Patent holder sues Apple, Google, others over wireless e-mail - Page 2

Originally Posted by Wiggin

You are assuming that Apple and RIM implement email access the same on their devices. I believe this is incorrect. I believe the iPhone (and all other smartphones other than RIMs) allow you to access your email by directly contacting your email server. RIM, on the other hand, goes through an intermediary server run by RIM. This is why as recently as last December, a failure on RIM's part caused delays in sending/receiving emails on their devices. This couldn't happen on an iPhone (short of a OS update that breaks your email) because Apple plays no hand in the delivery of your email.

If the patents in question cover a technique where there is such an intermediary server, it could apply to RIM devices by not to Apple's devices which, as many have pointed out, are really no different than checking email on your home computer.

It could simply be that these guys are trying to leverage the fact that they won the RIM case to convince a judge or jury that there patent applies to all these other devices when if fact it may not.

EDIT: Link to story about the RIM email failure: http://www.crn.com/networking/222002584
EDIT2: Link on how Blackberry email works: http://www.ehow.com/how-does_4702806...lackberry.html

Originally Posted by Wiggin

So? Read my link above about how Blackberry email works. Even with Apple's push email, that's still just a connection between you and your email provider (just that in that case Apple is your email provider). RIM aggregates your email from all of your providers, compresses it, and then sends it to your Blackberry. All of those things would make sense when the patents were filed. Emails were mostly text and bandwidth was more scarce and expensive. Even with Apple's push, it's still your email client getting your messages from your mail provider. No intermediary server making periodic checks for new email, no reformatting/compressing, etc.

Until someone can examine the patents in question (I have not yet), I see no reason to assume that they apply to the iPhone simply because they applied to RIM.

Originally Posted by Tulkas

Well, to be fair, MobileMe can also be configured to aggregate mail from your other POP accounts and then push them down to your iPhone too. Except for the compression, that would match your description of RIM's email to BB.

Originally Posted by Tulkas

Well, to be fair, MobileMe can also be configured to aggregate mail from your other POP accounts and then push them down to your iPhone too. Except for the compression, that would match your description of RIM's email to BB.

The NTP lawyers, don't seem so bogged down in implementation, as much as very broad coverage of wireless email.
"In view of the USPTO Board's ruling, the debate over whether Mr. Campana was an originator in the field of wireless e-mail is over."
-NTP cofounder Donald Stout

The are going after anyone involved in the "delivery of e-mail across wireless communications systems."

Originally Posted by Wiggin

True, and that thought crossed my mind. But that is a fairly standard function of many email providers (gmail, Yahoo, etc), and so that aspect is hardly unique. And they'd be suing those other email providers if that was an aspect of their case. But the fact that they are doing it for the express purpose of transmitting it (via compression and using a specific set of protocols) wirelessly to a handheld device may be a more viable patent lawsuit when combined with the tranmission method.

Originally Posted by jragosta

... You don't patent wireless email or multitouch. You patent a specific implementation. While the patent system has some major flaws, they do not generally allow something as broad and unpatentable as 'wireless email'. In reality, the patent almost certainly covers one specific implementation of how you do email wirelessly.

Originally Posted by Wiggin

You are assuming that Apple and RIM implement email access the same on their devices. I believe this is incorrect. I believe the iPhone (and all other smartphones other than RIMs) allow you to access your email by directly contacting your email server. RIM, on the other hand, goes through an intermediary server run by RIM. This is why as recently as last December, a failure on RIM's part caused delays in sending/receiving emails on their devices. This couldn't happen on an iPhone (short of a OS update that breaks your email) because Apple plays no hand in the delivery of your email.

Originally Posted by jragosta

Suggestion:
First read and understand the patents and THEN tell us whether you think they're valid (and why).

Originally Posted by jragosta

Your first point is absolutely correct. The patent system is a great enabler for small inventors to benefit from their invention - even if they don't have the ability to compete with GM or GE or Apple. It is designed to protect the intellectual property even if you're not making a product -- and that's the way it should be. If it required you to be making a product, let's say you invent a new process for making integrated circuits and it works well in the lab. But you can't afford $1,000,000,000 to build an IC fab. Should that mean you don't benefit from the invention?

The second point indicates a major misunderstanding of the patent system. You don't patent wireless email or multitouch. You patent a specific implementation. While the patent system has some major flaws, they do not generally allow something as broad and unpatentable as 'wireless email'. In reality, the patent almost certainly covers one specific implementation of how you do email wirelessly.

