Author Topic: NTP Earns $612.5m for doing nothing. (Read 233 times)

Pei · « **on:** March 05, 2006, 07:47:53 PM »

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4773006.stm

NTP have never done anything other than file a patent based on a obvious combination of technologies (e-mail and wireless). They developed no product, wrote no software, did no research, development nor marketing. NTP have never had any customers either (until now). Surely it must be obvious to everyone that this patent process is fundamentally flawed. Patents exist to encourage innovation: why would any company bother doing all the hard work when some lawyer can fill in a few forms and force you to pay up?

LePaul · « **Reply #1 on:** March 05, 2006, 07:54:48 PM »

So? Doesn't make violating them acceptable, especially when all along the court battles, RIM kept loosing. They could've paid a lot lot less in royalties had then not fought a loosing battle.

Midnight · « **Reply #2 on:** March 05, 2006, 08:06:34 PM »

Patents are to protect the ones who think up the idea and put it on paper first. Just because someone (or some other company) has the money to develop it and make it a usable product (before the idea person can) doesn't mean they should be able to profit from it without paying.

It may be that NTP did not develop and put the product to market before RIM did, but NTP holds the patent.

Pei · « **Reply #3 on:** March 05, 2006, 08:10:20 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Midnight
Patents are to protect the ones who think up the idea and put it on paper first. Just because someone (or some other company) has the money to develop it and make it a usable product (before the idea person can) doesn't mean they should be able to profit from it without paying.

It may be that NTP did not develop and put the product to market before RIM did, but NTP holds the patent.

So how does this encourage people to innovate?

Reschke · « **Reply #4 on:** March 05, 2006, 09:47:54 PM »

I would think that innovation comes from trying to figure out different ways of doing the same thing around the patent or in a way that is better than the patent.

My personal experience with patent infringement is what the company I work for now is doing. Our owner has several different patents filed all over the world for welding of twin layer steel pipes. Our competition refuses to pay the license fee that he has offered to them because they can't figure out how to weld their pipes without creating heat affected regions between the flange and the pipe. HOWEVER they have infringed on his patent several times and have had to either completely remove products from the market or pay the fee because they are directly infringing on the patents he has in place.

So to me a patent causes someone who wants to do the same thing to figure out a better way or pay the licensing fees. Thats what RIM now has to do. Either pay the fee or pull the plug and they can't afford to pull the plug now. BTW I can't stand my wife's blackberry. I would rather have the Treo type of device.

SOB · « **Reply #5 on:** March 05, 2006, 09:54:28 PM »

"NTP Earns $612.5m for doing nothing."

Sounds to me like NTP is pretty smart. I had to work 160 hours last month to earn my paycheck.

rshubert · « **Reply #6 on:** March 05, 2006, 11:26:42 PM »

These are commonly called "submarine patents". Google it. There was a big deal a few years ago with bar codes being claimed as a patent by a guy who held over 700 patents, but never built anything. The process was to patent something when it was no more than science fiction, then update the patents with follow on patents as technology changed. It almost worked, some of the bar code reader outfits settled, some others fought it and won.

The original bar code submarine patent described (in very vague terms) a "system that uses a televsion or other electronic means to identify an object automatically through the use of a computer or other electronic device". It was actually that vague, and yet somehow was granted a patent.

I am all for the reform of the patent process.