Wireless Management Of A Computer System: Patented

from the our-wonderful-patent-system dept

Fri, Sep 3rd 2004 11:52am — Mike Masnick

The patent system is just getting out of control. The latest is that a company named Expand Beyond has patented a system for wireless monitoring and management of computer systems. The patent (6,772,169) sounds incredibly broad, covering any systems where someone is using a portable device with a wireless connection to monitor computer systems. Why is this patentable? The big difference here is the "wireless" aspect -- which isn't a new technology. All they're doing is taking something that existed over a wired network before and making it wireless. To say that's "non-obvious" (as a patent must be) is a joke.

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3 Comments

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Oliver Wendell Jones, 3 Sep 2004 @ 12:04pm

Not new
Didn't a whole bunch of people/companies/etc. rush out to file patents that consisted of "any random process or procedure" + "on the internet"?

Now they're just replacing "on the internet" with "over a wireless connection"...

Anyone got a guess when these kind of patents will eventually get thrown out?
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carlos granier, 6 Sep 2004 @ 6:36am

No Subject Given
Aren't TV remote controls "wireless management systems"? And those have been around long enough.
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speedy, 8 Sep 2004 @ 1:01pm

The last gasp of a desperate company
Expand Beyond is rapidly running out of cash in a market where their product can't hold its own against better constructed competing products. Since they have taken in and burned through $15 million in venture capital, they are probably holding this out to the VC community as a way to try to recover some of the money they blew.

It is a sad...
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