TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Judge Hits Vonage With Injuction; Stop Using

Re: Judge Hits Vonage With Injuction; Stop Using

Scott Dorsey (kludge@panix.com)
2 Apr 2007 09:57:49 -0400

In article <telecom26.88.9@telecom-digest.org>, <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:

> And is exactly the same as electronic technology 50-60 years ago.
> Back in 1957 IBM research discovered something they thought was
> perfectly obvious but to their surprise was never patented. So they
> filed and got a patent for it. On the flip side, a dubious patent
> claim forced IBM to pay out millions of dollars in royalties.

The difference between this situation and the current situation is that
in 1957, the patent office had inspectors who were familiar with the
technology, and who would reject attempts to patent devices that did not
work, or which had become part of standard industry techniques decades
beforehand.

Today, we have the additional issue that the patent office does not
have enough inspectors with actual familiarity with software
technology or with algorithms. This is how Microsoft can get away
with patenting the ring buffer, a data structure used at least as
early as the CDC 6000.

We currently have a situation where huge numbers of obviously invalid
patents are being issued, and there is no way for the patents to be
declared so without going to court. And once it comes time to go to
court, sadly it tends to be a situation of the person with the most
money winning.

--scott

"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

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