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Originally Posted by Paragon
I guess there is a flip side to this coin. If NTP had the ability to buy this patent from someone, then it's logical that RIM could have had that same opportunity to buy it. Maybe they even looked at that possibility and decide the price was too high and they would rather take their chances in court at some later date if that slim chance should happen......hmmmm....puts a different light on it doesn't it???
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No, actually it doesn't. The patent process happens in secret. So the person who jumps in with an idea - and remember, the USA is now issuing patents for "business methods" as well as for the type of
real inventions that the system was originally designed for.
So for example, if some Joe is the first person to apply to patent the "business method" of
the use of a handheld computer to wirelessly send a fax for the purpose of confirming a hotel reservation. It will take the patent office over a year to issue the patent. In the meantime, nobody is informed that Joe applied. So now you come along and design a different system that sends faxes for hotel reservations - without ever hearing about Joe's idea or his patent - and you bring it to market before the patent office issues Joe his patent. Now he can sue you, or sell his patent to somebody else (most likely without offering it to you first) who is only in the business of suing folks like you.
So you are providing a product for consumers and later find out that Joe patented your idea before you did - even though Joe never actually produced anything. (Or perhaps you didn't bother to apply because you thought the idea was obvious and not unique enough to patent.)
RIM was not offered to buy the patents and they desiged their product long before the patent was ever public information.
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