I agree with you on this but my question is what gives another company the right to use someone's patent? I agree with the liability part you mention but I would imagine that NTP is at least entitled to a licensing fee for the use of their technology.
Well, Jeff, I think they just caught a motherload of licensing fees.
To answer your question "What gives another company the right to use someone's patent?" The answer to your question is simple. RIM did not pay this money because they felt they used someone's patent. They paid it because it was extorted from them. They paid this "fee" to end the steady stream of legal fees, and most importantly to end the speculation that their ability to continue delivering their service was being questioned. In short, they were afraid of loosing a large part of their customer base.
A licensing fee in line with the effort that NTP put into bringing this product to market would be fair.
This will forever leave a bad taste in most people's mouths because NTP's sole intended use of this patent was to extort funds. Patents were intended to protect the patent holder. NOT for the patent holder to "legally" extort huge amounts of money. The patent system has been turned upside down. It is now being used as a business model. Not as a protection tool. It used to be that if someone held a patent on something and their sole purpose was to sell it, they did just that. They would sell it to the highest bidder. Today that idea is long gone. Now patent holders weigh the bidding against what they feel they can get if they sit on it and sue someone for infringing on it.....or at least scaring someone into a bigger settlement.....for me that is way to scummy.
What's really sad is that now the hottest items to buy for the foreseeable future will likely be patents. Everyone and their Uncle Joe are going to be looking for patents to buy in hopes of cashing in like NTP just did. :roll:
@Ed....
NTP is a bunch of low life patent squatting life sucking corporate leeching doofus heads."
Does the legal system have the guts to put its money where it's mouth is?
If the judge, in his "haste" to get this case off his docket, cannot wait until the new findings from the patent office are finalized -- and RIM ends up paying NTP for what eventually proves to be invalid patents -- should the legal system (or US government) not be liable for some form of negligence?? Can RIM later sue the US government to reclaim the lost half billion? (Assuming they could prove that not settling "now" would cost them more)?
There have been cases of innocent people, who were found guilty but later exonerated because of DNA evidence, who received compensation from the government for their mistaken imprisonment.
...To answer your question "What gives another company the right to use someone's patent?" The answer to your question is simple. RIM did not pay this money because they felt they used someone's patent. They paid it because it was extorted from them. They paid this "fee" to end the steady stream of legal fees, and most importantly to end the speculation that their ability to continue delivering their service was being questioned. In short, they were afraid of loosing a large part of their customer base...
...A licensing fee in line with the effort that NTP put into bringing this product to market would be fair...
I think we're on the same page with this
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paragon
...This will forever leave a bad taste in most people's mouths because NTP's sole intended use of this patent was to extort funds. Patents were intended to protect the patent holder. NOT for the patent holder to "legally" extort huge amounts of money...for me that is way to scummy...
Then it is safe to say that a company cannot use someone elses patent without paying a license fee. If it is used then that company can be sued for that license fee (and court costs). I would assume that the license fee could get more expensive over time but not to the point of becomming someones new inlaw (or outlaw). So I could buy up patents as an investment with the hope of licensing it out to some company and make a lot of money on licenses. If I'm correct on what I just mentioned then the only issue would be for companies and patent holders to agree on how much licensing should cost.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paragon
Well, Jeff, I think they just caught a motherload of licensing fees.
:drool: Nice business model but I can see some room for improvement by removing rape and some plunder as a barganing method and greed as the catalyst :shocked!: That's not going to be easy :deal:
...The answer to your question is simple. RIM did not pay this money because they felt they used someone's patent. They paid it because it was extorted from them.
When did getting found guilty at a jury trial and losing all of your appeals become extortion?
Many keep saying the judge rushed the case...isn't 4 years of appeals enough? Long (real long) ago I remember learning that the american legal system promises a "fair and speedy trial" How many years in a speedy?
Once more for clairity... (and then I promise not to speak on this subject again) RIM was found GUILTY in a court of law. They were allowed to appeal the verdict all the way to the Supreme Court and they LOST ALL APPEALS. (Remember people have been put to death without ever getting to appeal to the Supreme Court.) Their Punishment for breaking the law was to pay the victim a license fee for using their technology. They finally paid the victim $612.5 millon for the technology that keeps their multi-billion dollar system functioning.
