NTP Can't Leave Well Enough Alone Concerning RIM
from the the-money-wasn't-enough? dept
In one of the biggest travesties of the patent system, over two years ago, RIM agreed to pay NTP $612.5 million for patent infringement, even though the USPTO had been rejecting NTP's patents on re-exam. The patents were highly questionable: extremely broad patents covering pretty basic concepts about making email "wireless." Beyond combining two existing ideas in a rather obvious way, there was a fair amount of prior art as well. Yet, under pressure from both the judge and its own shareholders, RIM decided it was worth paying out over half a billion dollars rather than dealing with the potential uncertainty of an injunction forcing it to shut down its service.You would think that this would have kept NTP happy. After all, NTP was basically built out of the ashes of a company that had failed in the marketplace. It was unable to come up with a product that anyone wanted. RIM, on the other hand, had done the real innovation of figuring out what customers actually wanted, and packaging it in an appealing manner. All that was left at NTP was a bunch of lawyers, who now had $612.5 million for failing in the marketplace.
But NTP won't stop. It's kept suing a bunch of other companies. However, the courts have put its latest lawsuits on hold while the USPTO continues to review the legitimacy of NTP's patents (why RIM wasn't allowed the same consideration has never been explained).
So now NTP is taking another strategy: claiming that RIM unfairly influenced the Patent Office's re-exam of its patents. Yes, the company already won the lawsuit and $612.5 million, but is still claiming that the other side cheated. Of course, there's not much "there" there in the accusations. Basically, RIM had representatives who tried to find out what was happening at the USPTO and what the process was for the re-exam. As various patent attorneys outline towards the end of the article, it doesn't appear that RIM did anything wrong here, but NTP is doing whatever it can to try to bloody RIM, even given the fact that it won the lawsuit. What we're seeing here is a case of extreme rent-seeking, where NTP will do pretty much anything to try to keep milking its highly questionable patents, diverting hundreds of millions away from innovation and into the pockets of folks who failed in the marketplace.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
They're lawyers. Leeching is their job.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: RIM Management Idiots
By the way, all those patents are valid today and that is going to be the case until all the appeals are heard. It is not likely that RIM will succeed in knocking out every claim of every patent. They knew this and that is why they settled.
RIM reminds me of Microsoft, in that they continue to be pretty belligerent with their betters, namely the inventors who produce the inventions they need to continue to prosper in their market. I predict that RIM will continue to pick fights with patent holders until they get hosed really bad on a case.
Ronald J. Riley,
Speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President - www.PIAUSA.org - RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director - www.InventorEd.org - RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow - www.patentPolicy.org
President - Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (202) 318-1595 - 9 am to 9 pm EST.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: RIM Management Idiots
they continue to be pretty belligerent with their betters, namely the inventors who produce the inventions they need to continue to prosper in their market.
NTP invented nothing. They inherited the patents from the shattered remains of a company that could not produce a viable product based on a "patented idea" that is just SOAKED in prior art and obviousness and should never have been granted.
This you call RIM's "better"?
You, sir, are a troll. A shiny, well polished troll, probably a troll in a very nice suit, but a troll nonetheless.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: RIM Management Idiots
RIM to NTP..."You're Welcome."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I'm suing...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Patent Hoarders
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Patent Hoarders
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
That means that it's time...
Due to the terms of the RIM/NTP settlement, even if the patents were later rejected, RIM had no recourse on their payment.
If NTP wants to cry "dirty pool", I think it only fair that RIM be awarded libel/slander damages of, I dunno, maybe about $612.5 million. It's only right.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: That means that it's time...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
it also occurs to me
It seems that a lot of the patent litigation would vanish, and with it the benefits of hoarding and trolling (and so the hoarding and trolling themselves) if as little as two simple changes were made to the current system.
1) remove the disincentives to patent research - OK, a little more involved than the glossy title, but still. The current rules against "willful infringement" only make "deliberate ignorance" the rule instead. When your patent attorney's best advice is "pretend the system isn't there," something is dreadfully wrong.
2) compulsory licensing. Come on, say it with me, compulsory licensing. Some oversight body - dare I say, "USPTO-AA" - to broker, collect, and distribute appropriate and automatic license fees. Retroactively, if need be.
2a) "appropriate" license fees should resemble reasonable recompense for the holder's actual investment in the patent held. Meaning, if your entire input into the patent is Words on a Page and a filing fee, Troll, I get to license for a penny a use. Just as a "for instance".
That said, I shall now go impale my eyeballs with lit matches for suggesting that an *AA might be a good idea.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: it also occurs to me
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: it also occurs to me
...if the patent system was abolished.
Or that, but my flying bathtub stands a better chance of getting off the ground than your flying bathtub.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: it also occurs to me
This is a horrible idea.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: it also occurs to me
[compulsory licensing] is a horrible idea.
Says you with no expansion on the thought. Compulsory licensing means I can go forth and manufacture, or innovate, or whatever it is that I'm doing, and you the holder get paid.
Of what benefit is it to anybody for you to prohibit my use of "it"? I'm stuck trying to work around you instead of doing something useful, you're not getting paid.
All compulsory licensing means is that you can't cock-block.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: it also occurs to me
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: it also occurs to me
Says someone who is apparently entirely unfamiliar with free market economics or the economics of growth and innovation.
The Soviet Union thought that you just need one of things, and that resulted in a totally stagnated economy. Who knew that was the type of "progress" you thought was worth promoting.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: it also occurs to me
I think you missed the sarcasm in AC's response to me - he's saying that the current system forces diversity of design and blah blah blah.
