It would be nice to look online and not see a lawsuit filed against Apple.
On the contrary, I find these lawsuits by no-name companies against the big-dogs to be highly entertaining. I suppose I just admitted that I need a life.
I do not understand these lawsuits about infringing on some sort of IT copyright, especially when you read that most of them are patents from 10+ years ago. I can't believe it took this company that long to realize that there invention has been used without permission, if that really is the case.
What I also don't understand is how a single company owns patents to some sort of technology, in this case ethernet, and then comes out of the wood work to sue every PC manufacturer.
And by the sound of the article it seems like 3com owns the patents or the rights to the technology developed by Ethernet Innovations, but it is Ethernet Innovations that are suing to protect 3Com???
Quote:
"We strongly believe that 3Com?s Ethernet technologies are being regularly infringed by foreign and some US companies,"
How many macs are in business? Outside of xserve I doubt many of today's macs even use the ethernet ports. I know that close to 100% of students on my campus use wifi, and even iMacs in computer labs are on the wifi connection.
Wow. You really need to get out more in corporate America before you make broad statements like this. Very few companies are set up internally for WAN or WIFI on their office structures or campuses. Most still use an Ethernet backbone for their networks.
On the contrary, I find these lawsuits by no-name companies against the big-dogs to be highly entertaining. I suppose I just admitted that I need a life.
There's not enough information given in this article to decide if it's just a patent troll case. 3Com was a real company that made real, consumer level stuff in the 90s. Campuses, at least... possibly businesses too, were full of their cards. This could be a legitimate patent on something that they once actually used.
Of course the choice of Texas for the suit is one mark against it being legitimate.
If a company, unaware of a patent, develops its own process which emulates that patent, is that an infringement?
Or does an infringement mean that the process was plagiarized?
A patent really comes down to the claims. If another company uses the same design, as described in any one or more of the claims of the patent, without permission, then it is infringing. It does not matter if the design is "plagiarized" or developed independently. As the patent is a publicly available document, it would be incredibly hard to prove independence.
In fact, the primary purpose of the patent system is to spread and promote technology. In exchange for making the technology public, the inventor gets a period of exclusiveness. Once it expires, it is a free-for all.
If another company comes up with a design that achieves the same end goal, but does not actually use a technique described in the claims, then it is NOT infringing.
Looking at the claims here, this is not a patent on "Ethernet", but on very specific arrangements of separate buffer memories between the network interface and the host system.
I think post 29 summarises it neatly, coffin chasing lawyers.... truly pathetic..
Quote:
Originally Posted by nofear1az
You do realize that Wifi still uses the Ethernet standards and same protocols, right? That's why it's called a Wireless Ethernet Standard.
Actually Ethernet does NOT use the same protocols as Wireless Ethernet, Wireless Ethernet was still in the Ether when the original Ethernet patents were approved.
Shared Ethernet use CSMA/CD 802.3 protocols and access control, switched Ethernet networks DON'T. Its probably fair to say practically nobody uses shared media networks based on 802.3 CSMA/CD.
Nevertheless, WiFi is probably closer to shared Ethernet than you would think, no matter which 802.11 standard you choose, it is still SHARED between all the stations, with increased latency and slower performance whereas switched, wired Ethernet has low latency and dedicated bandwidth. If you aren't sure, try backing up 80GB of iPhoto library over 802.11g, then repeat over Gigabit. 3days plays about 90 minutes......!
How many macs are in business? Outside of xserve I doubt many of today's macs even use the ethernet ports. I know that close to 100% of students on my campus use wifi, and even iMacs in computer labs are on the wifi connection.
I thought you were joking, but then I saw this. \
I wired my whole house with cat6 and Gigabit switches when I remodeled it. There is nothing better for gaming, and my TV. Wireless is fine if you just want to surf, but for NAS and such, nothing beats wired. Just because wireless is easy doesn't make it better in every situation.
How much cheaper would consumer electronics be if we were to put an end to ridiculous patent infringement law suits, and subsequently shrank the need for multi-billion-dollar legal divisions of companies like Apple, Dell, and Microsoft?
