The Register: "Judge Denies MS Attempt to Re-Define 'Card' "

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/68/35904.html' target='_blank'>http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/68/35904.html</a><br /><br /></div>"A US District Court has agreed that the word 'card' means any 'flat, rectangular piece of stiff material', paving the way for intellectual property company E-Pass to pursue its claim that HP iPaqs running Microsoft software violate its patent for a "multi-function card"...E-Pass claims the Microsoft's Pocket PC operating system violates patent number 5,276,311, which it administers on behalf of the inventor, Hartmut Hennige. The so-called '311 patent' essentially describes an electronic wallet used to hold credit card details securely on said multi-function card."<br /><br />What I want to know is how the US patent office found so many <a href="http://www.primates.com/chimps/chimpanzee.jpg">"talented people"</a> to work there. The patents they give out clearly have a lot of thought behind them... :roll:

[bikeman]

So "'card' means any 'flat, rectangular piece of stiff material'"?

Really? So thickness is not a factor? So a brick is a card? And having multiple pieces of stuff, not all flat and rectangular, joined together into a vaguely rectangular shape is not a factor? So a rectangular BUILDING is a card? And the original IPAQs were not even rectangular!

I hope these people are not allowed to breed! :evil:

[Imageman]

This is pretty typical of the patent office though. This is right in line with people who register all the URLs they can to profit. It's really stupid.

Plus- why just sue over HP? Because they are market leader? Sounds a little over selective to me.

[Jacob]

This is pretty crazy.

By the way, be wary of going to the "E-Pass" web site. I just did and it caused my browser to go so haywire my whole system slowed to a crawl.

[rocky_raher]

Years ago, John Dvorak suggested that he should patent the hinge on the lid of a laptop, and the use of the characters "C:>" as a prompt.

[dmy]

Hey gang..... don't blame the Patent office on this one:

A US District Court has agreed...

this was a decision of a US District Court judge...... now.... if you read the ruling, it also doesn't say that an iPaq constitutes a "card", only that:

the word 'card' means any 'flat, rectangular piece of stiff material'

Which means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in this case.... next the guy has to prove that an iPAQ is a "Flat, rectangular piece of stiff material", THEN he has to prove that Microsoft voilated the patent by making the iPAQ "hold credit card details securely on said multi-function card". Heh.... the very existance of packages that are made to do just that could be argued to invalidate that claim. TO prove these two things, they'll have to provide a "preponderance of evidence" to a judge to warrant the case moving forward, and then they'll have to prove it to a 51% certainty to a jury.

Funny, but I think Microsoft has the wherewithall to fight this easily and handily, and would likely win to the degree that the entire patent is invalidated. These guys went straight after the big fish when there were oh so many little fish to fry that likely could not have fought it.

D.

[Mitch D]

Jason I think calling them trained/untrained chimps is an insult to primates everywhere. They are actually bottom feeding bilge scum! :wink:

[joelevi]

Sounds oddly similar to the guy who has a patent on a "plastic film used to cover and protect an electronic screen" which he's used to harass some of the best screen protector people out of the business...

[LarDude]

Jason I think calling them trained/untrained chimps is an insult to primates everywhere. They are actually bottom feeding bilge scum! :wink:

Hey!! :evil:
How dare you!? Bottom feeding bilge scum have feelings (and standards) too, and they may not appreciate your comparison.

[jmulder]

Omigosh! I use a cigarette case as a wallet, and it's flat, rectangular, and rigid, and it holds my credit cards! Since it also holds cash, that makes it 'multi-function'! :crazyeyes:

What a waste of time...

[dh]

So it looks like my credit cards infringe this patent too. They are recatangular and stiff and store credit card information.

[mcsouth]

So that patent was applied for and/or approved in 1994? Where are the real world devices that have been developed with patent approval? Does this mean that my Royal Bank client card, that allows rapid access to numerous bank accounts, including my Royal Bank Visa, is also in violation of the patent? Oh, wait a minute, it doesn't have a battery.......

Well, according to claim 2, this device would store my 'personal signature' for these 'data sets' - think a judge would decide that a password is my personal signature? What about people who never bother to set a password? Or is it just the fact that the device is capable of storing an electronic signature enough to violate the patent?

Claim 3 talks a lot about using keys to select the desired data set at the point of purchase, "and further comprises the steps of: inserting the multi-function card into a checking terminal for payment purposes....". I sure don't recall doing that with my iPaq.

