My understanding of parent law is that you patent a way to do something, not the actual something itself. These folks invented a way to input domain specific data from a static keyboard. Good for them! But Apple invented an entirely different way to input domain specific data using a glass screen with literally no static switches. You can patent a process but not an idea. Of course that won't matter one bit if it goes to the corrupt Eastern district in Texas.
Yes, in theory, but patents have been won in recent decades for "ideas". Apple had to pay Amazon for using one-click ordering. How is that not just an idea? There have been other lawsuits that have held up about storing user data like addresses and credit card information. Isn't that what databases have always done?
I think there are two major problems at the patent office: more patents are filed than they can ever handle and staff who doesn't seem to be sophisticated enough to understand that many of these patents never should have been given. Their attitude might be to grant the patent and let them be challenged in court.
I was brought in as an "expert" on a recent patent troll case. I can't give specifics because some cases are still pending, but some idiot troll was trying to claim a patent on very basic database retrieval ideas, as if a list on a screen of different fields to search was deserving of a patent. Software I had co-designed did it years before and others had done it before me. We won one case, but there are others pending from the same troll (he sued many!)
Patents expire after 20 years. Like the other commenters, I find it hard to believe that there can be a patent application granted during the past 20 years, covering a numeric keypad with functional keys.
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I think there are two major problems at the patent office: more patents are filed than they can ever handle and staff who doesn't seem to be sophisticated enough to understand that many of these patents never should have been given. Their attitude might be to grant the patent and let them be challenged in court.
I was brought in as an "expert" on a recent patent troll case. I can't give specifics because some cases are still pending, but some idiot troll was trying to claim a patent on very basic database retrieval ideas, as if a list on a screen of different fields to search was deserving of a patent. Software I had co-designed did it years before and others had done it before me. We won one case, but there are others pending from the same troll (he sued many!)