The problem is that he's reading where I wrote "compulsory licensing" and thinking I mean that I, the inventor, must use he the patent holder's idea. He's wrong, that's not what I'm saying. I, the inventor, am still free to invent my way around paying a license to him. Diversity lives!
When I say "compulsory" (AC, I'm looking at you), I mean that if I wish to use his patented idea or mechanism, HE the patent holder is compelled to license to me even if he would rather not. That is, he shouldn't be allowed to hold MY creative work hostage from market by refusing to license his patent to me.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: it also occurs to me
It seems to me that by crafting a work around you are doing something useful.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: it also occurs to me
It's a process called "reinventing the wheel", and it is not necessarily useful. It can be, at times, if a better way to a solution can be found, but taking the mountain pass trying to avoid the troll under the bridge is often wasted effort... especially when the troll comes at you anyway.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: it also occurs to me
"It seems to me that by crafting a work around you are doing something useful"
I think what Dosquatch was saying is that they are not capable of coming up with an equally effective or god forbid a better solution.
This is the case with most programmers. They know how to write code but simply lack the inventive spark. Egos being what they are they simply cannot admit to themselves that they are on the wrong slope of the bell curve.
Ronald J. Riley,
Speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President - www.PIAUSA.org - RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director - www.InventorEd.org - RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow - www.patentPolicy.org
President - Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (202) 318-1595 - 9 am to 9 pm EST.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: it also occurs to me
I think what Dosquatch was saying is that they are not capable of coming up with an equally effective or god forbid a better solution.
Not exactly. What I'm saying is that when some yonk hairbrain manages to get a broad umbrella patent for something blitheringly obvious, and then tries to hold the world hostage for untold wealth and power, it often makes constructing rube goldberg-esque abstractions and constructs less painful than trying to talk the nitwit out of his tree so you can go the direct route.
You seem to be of the mind that said yonk hairbrain is evidence that the patent system is happy and healthy.
I - ah - somewhat disagree.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Explanation
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Explanation
NTP > Small and poor American company
Gee, I wonder which way the judge in Marshall, Texas would have ruled?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Likewise, it is rare for a patentee to appeal a reexamination decision to the USPTO BPAI and not have the appeal even assigned a docket number.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
RIM has spent a huge amount of money on public relations trying to paint their loss as a miscarriage of justice but it is a fact that it was not.
Have you considered why their case went all the way to the Supreme Court and they found NO SYMPATHY?
Could it be that they had unclean hands?
Do you think that their attempts to abuse the process of law had anything to do with their fate?
Is it possible that being caught red handed foisting manufactured evidence on the court may have something to do with how their case turned out?
Could their extensive and well documented efforts to politically influence the court have backfired?
And yes, there is a great deal of information concerning their interaction with the USPTO, including allegations backed up by many sources that certain high level USPTO political hacks were very cozy with RIM.
Your and the rest of the patent pirating crowd you seem to emphasize with constantly scream about the patent system being broken. But it is not broken. The RIM case is a perfect example of justice.
Ronald J. Riley,
Speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President - www.PIAUSA.org - RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director - www.InventorEd.org - RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow - www.patentPolicy.org
President - Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (202) 318-1595 - 9 am to 9 pm EST.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
If that were so, you would be free to fill in the blanks. I have repeatedly asked you to back up your statements. To date, you have failed to do so. I wonder why.
RIM has spent a huge amount of money on public relations trying to paint their loss as a miscarriage of justice but it is a fact that it was not.
You saying so does not make it so. I think most people, looking at the details, can judge for themselves.
Have you considered why their case went all the way to the Supreme Court and they found NO SYMPATHY?
Not quite. The part that went to the Supreme Court was quite narrowly focused. But who misleads by omission again? And that was prior to the USPTO finding the patents invalid.
Could it be that they had unclean hands?
No, because that was not the point of the issue before the Supreme Court.
Or are you throwing around more accusations without proof?
Is it possible that being caught red handed foisting manufactured evidence on the court may have something to do with how their case turned out?
While incredibly stupid on RIM's part, that has no bearing on whether or not the patents were invalid.
And yes, there is a great deal of information concerning their interaction with the USPTO, including allegations backed up by many sources that certain high level USPTO political hacks were very cozy with RIM.
Wait... and I thought you were a big fan of the UPSTO? I thought it could do no wrong?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Moot in the Light of KSR v. Teleflex
So it doesn't really matter whether the Patent Office was right in its earlier rejection of NTP's patents. If you look at a Blackberry or an Iphone, or whatever, the way an engineer does, by breaking it down into its layers, separating specifications from implementations, etc., there is nothing much there which is strikingly original. In the last analysis, E-mail is just a form of telegram, and for telegrams, in the largest sense of the word, you go back to the eighteenth century. The identifiable originality in one of these new gizmoes is almost all in the chip etching process which can put a billion transistors on a chip at a modest price.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
stop the shilling!!!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: stop the shilling!!!
You seem to have missed the fact that the PTO had notified the court that it was very close to being done with its re-exam.
But why let facts get in the way?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
stop the shilling!!!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: stop the shilling!!!
No, more like a conman trying to fleece his mark before the cops can reach him. The basis for this lawsuit was the bloody patent. If its validity was in question that's the perfect reason to put a trial on hold, whether it's already started or not.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Unpleasant turn of phrase
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I agree with Vincent Clement
[ link to this | view in chronology ]