That's not to say that the specific implementation is patentable - I haven't read the patents and don't know the technology well enough to say even if I had. But much of the complaining here (and elsewhere) is uninformed ranting. As soon as someone says "you can't patent wireless email", you know that they don't know what they're talking about. No one is trying to do that.

Originally Posted by Eriamjh

No.

Originally Posted by Wiggin

So? Read my link above about how Blackberry email works. Even with Apple's push email, that's still just a connection between you and your email provider (just that in that case Apple is your email provider). RIM aggregates your email from all of your providers, compresses it, and then sends it to your Blackberry. All of those things would make sense when the patents were filed. Emails were mostly text and bandwidth was more scarce and expensive. Even with Apple's push, it's still your email client getting your messages from your mail provider. No intermediary server making periodic checks for new email, no reformatting/compressing, etc.

Until someone can examine the patents in question (I have not yet), I see no reason to assume that they apply to the iPhone simply because they applied to RIM.

Originally Posted by dasanman69

No, you're wrong. Both Apple and Google now have push E-mail similar to the way a BB does. Now they're either paying RIM licensing fees or because they only push their emails and not those of the other providers can they get away with using RIMs technology. BTW all the reformatting/compressing patents are owned by RIM.

Originally Posted by Tulkas


Are you sure? It's been a lot of years, but I don't recall my 2100 having wireless networking.

Edit: I guess if you had a PCMCIA card.

Originally Posted by jouster

Of the patent system, right? Nothing idiotic about suing if you already won $600m.

Originally Posted by minderbinder

While this specific case is a complete crock, I can't agree with that as a general statement. How does that work for the little guy who invents something but doesn't have the resources to create a product? You think people with deeper pockets should be able to just come along and steal his idea just because they can better afford to implement it? People should be able to invent things and then license those patents to companies that are interested.

Originally Posted by lowededwookie

Actually in most countries around the world the patent requester has to provide a working prototype in order to get the patent looked at. Some amazing things have come from people who have not had resources to mass produce things.

For example how many of you have heard of the Britten motorcycle? John Britten was a genius who built a motorcycle that was so lightweight and so powerful that at Daytona the rider was pulling wheelies at below 3/4 throttle beside a Ducati that was maxed out throttle. It wasn't the bike that was special it was the carbon fibre process that Britten invented that allowed him to make parts of the engine carbon fibre as well as the fairing and suspension system making the bike so lightweight and nimble.

Today most people using carbon fibre to make pretty much anything are using Britten's patent although he's been dead a few years now. Everything from car panels to lightweight artificial limbs use the processes he developed. But did he just come to the patent office in New Zealand and show them some drawings? No, he provided product. Same for the New Zealander who at the turn of the 20th Century invented the water powered combustion engine that got patented and then promptly bought out by you know who.

Just because someone doesn't have the resources to mass produce doesn't mean they don't have the resources to produce working prototypes and to be honest I don't see any reason why this can't be the case with software because it should be infinitely easier to produce a working patent than a process for manufacturing carbon fibre.

Originally Posted by chasejk

Not to get too off topic, but your facts are slightly askew. I have been working in the composite industry for 25 years with people who have been working in the industry for 50+ years. None of the ideas that Britten used on his original chassis (1987) were even remotely original or unique. If he did own patents on processes, they weren't new and they weren't his. The composite industry is a cut throat business. Our company was even infiltrated by a competitor masquerading as engineering students. They filed for a patent for a product that we were developing for years. We were awarded the patent, but were told that our competitor had an identical patent filed just days after they had visited our facility. No, they did not have a working prototype or anything physical. Just stolen intellectual property and more money for patent attorneys.

It's hard to be an inventor these days. You either get sued by people that are in the business of suing, or the big boys intimidate you into submission. Once in a while, somebody gets lucky and builds a better mousetrap. Good luck to all of us.

Originally Posted by jragosta

Wrong. That's not the way patents work.

After a company has received a large judgment in a patent case, it's almost impossible to lose future cases. You can be 100% sure that Apple's lawyers are discussing "how much are we going to have to pay to settle this without going to court?"

If Apple has a smoking gun that can absolutely prove prior art, it is remotely possible to kill a patent after they've received a large judgment, but if they had such a smoking gun, it would probably have come out earlier. It would have been in Apple's best interest to bring it forward for RIM.



Suggestion:
First read and understand the patents and THEN tell us whether you think they're valid (and why).