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The Patently Absurd Blackberry Case | 53 comments (53 topical) | Post A Comment
Invalid patents?[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#1)
by Anonymous User on Tue Feb 21, 2006 at 09:54:37 AM PDT

While I'm not familiar with the details of NTP's patents, I don't quite buy the argument that they are invalid. That's for a court to decide. But consider this: if you do away with patents, you do away with protections for innovators, and you undermine any sort of openness about what makes something tick. With no patent protection, victory will ALWAYS go to the ones with deep pockets or the ones who can produce an item for the lowest cost. We might as well divide up the world between Microsoft and China right now.

There was a guy named Bob Kearns who, 40-some years ago, invented a gizmo to delay the cycle of windshield wipers for driving in misty conditions. He approached the Detroit automobile manufacturers, and they blew him off -- then turned around and added the feature to their cars. Kearns sued them all, one by one, and eventually collected something like what the idea was worth. If there were no patent protection, he would have been out of luck.

In the 1980s, Eastman Kodak came out with an instant picture camera that essentially used the same processes as the patented ones of Polaroid. Polaroid sued and won, and Kodak had to withdraw from the market. With no patent protection, I think there is no question that Kodak would have eventually driven them out of the market altogether. Sure, you could say that the owners of the Kodak cameras suffered as a result (although Kodak did compensate them), but was it really right for Kodak to benefit from the processes that Polaroid invented?

Put another way, would it be right for me to start my own Gripelog and steal your lucrative idea. (Okay, maybe not so lucrative, but you get my point, don't you?)

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Huh?[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#2)
by Anonymous User on Tue Feb 21, 2006 at 10:07:05 AM PDT

Go back to the beginning and read all of Ed's post. He's talking about software and internet method patents, not gizmos that work windshield washers. He's talking about Amazon's one-click patent, and all the other stupid patents that claim special privileges on techniques that have been around for years.

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Reform does not equal abolish[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#3)
by jjh1102us on Tue Feb 21, 2006 at 10:19:21 AM PDT

I'm not sure that suggesting the patent system needs serious reform is the same as saying we should do away with patents. Clearly, the idea of delivering e-mail to a wireless device is something that should be intuitive to anyone - I've got e-mail, I've got a wireless device, why wouldn't I want to get e-mail on it? Patents should be limited to ideas that truly innovate, not just implement obvious solutions.

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ntp / rim[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#13)
by Anonymous User on Tue Feb 21, 2006 at 01:00:40 PM PDT

The real problem with the patent system is lawyers who exploit it by aquiring patent rights (for pennies) they have no intentions of developing for commercial use. It was only a few years ago another law firm (or perhaps it was this one) was suing small businesses with e-commerce for infrigment on their patent that generally discribed "selling products on the internet" even though they never typed a letter of code that could be used for e-commerce. NTP and firms like them wait in the shadows for others to build a succesful business they can attach themselves to, very much like a leach, drawing blood/cash but contibuting nothing to the product. Were this the actual developer who intended to build a business I could have sympathy but this is not the guy who invented delayed windshield wipers, far from it. Think of a patent as a party. This is a pack of lawyers who did not throw this party, did not bring anything to this this party but will leave with bag holding all the best food and drink. In short; if you hold a patent you should be required to actively develop it or lose the rights to it.

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Abomination[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#4)
by Anonymous User on Tue Feb 21, 2006 at 10:20:18 AM PDT

Software should be protected by copyright, not patent. Business methods can be trademarked, copyrighted, or simply held as a trade secret. Patents for ideas are obscene, and against the public good. Just picture Charles Babbage's heirs filing patents on the idea of a computational engine and suing IBM, Intel, AMD, Apple, Motorola, etc. for a share -- and getting an injunctiopn to shut down all computers everywhere until they were paid. Ludricous, and no different from the Blackberry situation. Patents are only appropriate for a tangible good, or a manfacturing process for a tangible good.