I know I am hard headed, but no matter how I look at this I can't see how RIM is the victim. They (perhaps unintentionaly) stole, they got caught. They had their day in court, a jury found them guilty. They had several appeals, all agreed that they had received a fair trial. That means they had no choice but to serve their punishment (pay the license fee as ordered by the court) since that's they way it works. Now they still have their multi-billion dollar business and it is legal since they paid for the technology that is the root of their company and which will certainly bring them billions more in profit. Not a bad deal for RIM all in all.
P.S. Ed, sorry I just can't get far enough away from the facts to start feeling sorry for RIM.
And why couldn't I buy up patents as an investment hoping that someday someone will be able to create a product using one of my patents? There are many companies today that help inventors patent and bring their inventions to market and investors looking for technologies to invest in and to help them(selves) make a buck.
Because you lay stake to "intellectual property" that you're not using, nor have any intent in doing so. Someone else whose intent is to make life easier are now denied their legimate needs, based on what we dictate to be "legally" right and wrong.
One thing that has to be made clear is that legality does not always equal to morality. Sitting on a "legally" acquired piece of intellectual property for the sole purpose of squatting and later making millions through lawsuit, is akin to buying a piece of much-needed land in a urban city-scape, only to refuse to a) develop the land to any use, and b) not allowing anyone else to use the land in any manner. Whereas in this case it would be a waste of land resource, patent-squatting can thus be seen as a waste of intellectual resource, as innovation becomes an increasingly costly game to play.
...The answer to your question is simple. RIM did not pay this money because they felt they used someone's patent. They paid it because it was extorted from them.
When did getting found guilty at a jury trial and losing all of your appeals become extortion?
One thing you have to keep in mind is that the courts may not be ruling on the entire issue and it implications. It may only be ruling simply whether or not RIM infringed on a patent held by NTP.
Of course, there are other issues at play here. Such as the fact that NTP is not currently using the patent; such as the reason behind which the patent was held; or the fact that the patent is soon to be declared invalid.
Based on these alone, it shows the inflexibility of the justice system in dealing with a real life problem such as the RIM v. NTP dispute. The verdict is rushed because the judge refuses to allow the patent office to have their say in the matter (though NTP probably had a hand in rushing the matter), and you need not look beyond the fact that partial immunity was to be granted to RIM so that they can continue their blackberry service to US government officials, to see that the decisions made by the US legal system does not necessarily reflect the sentiments of the people, or the breadth and weight of the conflict. As I said in the above post, many times legality does not equally morality, and only through questioning the morality of our justice system can we hope to have a system that can evolve to the changing needs and features of our society as it progresses through time.
In the end -- financially it's not a bad deal for RIM at all. But on the terms of principles of what we see as ownership, as innovation, and as progress -- this decision is indeed a step back for RIM. The only good thing that comes out of this is that it forces us all to take a long hard look at the current patent system, and perhaps be the impetus that drives a long-needed reform to mend it of its shortcomings.
What's really sad is that now the hottest items to buy for the foreseeable future will likely be patents. Everyone and their Uncle Joe are going to be looking for patents to buy in hopes of cashing in like NTP just did. :roll:
Dave
If history is any indication of future events, I believe your fears are well founded. The most infamous patent disputes to date...
" Now some patent holders have begun to set their sights on the new class of technology users–small organizations and individuals who cannot afford to retain lawyers. Faced with million-dollar legal demands, they have no choice but to capitulate and pay license fees – fees that often fund more threat letters and lawsuits. And because these patents have become cheaper and easier to obtain, the patentee’s costs can be spread out quickly amongst the many new defendants. Our patent system has historically relied on the resources of major corporate players to defeat bad patents; now it leaves these new defendants with few if any options to defend themselves. "
Now that the smoke has cleared from this dispute, RIMM must face up to even a larger threat to their well-being, imo. Microsoft & Partners.