Once we finish suing each other, the monetary gains are a wash, so let's keep the cost of our legal fees from seeping into our end-products so our customers can afford to buy more crap....
Or perhaps I'm just naive...
-Clive
Write and complain to the Bamster!
Trail Lawyers are in the back pocket of the democrats, otherwise, a true health insurance, health reform, health care bill (whatever they are calling it today), won't be true reform until ALL facets of the problem of high costs are addressed and Obama is purposefully avoiding dealing with trial layers and their lawsuits. Why? Political baby, all political! He could give a crap less about you having health care more so, over the power that the government can wield once they have control over the health care industry.
With regards to the relation of this story in AI, outrageous lawsuits are just as common in the health care industry as they are in the technological patents concerning the "Computer / Electronics" industry.
I'll agree with you with respects to how much Macs and other computer and electronic makers products would be if they weren't paying for their high priced law teams fending off ridiculous lawsuits.
Just make "loser pays ALL costs", theirs and their opponents, and all over the place, there will be second thoughts with regards to filing that lawsuit without justifiable true cause! People won't take a chance if they might be out of pocket thousands of dollars as opposed to today where they can sue with no consequences other than not hitting payday!
They should chagne their company name because, "U.S. Ethernet Innovations" does not reflect their corporate business statement of "You Innovate, And Pay Us!"
How many macs are in business? Outside of xserve I doubt many of today's macs even use the ethernet ports. I know that close to 100% of students on my campus use wifi, and even iMacs in computer labs are on the wifi connection.
First; putting iMacs on WiFi in a campus computer Lab is just stupid and ranklyf you ought to bring it up to the department heads. It is wrong on a number of counts. 1; it polutes the publicly available spectrum with communications that can be handled over wire. 2; it is slow.
Second I can under stand students using WiFi around the campus. In a sense that is what WiFi is for. Still in the dorms it would make sense to move to wired connections to gain the speed and reduce WiFi congestion.
Third; when traveling I always look for hotels that have the option of both WiFi and wired connections. I know some of tghe hotels in Vegas have incredilble fast wired connections. You just have to hook up. Of course not all hotels offer this level of service, but when traveling with a MBP you should always take advantage of the fact that you have one of the best Ethernet ports going.
Trail Lawyers are in the back pocket of the democrats, otherwise, a true health insurance, health reform, health care bill (whatever they are calling it today), won't be true reform until ALL facets of the problem of high costs are addressed and Obama is purposefully avoiding dealing with trial layers and their lawsuits. Why? Political baby, all political! He could give a crap less about you having health care more so, over the power that the government can wield once they have control over the health care industry.
I urge anyone who feels compelled to believe this nonsense to read this Atlantic article for a real look at an option for controlling health care costs.
How many macs are in business? Outside of xserve I doubt many of today's macs even use the ethernet ports. I know that close to 100% of students on my campus use wifi, and even iMacs in computer labs are on the wifi connection.
Let's see, I have about 15 at my company. A good friend has another 35 or so. All on ethernet. I also use ethernet at home (not for my iPhone or Apple TV), it's much faster and more secure. Of course my modem connects to my TC via ethernet.
I also tend to use it when I travel (every week). I plug my MBP into ethernet, then create a wifi network for my iPhone. Too many hotels have crappy wifi.
I'm hoping I can get some of that Light Peak 100Gbs action soon though!
Who uses it is irrelevant. Even if nobody used it, the fact remains that Apple ships it on every Mac it sells.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nagromme
It's possible (only possible) that the patents are legitimate. I don't know--I don't have enough information and I'm assuming none of us here do yet. Certainly, frivolous suits are common, but legitimate claims do come up.
Even if they are legit (and there is a good chance they are, relative to a lot of the crap patents we see here), if they have made no attempt to enforce their patent rights against known infringers, they may have lost the right to recover any damages. Of course, we don't know when Apple may have infringed on this particular patent. The patent isn't for Ethernet ports, it's for managing the data buffer. So even though Ethernet ports have been included on Macs for years, this particular buffer mangement technology may have only recently been implemented on Macs (ie, on motherboards made for Apple my Intel).