Stuff like this just ticks me off. It took them how many years to decide that a PPC and/or Palm (they are suing Palm separately) violates this patent - what have they been doing? Sitting back and waiting for the right time to pounce? I guess I just don't have a lawyer's mind, because about three paragraphs into this patent, I believed that there is no way that a PPC could be construed as violating the numerous claims of this patent.

In the end, who pays? We do, in the cost of increased prices required to cover the cost of the litigation. Thanks a lot for your continued contribution to the common good, ePass..........

[dMores]

i just went to the e-pass website, seems like they just make money or get in the news by sueing other companies.

November 11th
E-Pass Sues VISA

October 7th
E-Pass Re-Targets Microsoft & Compaq

hehe :)

[Jereboam]

A-HA!

Another couple of candidates for my First-Against-The-Wall-When-I-Finally-Get-Round-To-Taking-Over-The-World list...thanks guys.

Dang, this list is getting unwieldy. ;)

I hate opportunist leeches like these fools. They create nothing.

I cannot believe that they even got as far as a judge. Talk about frivolous lawsuits.

J'bm

[Arkhangel]

http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,8179241%5e15322%5e%5enbv%5e15306,00.html

"CELL phones in Japan will work as concert tickets, identification cards and electronic wallets in a new service by the nation's top mobile carrier, NTT DoCoMo, that uses smart card technology developed by Sony."

Now just browsing the web shows several other "ideas" like this that could be more of a target for such a lawsuit. A cell phone is a "flat, rectangular piece of stiff material" that, as we see above, can contain information like an electronic wallet. And then you can use that to make your purchases. Almost seems like this might be our next big-company duo!

This whole thing is totally stupid and I hope that ePass loses a great amount of business from this!

[T-Will]

US District Court has agreed that the word 'card' means any 'flat, rectangular piece of stiff material

Another great example of judicial tyranny and idiocy... :roll:

[Palmguy]

I've heard that the ePass site is down because it was vulnerable to hackers getting ePass' customers' credit card info.

Let's hear it for frivolous lawsuits, eh? Like ePass isn't getting enough money from those of us who live under their tyranny in Orlando :roll:

[PeterLake]

Hey gang..... don't blame the Patent office on this one:

Thanks for the analysis instead of a rant.

[Wiggster]

Like ePass isn't getting enough money from those of us who live under their tyranny in Orlando :roll:

Looks like E-PASS (http://www.expresswayauthority.com/epass/) is getting flack from E-Pass (http://www.e-pass.com/)'s lawsuits.

[MikeUnwired]

The case and the ruling point to two major needs in the US -- judicial reform and a complete revamp of the US patent system.

Awarding patents that are so broad in nature as to essentially snuff-out any possibility of using hard materials in a rectangular form is just to broad to be enforcable. Technically, wouldn't PCs, Macs & Tablet PCs also be in that category since they all are usually rectangular in shape (well, maybe some Macs arent' these days.) iPODs could hold that info too -- they might be in violation. Oh, and flash memory cards and hard drives -- they are mighty close to rectangular and they have the capacity to hold credit card date securely.

Come on! This is as bad as awarding a woman millions because her hot coffee was hot. Where's the sanity?

There's no gravity -- the world sucks -- and it's getting suckier every day :lol:

[shilmover]

Kind of ironic that they have a "ripped off" ipaq or Jornada on their main page. Considering that they are sueing Microsoft and HP...

http://www.e-pass.com/img/animreader.gif

There are several companies like e-pass that simply sue companies using someone elses Patent (they "borrow" the patent from the real owner). NTP (which sued RIM over email) is another. That with the fact that the US patent office allows people to patent hyperlinks, etc... Sheesh.. :roll:

[dmy]

Come on! This is as bad as awarding a woman millions because her hot coffee was hot. Where's the sanity?

While I'll agree with the above comment re: the woman who won millions because her coffee was hot....

Let's get real people and take a breath!!

There was NO RULING here that said the patent was valid!! The Judge simply ruled on the definition of the word "CARD".... which in my non-expert opinion actually HURTS the claim of patent infringement. Is your PocketPC flat??? Mine isn't. The screen is inset, the buttons are raised slightly. It is roughly rectangular.

Microsoft and HP will do us a favor of making this go away....and my suspicion is that they will do so easily. In fact, I'll bet my 2215 with all it's software and solid titanium case that this will never see a jury. If not, and a judge allows it to go to a trial, then I wouldn't say it's a problem with the judicial system any more than the McDonald's coffee case was.... the judges allowed it because it was constitutionally allowed. I'll cop that there may be some patent system reform needed....

