131 Companies Sued Over Global Text Messaging Patent

from the couldn't-find-anyone-else? dept

The anonymous Patent Troll Tracker points us to a new patent case that appears to involve an astounding 131 defendants, including T-Mobile, Vodafone, China Resources Peoples Telephone Company Ltd, AT&T, Samsung, Palm, Microsoft, and Yahoo!, all concerning patents related to sending text messages internationally, using the internet for part of the trip. Not surprisingly, the patent in question is a continuation patent, which even the USPTO is trying to cut back on, after seeing them abused too often. The patent was just granted last month. Shouldn't it make someone scratch their head to wonder how 131 different companies could all be infringing on a patent just issued? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the idea is fairly obvious and never should have received a patent. Now, obviously, you can go back to 1996, when the original patent was filed, but again, the concept seems like the natural progression of the space, which is perhaps why so many companies use it in some way or another.

Filed Under: patents, sms, text messaging

Disney Takes Twice Failed MVNO Concept To Japan

from the going-in-the-wrong-direction? dept

Having already failed spectacularly (twice!) to offer mobile phone service in the US, Disney has apparently decided that Japan is the perfect place to try out its MVNO option for the third time. It's going to use Softbank's mobile network and try to convince people it's worth totally changing mobile phone service providers because (wait for it...) its "famous characters" will be associated with the handsets, and Disney movies will be available for download. Has the company has learned nothing from its failures in the US? Obviously, Japan is a very different culture -- especially when it comes to mobile services -- but if the entire differentiator is Disney's characters and movies, why not partner with all of the mobile operators already dominant in Japan? Getting people to completely switch providers just so they can be associated with Mickey Mouse seems like a pretty flimsy business plan. Success stories in the mobile operator market in Japan have usually centered around offering a wide range of more useful applications or by providing cheaper, better services (or better phones). Fantasia downloads hardly seems likely to wow the Japanese market.

Filed Under: japan, mvno
Companies: disney, softbank

Would Google Buy Sprint?

from the and-what-would-they-do-with-it? dept

Last month, when Sprint's investors pressured former CEO Gary Forsee to resign, Derek Kerton's post here on Techdirt made some compelling points:

"The disconnect is that investors in Sprint are risk-averse, Blue-chip, dividend seekers. They invested in Sprint when it was a utility company. But Sprint's 'gambit' into WiMAX has taken them way out of the 'utility company' comfort zone -- and the reaction of the investors is as expected. With Xohm, Sprint's risk profile is looking more and more like a big tech firm, say Yahoo or Apple. Today's Sprint needs risk-seeking investors, not fixed-income seekers."

Could a big risk-seeking investor -- who surely sees an opportunity in "big tech" rather than as a "utility" play be coming along? That, at least, is the premise of a blog post from Rich Tehrani kicking off speculation that Google is sniffing around to buy Sprint -- a rumor perhaps accurately called "hare-brained" by Eric Savitz.

While I tend to lean towards Savitz's view of the likelihood of such a deal, there are some nuggets in there that could make this slightly more interesting. Obviously, Google has a tremendous interest in the mobile space these days, believing it's a key part of its continued growth. The company has made plenty of noise about its supposed intention to bid for the 700 MHz spectrum that's coming up for auction. On top of that, it's increasingly looking like Sprint's WiMax plans are in trouble. However, Sprint still controls a huge chunk of 2.5 GHz spectrum that is quite valuable (whether its used for WiMax or some other wireless broadband technology). It's not entirely ridiculous to think that Google has at least kicked the tires on a plan that would involve getting access to that spectrum. It seems like a stretch that Google would want to burden itself with all the additional legacy issues associated with Sprint, but that chunk of spectrum sure must look tempting to a company with billions of dollars on hand, just waiting to be spent.