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Not a bad analogy[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#7)
by Anonymous User on Tue Feb 21, 2006 at 10:36:15 AM PDT

Let me start by saying I side with RIM on this issue - but to play devil's advocate a little bit...

The guy who invented the delayed winshield wiper - let's just say that all he had was an idea and a patent. No prototype, no businessplan, and no funding. I think we all agree that the auto manufacturer's tried to rob him of his idea and he got his due by suing them.

How is that different from NTP? They had an idea we are calling obvious (hindsight???) and whether they could not get funding or the technical know-how to implement are they not due the same consideration we give the guy with the windshield wiper idea?

I could argue that automatically turning your windhshield wipers on and off is obvious.

I am intentionally ignoring some of the facts here. They guy with the wipers had more than an idea - he had a working plan of HOW to implement his idea. Not sure how much of a working plan NTP had...

I differentiate this from one-click shopping or business process patents because of prior art. People had buttons that you click to do many tasks long before Amazon came up with it and the expense to fight it outwieghed the utility for 'small guys'.

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Ideas aren't enough[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#22)
by Anonymous User on Wed Feb 22, 2006 at 08:12:36 AM PDT

BUT, would the Patent Office have granted a patent for just the idea of intermittent wipers without some sort of detailed plan or implementation? I don't think so, details of a product are a crucial part of the patent application process.

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Doesn't work.[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#37)
by ObviousTroll on Sat Feb 25, 2006 at 03:47:49 PM PDT

you can't patent an idea, you have to have an implementation of that idea to show the patent office. At least, that's how it was when Bell and Grey(?) raced to see who would be first to the patent office with a working telephone.

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yes[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#81)
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Patent Law is a Mess[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#8)
by srynas on Tue Feb 21, 2006 at 11:11:43 AM PDT

In response to Anonymous, the validity of patents is determined by the patent office, not the court system.  If I recall correctly, the patent office had issued a preliminary decision to invalidate the NTP patents, but the Court ruled in the favor of NTP because the court could not "speculate" on when the patent office would make a final decision.  I would assume that once the patent office makes a final decision, that it would rule in favor of RIM..

Furthermore, while each of Anonymous' examples point to one form of clear patent abuse, Anonymous is apparently overlooking the growing abuse of patents.  Patents were once granted for working devices that perform a specific task, they were not granted for ideas.  Patent holders today are debasing the patent concept by claiming that ideas, generic tasks, product variations, or even products that have not been introduced commercially can all be "protected" under patent law as intellectual property.  Additionally, the time honored concept of reverse engineering to develop an alternative method of performing a task appears to have been criminalized.  We need a revitalized patent law that protects true innovation when it is introduced into the marketplace.


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Boston?[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#9)
by rodak on Tue Feb 21, 2006 at 11:25:17 AM PDT

"In the 1980s, Eastman Kodak came out with an instant picture camera that essentially used the same processes as the patented ones of Polaroid"

Hey, completely OT, but wasn't this the project that Tom Sholz, lead guitarist/songwriter for Boston, developed?

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Invalid patents?[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#15)
by Anonymous User on Tue Feb 21, 2006 at 07:20:22 PM PDT