Quote:
Originally Posted by sequitur
This is probably a stupid question, but...:
If a company, unaware of a patent, develops its own process which emulates that patent, is that an infringement?
Or does an infringement mean that the process was plagiarized?
It's still infringement. The only difference might be the damages for willfully infringing vs "accidentally" infringing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by red_skittles
What I also don't understand is how a single company owns patents to some sort of technology, in this case ethernet, and then comes out of the wood work to sue every PC manufacturer.
It's simple really. Would you rather sue someone who's sold 1,000 infringing widgets; or wait until they've built up a market for 1,000,000 widget and then sue them? If you sue them early on, they may pay some small per-widget fine and then use a different technology and not license yours. But if you wait, you can get a percentage of those 1,000,000 widgets sold and not have to do any more work than you did to sue for 1,000 widgets.
Quote:
Originally Posted by trip1ex
US Ethernet Innovations is basically a law firm.
There's alot of these lawyers groups that troll for patent infringement on obscure & inconsequential tech and attempt to collect royalties.
I assume they operate just like collections agencies. If you owe someone $50, it's probably not worth their time to try and collect from you. So they sell your debt for pennies on the dollar to a collection agency, who then assumes they can't collect a certain percentage of the debt they purchased.
So 3Com allows these guys to represent them for these patents lawsuits and in exchange they'll split whatever proceeds they can get from the suits.
How many macs are in business? Outside of xserve I doubt many of today's macs even use the ethernet ports. I know that close to 100% of students on my campus use wifi, and even iMacs in computer labs are on the wifi connection.
My mac at work is connected to gigabit ethernet and my mac at home is connected to my router through a gigabit ethernet connection. Gigabit ethernet is still 3 times faster than 802.11n and is 100% stable. WiFi only makes sense for portable devices.
Comments
It would be nice to look online and not see a lawsuit filed against Apple.
On the contrary, I find these lawsuits by no-name companies against the big-dogs to be highly entertaining. I suppose I just admitted that I need a life.
Wow and in eastern Texas, who'd have guessed that!
I thought they still strung up horse thieves and cattle rustlers down there in Texas...
EXCEPT for them Bush varmints.
What I also don't understand is how a single company owns patents to some sort of technology, in this case ethernet, and then comes out of the wood work to sue every PC manufacturer.
And by the sound of the article it seems like 3com owns the patents or the rights to the technology developed by Ethernet Innovations, but it is Ethernet Innovations that are suing to protect 3Com???
"We strongly believe that 3Com?s Ethernet technologies are being regularly infringed by foreign and some US companies,"
How many macs are in business? Outside of xserve I doubt many of today's macs even use the ethernet ports.
What are you smoking?
How many macs are in business? Outside of xserve I doubt many of today's macs even use the ethernet ports. I know that close to 100% of students on my campus use wifi, and even iMacs in computer labs are on the wifi connection.
Wow. You really need to get out more in corporate America before you make broad statements like this. Very few companies are set up internally for WAN or WIFI on their office structures or campuses. Most still use an Ethernet backbone for their networks.
On the contrary, I find these lawsuits by no-name companies against the big-dogs to be highly entertaining. I suppose I just admitted that I need a life.
You've never heard of 3Com?
Um... who uses Ethernet anymore?
You do realize that Wifi still uses the Ethernet standards and same protocols, right? That's why it's called a Wireless Ethernet Standard.
There's alot of these lawyers groups that troll for patent infringement on obscure & inconsequential tech and attempt to collect royalties.
Of course the choice of Texas for the suit is one mark against it being legitimate.
This is probably a stupid question, but...:
If a company, unaware of a patent, develops its own process which emulates that patent, is that an infringement?
Or does an infringement mean that the process was plagiarized?