Filed Under: rumors, wimax, wireless
Companies: google, sprint

Yes, Calling A Phone The Black Cherry May Confuse People Into Thinking It's Related To The BlackBerry

from the no-argument-here dept

While we're often quite critical of frivolous trademark lawsuits that are clearly designed to to shut someone up or to try to squeeze money out of someone, there are times when trademark lawsuits are quite well justified. As we've said repeatedly, the real purpose of trademark law isn't about "intellectual property" at all -- but rather, it should be viewed as a consumer protection law. That is, it's really designed to keep Bob's Cola from packaging its bottles up so that people are tricked into thinking they're buying Coca Cola. So, with that in mind, it would seem that RIM has a pretty strong trademark case against handset maker LG, who has been trying to sell new phones with names like Black Label, Strawberry and Black Cherry. The "Black Label" one is more borderline -- as it's hard to see that RIM should be able to control the use of the word "Black" as it relates to any mobile device. However, it's not hard to see people hearing names like Strawberry and Black Cherry on a mobile device and simply assuming that they're somehow related to RIM's BlackBerry. Even worse, LG had apparently wanted to call one of its new devices the BlackPearl -- which is really sketchy, seeing as RIM is offering a device called the BlackBerry Pearl. On this one, we'd say that even the moron in a hurry test suggests that people would be confused into thinking that some of these LG phones were from RIM.

Filed Under: black cherry, blackberry
Companies: lg, rim

Sprint And Clearwire Break Up: Bad News For Both... And Anyone Looking Forward To WiMax

from the slow-it-down dept

While we've been quite critical about WiMax in the past, it was mostly due to the ridiculous hype around the technology well before it actually existed. There was so much hype that many (including reporters) simply claimed it existed when it did not. Even some companies referred to their non-WiMax wireless broadband solutions as WiMax. However, with Intel pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into it and Sprint deciding to bet on WiMax, we hoped that perhaps it could actually live up to its hype someday (though, not for a long time, certainly). When Sprint agreed to team up with Clearwire to build a single nationwide WiMax network, it seemed even more reasonable a possibility that it could actually come to be. Splitting the cost of the infrastructure made a tremendous amount of sense. So much sense... that it might not be happening. Due to Sprint's recent troubles (where it's even considering ditching WiMax altogether, due to some incredibly shortsighted investor pressure) Sprint and Clearwire have called off their agreement to work together on a nationwide WiMax network.

This is bad news for just about everyone (with the possible temporary exception of the other US mobile operators and baby bells). Without the combined effort, it makes it even more questionable whether either one will be able to go much further with WiMax, let alone build their own nationwide WiMax network. Sprint may end up dropping the WiMax effort altogether (again, due to shortsighted investors) and Clearwire may just be in trouble. It also hurts anyone who was hoping for real wireless broadband in the near future. While the other mobile operators and landline broadband providers may breathe a sigh of relief, it means that those companies can slow down their own plans for next generation services, as the competition won't be as fierce and they won't seem quite as late to the game. There is still some talk that something else could potentially happen with Sprint spinning off its WiMax network plans and merging that with Clearwire, but without the strong backing of Sprint, the plan is less likely to get as far. This isn't the death of WiMax, but it certainly opens up the opportunity for some other wireless broadband offerings to take away some of the WiMax hype.

Filed Under: wimax
Companies: clearwire, sprint

NTP's Latest Patent Shakedown Must Wait For USPTO; Why Wasn't RIM Given The Same Consideration?

from the innovation-at-work dept

Even if you just have a passing interest in the topic of patents, you've probably heard of the RIM-NTP case. That's where NTP, a company that ended up with some excessively broad and obvious patents after the inventor was unable to build a product anyone actually wanted to buy, sued RIM, the makers of the wildly successful Blackberry device, claiming patent infringement. The attention the case got caused the US Patent Office to look closely at the patents, and very publicly state that it was rejecting NTP's patents, as they never should have been issued in the first place. However, rather than waiting for the official patent review process to work itself out, the judge in the case pressured the two sides to settle, forcing RIM to cough up $612.5 million for no good reason. It never made sense that the judge refused to wait for the Patent Office to finish its review -- especially since the office had been so public in questioning the validity of the patents.

NTP took its winnings and immediately started looking for others to sue while the patents were still valid. It started with Palm, makers of the Treo. However, in that case, the judge realized what was going on and put the case on hold until the USPTO could make a final decision on the validity of the patents. Not willing to standstill, NTP sued all the national US mobile operators (Sprint, Verizon Wireless, AT&T and T-Mobile) for selling devices like the Blackberry and the Treo. Once again, though, it looks as though a judge realizes that it's ridiculous for such a case to go forward when the USPTO has expressed so much skepticism towards the patents. Against Monopoly lets us know that the judge for the Sprint, Verizon and AT&T case has also put the case on hold until the USPTO is done. What no one wants to explain, however, is why RIM wasn't afforded the same opportunity?

