Bluetooth Lawsuit

Krish writes "The Seattle Times reports that a local Washington state group is suing cellphone makers for patent infringement on bluetooth devices. Research conducted by a University of Washington undergraduate more than a decade ago has become the subject of a lawsuit filed against some of the largest cellphone manufacturers in the world. The suit claims that consumer electronics giant Matsushita and its Panasonic unit, as well as Samsung and Nokia, are infringing on four patents sold under the 'Bluetooth' name."

the patent

[larry bagina]

the article was kind of vague. this [google.com] is the patent in question. Personally, it seems kind of obvious, but that's how it goes.

Re:Go Cougers!

[ReverendRyan]

You've confused UW [wikipedia.org] and WSU [wikipedia.org]. University of Washington is where Pine was developed and the student in TFA studied. Washington State University ('wazzu') is where the drinking and sports occur.

Re:Timing of Patent

[Utopia]

Bluetooth is a protocol it doesn't describe the hardware implementation.
The said patent seems to be hardware related.

There is. Its called LACHES!

[RITMaloney]

There is. Its called LACHES!

http://www.converium.com/2103.asp [converium.com]

Re:Timing of Patent

[supersat]

If you look at the first page of the 2003 patent, it says that the patent is a continuation of another [google.com] (filed in 1999), which is a division from an application filed in 1996, which became this patent [google.com]. So, they started the ball rolling in 1996. The details make my eyes glaze over, so I'm not sure how different the patents are, but on the surface, they appear to be based on the same research. It's possible that the patent system moves to slowly that it wasn't until 2003 that the research was fully covered.

UW !Suing Bluetooth or chipmakers....

[kanani]

actually, from TFA they are suing the handset makers, not the chipset manufacturers. "Matsushita, Samsung and Nokia are some of CSR's largest customers, said WRF attorney Steven Lisa. Instead of suing CSR, he said the organization decided to act against the handset makers because the chipset manufacturer may not know which chips are headed to the United States, where the patent is enforceable, but the device-maker would."

Re:the patent

[Hirsto]

The patent you linked to is a "continuation in part" of patent 6427068 which is a divisional patent of 5937341. This original patent was filed Sept. 13 1996 and granted Aug. 10 1999. The original patent was also titled "Simplified high frequency tuner and tuning methods" which appears to show a very low cost method tuning/conversion/image rejection and digital signal recovery. The DSP techniques described (modified type III Hilbert transform pair) seem to be where the action is but most of what is described appears to be very similar to what I studied in my undergrad Communication Theory coursework 20 years ago on quadrature systems. If they can prove that Blue Tooth infringes on the claims of the 1999 patent and that their patent is valid then they are "in the money". Their patent is probably good as Broadcom has already licensed the patent to avoid damages. Nokia, Samsung and Matsushita probably have big targets on their backs now as their bluetooth vendor refused to license.

Re:how stupid are these people?!

[kjart]

I tend to agree with that assessment. In this case, however, it's not the Bluetooth protocol that's infringing, it's the hardware implementation (i.e. the chips) that are apparently infringing. Realizing that said chips were infringing your patents would probably be a non-trivial thing to discover. From the article:

He said a number of the Bluetooth chipset manufacturers appeared to be infringing on the patent. One company, Irvine, Calif.-based Broadcom, agreed to license the technology. Another company CSR of Cambridge, United Kingdom, did not, Reagh said.

The second company, CSR, sells their chips to the cell phone makers who are being sued.