A patent really comes down to the claims. If another company uses the same design, as described in any one or more of the claims of the patent, without permission, then it is infringing. It does not matter if the design is "plagiarized" or developed independently. As the patent is a publicly available document, it would be incredibly hard to prove independence.
In fact, the primary purpose of the patent system is to spread and promote technology. In exchange for making the technology public, the inventor gets a period of exclusiveness. Once it expires, it is a free-for all.
If another company comes up with a design that achieves the same end goal, but does not actually use a technique described in the claims, then it is NOT infringing.
Looking at the claims here, this is not a patent on "Ethernet", but on very specific arrangements of separate buffer memories between the network interface and the host system.
You do realize that Wifi still uses the Ethernet standards and same protocols, right? That's why it's called a Wireless Ethernet Standard.
Actually Ethernet does NOT use the same protocols as Wireless Ethernet, Wireless Ethernet was still in the Ether when the original Ethernet patents were approved.
Shared Ethernet use CSMA/CD 802.3 protocols and access control, switched Ethernet networks DON'T. Its probably fair to say practically nobody uses shared media networks based on 802.3 CSMA/CD.
Nevertheless, WiFi is probably closer to shared Ethernet than you would think, no matter which 802.11 standard you choose, it is still SHARED between all the stations, with increased latency and slower performance whereas switched, wired Ethernet has low latency and dedicated bandwidth. If you aren't sure, try backing up 80GB of iPhoto library over 802.11g, then repeat over Gigabit. 3days plays about 90 minutes......!
How many macs are in business? Outside of xserve I doubt many of today's macs even use the ethernet ports. I know that close to 100% of students on my campus use wifi, and even iMacs in computer labs are on the wifi connection.
I thought you were joking, but then I saw this.
I wired my whole house with cat6 and Gigabit switches when I remodeled it. There is nothing better for gaming, and my TV. Wireless is fine if you just want to surf, but for NAS and such, nothing beats wired. Just because wireless is easy doesn't make it better in every situation.
How much cheaper would consumer electronics be if we were to put an end to ridiculous patent infringement law suits, and subsequently shrank the need for multi-billion-dollar legal divisions of companies like Apple, Dell, and Microsoft?
Once we finish suing each other, the monetary gains are a wash, so let's keep the cost of our legal fees from seeping into our end-products so our customers can afford to buy more crap....
Or perhaps I'm just naive...
-Clive
Write and complain to the Bamster!
Trail Lawyers are in the back pocket of the democrats, otherwise, a true health insurance, health reform, health care bill (whatever they are calling it today), won't be true reform until ALL facets of the problem of high costs are addressed and Obama is purposefully avoiding dealing with trial layers and their lawsuits. Why? Political baby, all political! He could give a crap less about you having health care more so, over the power that the government can wield once they have control over the health care industry.
With regards to the relation of this story in AI, outrageous lawsuits are just as common in the health care industry as they are in the technological patents concerning the "Computer / Electronics" industry.
I'll agree with you with respects to how much Macs and other computer and electronic makers products would be if they weren't paying for their high priced law teams fending off ridiculous lawsuits.
Just make "loser pays ALL costs", theirs and their opponents, and all over the place, there will be second thoughts with regards to filing that lawsuit without justifiable true cause! People won't take a chance if they might be out of pocket thousands of dollars as opposed to today where they can sue with no consequences other than not hitting payday!
They should chagne their company name because, "U.S. Ethernet Innovations" does not reflect their corporate business statement of "You Innovate, And Pay Us!"
How many macs are in business? Outside of xserve I doubt many of today's macs even use the ethernet ports. I know that close to 100% of students on my campus use wifi, and even iMacs in computer labs are on the wifi connection.
First; putting iMacs on WiFi in a campus computer Lab is just stupid and ranklyf you ought to bring it up to the department heads. It is wrong on a number of counts. 1; it polutes the publicly available spectrum with communications that can be handled over wire. 2; it is slow.
Second I can under stand students using WiFi around the campus. In a sense that is what WiFi is for. Still in the dorms it would make sense to move to wired connections to gain the speed and reduce WiFi congestion.
