with a high cost of entry for its competitors.

Many in the Linux community look at the Novell-Msft deal for precisely this reason. "I will pretend to beat you, you pretend to cry" and in that process we will create the impression that I am a unbeatable big honcho on the hill.

Re:Should not be able to patent something so gener

[tomstdenis]

That's an interesting theory, but if the patent were so easy to invalidate, couldn't RIMs competitors do it as well? Thus making the 650M payout redundant and a complete loss.

Truth be told, even though you or I know the patent is obvious, chances of actually overturning it without a hugely costly legal battle (that even RIM didn't want to play) is low.

Tom

Re:

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

That's an interesting theory, but if the patent were so easy to invalidate, couldn't RIMs competitors do it as well? Thus making the 650M payout redundant and a complete loss.

True, but the idea is to mainly kill off the venture funding for competing services. To compete with RIM the cost of entry into the market is high and it is well nigh impossible without venture funding. With the long shadow of 650 M$ settlement, there wont be big venture funding. Small players will try to invalidate the patent first

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[tomstdenis]

Unless a competitor grows outside the US market. Believe it or not there are plenty of mobile users in Europe and, last I heard, even Asia!

So you can entirely make a market for yourself out of the US of A.

To m

Re:

[sjames]

Part of the whole problem is that even a patent that is obviously invalid is expensive to invalidate however easy. The court system operates under the fiction that the process doesn't intrinsically harm a vindicated defendant (civil or criminal) when in fact it can be ruinous.

Re:Should not be able to patent something so gener

[InvalidError]

Yeah, I too wonder how RIM managed to lose this: my laptops have been wireless-eMail-enabled for the last four years and I have been able to send/receive mail on my cell phone (up to 140 characters) for the last seven years.

I could convert a desktop PC to receive wireless mail too... I just need to plug it into an UPS, charge the battery, disconnect the wall plug and add an USB WiFi card.

My guess is that RIM used custom wireless protocols for mail instead of tunneling TCP/IP with standard eMail services...

YATC

[rohar]

Computers/IT being a relatively recent technology, I think the patent problems are just starting. In thermodynamics, the patent system has allowed the steam engine to be re-patented weekly and there was prior art for the basic concept that substantially predates the patent system itself.

Yet Another Thermodynamic Cycle syndrome is just starting for IT and the center of the problem is not the patent system. The problems are that capitalism is unbridled and there is profit in litigation. I have a difficult time visualizing a patent system reform that will actually improve innovation because it never comes down to who is the inventor, it comes down to who has the resources to hire the most and best lawyers. There really isn't much point in attempting to obtain a patent if you have a good idea or product but don't you don't have a large corporation behind you. Either your idea is crap, you are so far ahead of your time no one will "get it" or a larger company will pick up on the idea. In whichever situation, a patent isn't going to help. I would think generally the type of person that invents anything truly innovative, isn't the type of person that wants to spend their life in a court room and dealing with the legal system.

I believe the Internet will eventually change this. If a good idea is spread very quickly, it reduces to a commodity very quickly. If one company "steals" your idea, many will. My opinion is that unless you want to spend your life in court, it's simpler to just publish your ideas in an open manner and then develop a business model around the sub-components and consulting. This is very similar to the Open Source vs. Proprietary software model. If you have a new idea that has value but you have minimal resources, you cannot show the profit of Microsoft, but you can be Red Hat.

Bucky Fuller

[rohar]

I learned very early and painfully that you have to decide at the outset whether you are trying to make money or to make sense, as they are mutually exclusive.

- R. Buckminster Fuller GRUNCH of Giants [reactor-core.org], 1983

Solution

[backbyter]

http://usptocareers.gov/ [usptocareers.gov]

Can't Compete on Products Alone

[necro81]

TFA:

He seems to relish the idea that any one of those companies with patents would try to sue him for his offering -- since he's got plenty of evidence going pretty far back concerning what he's been working on....[Y]ou don't need patents if you plan on just competing in the marketplace. This guy didn't rush to the patent office, but he worked on building a product that would satisfy the needs of customers, and know that even though there are bigger players in the market who could "copy" his ideas, he think

Re:

[tomstdenis]

Ahhh good ol mutually assured destruction. A scheme that has worked so well in the past...

Maybe the right solution to this problem is to actually have innovative products of a useful nature. If some jackass can rip off your idea trivially, then it's not really worth that much is it? If what you make takes craft and skill, it won't be trivial to knock off and you'll be able to compete in the market place.

If you actually think about it, patents are anti-capitalistic because it denies people the ability to

Campaign for Ethical Patents

[pieterh]

Patents do, actually, serve some purpose: they help people publish their work and still retain some space in which to develop products. There are just so many problems when we apply heavy, slow, industrial patents to something as light and diverse as software. And there are big problems with patents in pharmaceuticals as well... focussing on private profits at all costs simply does not work well for society.

We have three main alternatives:

1. Throw out the entire patent system - this has happened in the pas

Obvious

[grandpa-geek]

The article talks about numerous people developing similar solutions at about the same time. It seems to me that if numerous people come to similar solutions to a problem at about the same time, this should be taken as strong evidence that the solutions are "obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art" and should not be patentable under the law.

competion doesn't equate to obvious

[PatentMagus]

The fix to the patent system is on the way. It's called Google (specifically, google cache), Wikipedia, archive.org, and many other names. The trick is time stamping. Even if the uspto is too ossified to use such publications as prior art, the courts very well could. It only takes one court ruling to change the uspto's mind.

Deciding if something is obvious or not is a huge problem for everyone involved in the patent field. Having lots of people working toward the same goal, however, is not a good tes

Re:

[wcgortel]

The answer is not to gather evidence so you can beat a broken system in court. That is silly. You are a silly man.