Filed Under: patents, uspto
Companies: at&t, ntp, palm, rim, sprint, verizon

Mobile Phones Driving More Kids To Declare Bankruptcy?

from the gotta-learn-financial-planning-somehow dept

Textually points us to a report in Australia claiming that more teenagers these days are declaring bankruptcy and it's because they're racking up huge mobile phone bills that they weren't expecting. It's the type of story that certainly sounds plausible -- after all, we know that mobile phones are popular with kids, and every once in a while you hear about ridiculous phone bills. It isn't hard to put it together and think that there are some irresponsible or careless kids who need to declare bankruptcy because of these bills. However, the article doesn't provide any evidence that this is really happening. The single source providing the info is a gov't bureaucrat, talking about a study done by the government, which found that many young people didn't know how to deal with high bills -- which is quite different from proof that they're declaring bankruptcy. She does claim that financial counseling services are seeing an increase in young people seeking to declare bankruptcy, but the article doesn't talk to any such service or get any numbers on bankruptcies among young people (or even seek to find out that, if there are such bankruptcy, how many are due to high mobile phone bills). That's not to say it's not happening. After all, the story sounds like one that is plausible to many people. It just would have been nice to have seen a little more concrete evidence, rather than offhand conjecture reported as fact.

Filed Under: bankruptcy, mobile phones, teenagers

Would You Want Broadband-By-Soviet-Spy-Plane?

from the sign-me-up dept

For many years, we've been hearing all sorts of bizarre and crazy ideas for different methods of offering broadband. A popular one tends to be with flying devices of some sort. For a while we heard all sorts of stories about hideous-looking floating blimps called stratellites that would get press every six months or so, but which never actually launched anywhere. That's been going on for about five years. Another company tried something similar, but called its offering aerostats. Then there was the company that tried to use an acronym instead, referring to "HAPs" or "high altitude platforms." No matter what you call them, though, they haven't actually done much. However, that won't stop some people from trying. The latest such case isn't even a blimp. The idea is to take Russian unmanned spyplanes and turn them into flying broadband providers. Perhaps they'll double as spyplanes as well, though that's not clear. What is clear is that the economics of such an offering, combined with the likelihood of it being reliable (i.e., almost no chance), means that this is another plan not destined to be competing with your DSL connection any time soon.

Filed Under: broadband, drones, spy planes, stratelite, unmanned planes

Service Providers Can't Be Honest With Themselves, So How Can They Be Honest With You?

from the self-realization-time dept

Last week I was wondering why the various mobile operators couldn't just be honest to customers in explaining the limitations of various service plans. A report had come out saying that people were sick and tired of service providers lying about service and features -- and it seemed to me that a company that was honest would get a lot of customers as a result of that honesty. Of course, this also came only a few days after we were wondering why Comcast couldn't come out and give an honest explanation for why it was jamming certain types of packets. Blogger Tom Lee from the Manifest Density blog, has responded to both things (though, incorrectly refers to Techdirt as being anti-telco, which we're not at all -- we're anti-telco-stupidity, which is quite different), making a very perceptive point. He basically says that it's impossible for any of these service providers to be honest with customers because doing so would require them to first admit the truth to themselves: they're just commodity dumb pipe providers, and all their efforts at pretending to be something more are pretty much meaningless. Until they can admit that (and Lee's assertion is they won't admit that), they can't be honest with customers. There's definitely a large chunk of truth in there, and it explains part of what the problem is -- but I still don't think that precludes service providers from being a lot more honest, even as they try to provide additional value-added services that might not matter. Being honest and transparent with customers is a good marketing idea for these companies, especially as they're being challenged to be anything more than a commodity dumb pipe provider. Being honest can actually be a part of their differentiated appeal to customers.

Filed Under: commodities, dumb pipes, service providers
Companies: at&t, comcast, sprint, verizon wireless

Personal (But Illegal) Mobile Phone Jammers Getting More Popular?

from the doesn't-seem-all-that-helpful dept

We've known for a while that mobile phone jammers were popular with places like hotels even though they were illegal. And while a US firm selling the devices is involved in a lawsuit claiming that banning the devices is unconstitutional, they're still very much barred. Yet, as the NY Times reports this weekend, overseas sellers of the devices (including personal ones that you can keep in your pocket) are seeing growing demand from US users, including random people who just like to mess with mobile phone chatters around them. Of course, for those of you tempted to annoy those who normally annoy you with their chatter, at least recognize that the fine for getting caught using these devices starts at $11,000.

Filed Under: phone jammer, signal jamming