Third; when traveling I always look for hotels that have the option of both WiFi and wired connections. I know some of tghe hotels in Vegas have incredilble fast wired connections. You just have to hook up. Of course not all hotels offer this level of service, but when traveling with a MBP you should always take advantage of the fact that you have one of the best Ethernet ports going.
Dave
Yes, it's called Texas...
bam!
...
iDon't get it. Get it?
Seriously, I don't get it.
Trail Lawyers are in the back pocket of the democrats, otherwise, a true health insurance, health reform, health care bill (whatever they are calling it today), won't be true reform until ALL facets of the problem of high costs are addressed and Obama is purposefully avoiding dealing with trial layers and their lawsuits. Why? Political baby, all political! He could give a crap less about you having health care more so, over the power that the government can wield once they have control over the health care industry.
I urge anyone who feels compelled to believe this nonsense to read this Atlantic article for a real look at an option for controlling health care costs.
How many macs are in business? Outside of xserve I doubt many of today's macs even use the ethernet ports. I know that close to 100% of students on my campus use wifi, and even iMacs in computer labs are on the wifi connection.
Let's see, I have about 15 at my company. A good friend has another 35 or so. All on ethernet. I also use ethernet at home (not for my iPhone or Apple TV), it's much faster and more secure. Of course my modem connects to my TC via ethernet.
I also tend to use it when I travel (every week). I plug my MBP into ethernet, then create a wifi network for my iPhone. Too many hotels have crappy wifi.
I'm hoping I can get some of that Light Peak 100Gbs action soon though!
Um... who uses Ethernet anymore?
Who uses it is irrelevant. Even if nobody used it, the fact remains that Apple ships it on every Mac it sells.
It's possible (only possible) that the patents are legitimate. I don't know--I don't have enough information and I'm assuming none of us here do yet. Certainly, frivolous suits are common, but legitimate claims do come up.
Even if they are legit (and there is a good chance they are, relative to a lot of the crap patents we see here), if they have made no attempt to enforce their patent rights against known infringers, they may have lost the right to recover any damages. Of course, we don't know when Apple may have infringed on this particular patent. The patent isn't for Ethernet ports, it's for managing the data buffer. So even though Ethernet ports have been included on Macs for years, this particular buffer mangement technology may have only recently been implemented on Macs (ie, on motherboards made for Apple my Intel).
This is probably a stupid question, but...:
If a company, unaware of a patent, develops its own process which emulates that patent, is that an infringement?
Or does an infringement mean that the process was plagiarized?
It's still infringement. The only difference might be the damages for willfully infringing vs "accidentally" infringing.
What I also don't understand is how a single company owns patents to some sort of technology, in this case ethernet, and then comes out of the wood work to sue every PC manufacturer.
It's simple really. Would you rather sue someone who's sold 1,000 infringing widgets; or wait until they've built up a market for 1,000,000 widget and then sue them? If you sue them early on, they may pay some small per-widget fine and then use a different technology and not license yours. But if you wait, you can get a percentage of those 1,000,000 widgets sold and not have to do any more work than you did to sue for 1,000 widgets.
US Ethernet Innovations is basically a law firm.
There's alot of these lawyers groups that troll for patent infringement on obscure & inconsequential tech and attempt to collect royalties.
I assume they operate just like collections agencies. If you owe someone $50, it's probably not worth their time to try and collect from you. So they sell your debt for pennies on the dollar to a collection agency, who then assumes they can't collect a certain percentage of the debt they purchased.
So 3Com allows these guys to represent them for these patents lawsuits and in exchange they'll split whatever proceeds they can get from the suits.
How many macs are in business? Outside of xserve I doubt many of today's macs even use the ethernet ports. I know that close to 100% of students on my campus use wifi, and even iMacs in computer labs are on the wifi connection.
My mac at work is connected to gigabit ethernet and my mac at home is connected to my router through a gigabit ethernet connection. Gigabit ethernet is still 3 times faster than 802.11n and is 100% stable. WiFi only makes sense for portable devices.