The problem is with the JURY. The jury that could possibly see that this is a valid claim.... the jury that found that the person who burned herself on coffee for gods sake. We don't have Juries of peers, we have juries full of people who weren't smart enough to figure a way to get out of jury duty. Admit it..... the first thing we all do when we get that notice in the mail is start trying to find a way out of it.

Frankly it scares me out of my wits... Not that I go around breaking the law, but the thought that I might be judged by a group of people who don't wanna be there, are bored and only half listening as they worry about the bills, their kids, whatever, and weren't intelligent enough to think of the little thing they could say to get out of sitting on that jury although they surely tried.... that thought just makes me shudder.

D.

[Wiggster]

There was NO RULING here that said the patent was valid!! The Judge simply ruled on the definition of the word "CARD".... which in my non-expert opinion actually HURTS the claim of patent infringement. Is your PocketPC flat??? Mine isn't. The screen is inset, the buttons are raised slightly. It is roughly rectangular.
Umm, it is dimensionally almost flat, and a rounded rectangle. More than enough for patent infringement. If a difference in form of less than 0.5% was enough to bypass a patent, we'd have other problems.

But yes, this WILL hurt them. A whiteboard fits the expanded definition and thus interferes with the patent, but is much older and could be used to invalidate the patent (bad example, but you get the point).


The problem is with the JURY.

Do patent infringements get jury trials? I didn't think they did.

[dmy]

Umm, it is dimensionally almost flat, and a rounded rectangle. More than enough for patent infringement. If a difference in form of less than 0.5% was enough to bypass a patent, we'd have other problems.

Well.... Ok.... I'll bite, but even then, it may be enough for validation of the claim that an iPAQ constitutes a "card" under the one judge's ruling, but that's still a far cry from patent infringement. Still, comes down to the jury (or judge, to be fair) in a patent infringement case whether an iPAQ constitutes a "card" in the context of the patent's claims.

But yes, this WILL hurt them. A whiteboard fits the expanded definition and thus interferes with the patent, but is much older and could be used to invalidate the patent (bad example, but you get the point).

Maybe a good example, maybe bad.... depends on how the complaint reads. but I'm glad we can agree there at least.

Do patent infringements get jury trials? I didn't think they did.

U.S. Constitution, Amendment VII - Trial by jury in civil cases. Ratified 12/15/1791.
"In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law."
&lt;emphasis mine>

Heh... I'd assume the "value in controversy" here would exceed the $20.... even adusted to the relative value of 1791 dollars.

And ask yourself..... would you put this into the hands of a judge who is (presumably) a reasonable and intelligent person?? Or into the hands of a jury who are easily swayed by an effective presentation?

See the numbers below; On the face of it, purely looking at statistics and not the patent or the relative merits, best of all worlds this case has just under a 4% chance of succeeding anyway, and I'd hazard to guess that Microsoft/HP would like their odds.

Cheers,
D.

Some other interesting facts I've come across in looking up other things::

Percentage of patent infringement lawsuits filed over the last 20 years which ultimately made it to trial: 6.9%

Percentage of patent infringement lawsuits heard by juries in 1970 and 1999, respectively: 2.8%, 59%

Patent owner's likelihood of success if the trial is heard before a judge alone: 51%

If the trial is heard before a judge and jury: 68%

Overall chances of success for the patent owner if the trial is held in Massachusetts and northern California, respectively: 30%, 68%

Percentage of patent infringement judge-alone and jury verdicts that are appealed, respectively: 58%, 43%

Percentage of appealed patent infringement judge-alone verdicts that are overturned: 22%

Percentage of appealed patent infringement jury verdicts that are overturned: 22%


Sources:The Patent Journal; The Federal Circuit Bar Journal; Intellectual Property Insurance Services Corporation;

[dmy]

We don't have Juries of peers, we have juries full of people who weren't smart enough to figure a way to get out of jury duty.

D.

Hmmmm... something else I learned while looking up other things.... no where is there a constitutional statement regarding "Jury of your peers".... it's actually a principle, much like some other principles that many think are in the U.S. Constitution that are in fact not (which shall remain unsaid in the interests of avoinding a flame-war breaking out).

The Constitution promises an IMPARTIAL jury. Just wanted to correct myself in the interests of accuracy.

D.

[Wiggster]

Percentage of patent infringement lawsuits heard by juries in 1970 and 1999, respectively: 2.8%, 59%

Yowzer 8O

I expected there to be some, but not over 10%. Wow, that's a marked increase.

But I'm sure most judges or juries would agree that there have been "card"s around that are more than ten-year-old that could store credit card information, so I will be extremely surprised if E-Pass wins this one.