Strand Consult, a Denmark-based IT research house, expects companies worldwide to invest in much broader mobile e-mail access for their employees in 2006.
"At the end of the year, many will be asking themselves whether they really needed a BlackBerry handset from RIM to check mail — and RIM might be asking themselves what went wrong," Strand wrote in a research note. "Microsoft will most probably overtake RIM as the leading mobile e-mail provider."
Putting aside any emotional discussion of RIM vs. NTP - I have never used a RIM device and hopefully never will. As a matter of fact RIM has been on the other side of cases like this, so they are anything but innocent bystanders. This case is a lightning rod for some of us because it points out severe flaws in the current patent system that must be addressed. I think there is real danger if the patent system continues down it's current path that the innovation's that patents are supposed to create will be killed off by the very process meant to encourage them.
Why do you think we have patents? Why do most governments think it's a good idea to allow one company or person a monopoly on a specific product for predetermined period of time, when they won't allow coroporations a monopoly (think MS, Standard Oil or AT&T)? The answer is that patents were created to encourage people to create new "stuff". Under the current system we see patents being used to STOP people from creating new stuff - RIM vs. NTP is a perfect example of this. The fact that it has taken the Patent office 5 + years to invalidate the patents shows how flawed the current system is. A patent holding company knows that once a patent is granted, the legal system moves faster than the patent office and it will be able to collect on potentially invalid patents long before the patent office finally figures out that the original patent was invalid. During this whole period of time most if not ALL innovation on the patented idea stops, which is exactly the opposite of the intended affect of patents.
The 2nd flaw in the current system is that patents are granted for things that should not be patentable. First off we see general ideas patented, without specific implementations attached. Like a previous poster indicated, why don't we patent warp drives and collect on that idea in 50 years when a company comes along and delivers it? Patents are not supposed to be granted for things that are "obvious to the skilled practitioner". In other words if the patented product is something that others in the field would think of or develop it is not unique enough to be issued a patent. There are several other wireless email solutions currently available, and several other law suits from other companies about their patented wireless email system. How can this be non-obvious to a skilled practitioner, if everyone thought of it? Amazon's patent of one-click ordering is a good example of this. We see patents all the time for things that simply combine two existing technologies -- such as email and wireless for example. Combining of two technologies is nice, but that is the normal course of things, but is that really patentable?
Too often we see my second point - an obvious idea, combined with my first point, a flawed patent process that takes too long to overturn being used by holding companies to stop innovation not create it. That's why I get concerned when I see NTP get 612 million dollars in cases like this. They have taken advantage of an extremely flawed system AND in the process have probably delayed improvements in technology we all want to see. It will certainly embolden other holding companies to do the same.
When did getting found guilty at a jury trial and losing all of your appeals become extortion? ............................................RIM was found GUILTY in a court of law.
birick, this is why I made this statement
Quote:
Originally Posted by paragon
Patents were intended to protect the patent holder. NOT for the patent holder to "legally" extort huge amounts of money. The patent system has been turned upside down. It is now being used as a business model. Not as a protection tool.
Just because the courts find something to be illegal doesn't necessarily mean it is right or just. The patent laws are definitely out dated and don't work in today's world. There are plenty of laws around the world that are no longer just. The patent laws are definitely in that group. I think this case, because of its exposer, large settlement, and the possible ramifications if RIM did not pay up, illustrate very well that something can be legal, yet unjust. Clearly NTP deserved some reward in this case, but not this huge amount. RIM paid this amount solely because they felt is was better to settle than it was to continue taking the chance of loosing business because of the uncertainty of this case....That to me is extortion.
This case clearly shows that under the present patent laws there can be huge financial rewards for doing nothing but sitting on a patent and waiting for the right whale to nibble at the bait.
I'm not one to base my decisions entirely on what is legal. I like to look beyond that and see what is right, moral, and just. I really dislike people who use the law, not to protect themselves, but to gain financial reward from it at others expense. I don't think I'm alone in that way of thinking at all.
Does the legal system have the guts to put its money where it's mouth is?
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