"Put another way, would it be right for me to start my own Gripelog and steal your lucrative idea?" Yes, it would and that's the point. Ideas are nto patentable - atleast that is supposed to be the way it works. The advent of biological, business method, and software patents have all but wrecked the philosophical underpinnings of the patent system. But the fundimentla point is that "You can not own an idea". Ideas are not property, they have very few of the attributes of real property. The broken IP system we have eveolved in the US threatens to destroy one of our most cherished freedoms - Freedom of expression. Underlying all expression are ideas. Can Ed own the concept behind the GripeLine ? If so then Can Craig own the idea of the List ?, What about Blogs? Newsites? Maybe we shouldpatent Democracy ? Relativity ? Gravity ? That someone could own gravity is absurd, but not really much more aabsurd than all too many patents granted today. Then there is the claim/false hope that atleast Patents expire and the situation will be self correcting. Microsoft's original FAT patent was created in the early eighties - an is long expired. Yet the media has hyped the contest over the validity of a more recent patent pertaining only to the specific way in which long file names are created that is not a particularly novel or interesting idea - it is little more than good basic programming, yet according to the hype should it hold up all OpenSOurce will collapse ? Additionally the Patent office is swamped, they do not even have the ability to make certain they do not approve a patent for something already patented - and they do regularly. Yet despite this the courts - rightly, because it is NOT their job to analyze the validity of patents, but to answer the sole equally difficult technical question of whether the defendants product infringes on the plantiff's patent. There are alot of ideas to try to fix the patent system. Mnay good ones, but they are all band aides.Over 200 years ago we created the modern system of intellectual property. Our founding fathers held their noses as they did so - they called patents and copyrights monopolies. The motivation for overcoming their distaste was to attmpt to balance the disparate power between individual authors and inventors and large enterprises. Yet within a few decades it was obvious even to them that Patents and Copyrights had actually made the situation they were looking to correct worse, but by then the system had attained its own life. The intellectual Property system is going to self destruct eventually. Ignoring philosophical arguments, as a practical matter the system does not work, can not be fixed and will only get worse with time. But despite that though there are starting to be rumblings of basic understanding, there is still an enormous amount of money involved, and we are far from either the political will or the fundimental understanding of its problems. Fortunately most of the world has NOT followed our example any permitted bussiness method and software patents. Hopefully, they will continue to observe and learn from our mistakes.

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My "Lucrative" Idea[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#18)
by Ed Foster on Tue Feb 21, 2006 at 10:39:58 PM PDT

Yes, indeed, anyone who wishes to compete for all the fabulous wealth I'm making off the GripeLog is more than welcome to do so. But pretend for a moment I actually wanted to stop someone from "stealing" my idea. What legal recourse would I have?

Well, if you actually ripped off my material, or called yourself the GripeLog or the GripeLine, I would certainly have a chance of making a case against you under copyright law. But if you just did an online computer gripes website of your own -- and some people already have, and some of them are pretty good, as a matter of fact -- copyright law would give me no claim on you. And that's obviously the way it should be.

But the way patent law works now, I conceivably could have an Internet business method patent on the very concept of people posting their gripes about technology products. (The fact that this business method doesn't have a viable business model behind it wouldn't count against me.) Since I haven't applied for such a patent, someone else could file for it tomorrow. And given all the extremely inane patents that have been granted in recent years -- NTP's patents being not even close to the worst -- it's possible they'd succeed. Once they had it, they could easily drive me out of this lucrative business.

That is the way patent law is being interpreted by the courts these days. By the way, as pointed out in this Slate article, we can attribute this plight to a case of "judicial activism" run amok. So if the judge in the Blackberry case does shut them down, it is only another step in our judicial system's march toward the supremacy of intellectual property over all other considerations.

Ed Foster



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Kearns patent dubious as well[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#21)
by Anonymous User on Wed Feb 22, 2006 at 05:40:21 AM PDT

I remember scratching my head at that Kearns intermittent wiper patent. I have an old issue of Popular Electronics from the early sixties with an intermittent wiper circuit project to build. The date of the magazine predated his patent by numerous years.

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Not always that simple[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#30)
by Anonymous User on Wed Feb 22, 2006 at 05:17:54 PM PDT

Kodak developed and marketed an instant picture system that they believed was not infringing on the Polaroid patent. When the patent case went to court, Kodak lost and they didn't appeal. They chose not to pursue the appeal not because they thought the judgement was correct, but because the market for instant cameras was rapidly going down the toilet. What's the point in pursuing a patent appeal for a market that was going away anyway?

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The Patently Absurd Blackberry Case | 53 comments (53 topical) | Post A Comment
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