Bluetooth Lawsuit 87
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."
how stupid are these people?! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:how stupid are these people?! (Score:5, Insightful)
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scam [skam] noun, verb, scammed, scamming.
noun 1. a confidence game or other fraudulent scheme, esp. for making a quick profit; swindle.
verb (used with object) 2. to cheat or defraud with a scam.
There's no fraud going on here. As strange as it may seem, it's not the patent owner's fault if the infringer didn't do their research and the patent owner either didn't know or didn't bother to sue until significantly after the infringement happened.
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What the nay-sayers above fail to realize is this:
are infringing on four patents sold under the "Bluetooth" name. (emphasis mine)
Meaning: the patents have been there and these companies, knowingly or not, have created products that infringe on the patents and have called it "Bluetooth". Whether it falls under the "Bluetooth" standard or not, these patents, they feel, apply to their chips.
Also, should they have read the article, they might have realized that licensing has been sought, and gained,
Re:how stupid are these people?! (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact this sort of bullying is legal does not make it right. In this field, one would need a fleet of patent lawyers to determine if one's invention is unique and non-obvious, and even then, chances are that your lawyer armada isn't exactly right on everything, because patents are purposefully written to obfuscate their meanings and expand their scope. In this way, the system that was designed to promote development of useful technologies has been hobbled by its own virtues. It *should* be illegal to intimidate people with torpedo tactics like this. They're exploiting the system, and the acceptance of these practices have fucked the system over.
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I don't really understand this kind of reaction. Everyone needs to keep in mind that this is the first news that WE are hearing. Before a lawsuit even happens there are possibly YEARS of negotiations. It usually goes something like this:
1 - Patent holder is granted the patent
2 - years pass, patent infringer starts using the patented technology
3 - years pass, patent holder finds ou
There is. Its called LACHES! (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.converium.com/2103.asp [converium.com]
Re:how stupid are these people?! (Score:4, Informative)
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:
The second company, CSR, sells their chips to the cell phone makers who are being sued.
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Decapping an IC properly and analyzing the internal circuitry is extremely expensive and time consuming. I wouldn't be surprised if they had spent 2-3 years simply determining whether the chips infringed or not. Of course, by that time the chips would be replaced with new models and UW would have to either:
a) Prove the new chips were designed similarly to the old ones
b) Seek only damages
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Still, an expensive and time-consuming process to start.
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I think (Score:1)
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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.
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The University policy on IP revenue is here [washington.edu], but after administrative expenses are deducted, it basically boils down to 1/3rd going to the inventor, 1/3rd going to the department the inventor works in, and 1/3rd goes into University-wide research funds.
the patent (Score:5, Informative)
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How can bluetooth infringe this patent when it was out in the late 90's iirc
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UW !Suing Bluetooth or chipmakers.... (Score:2, Informative)
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To me it looks like a very narrow patent, it would be extremely difficult to prove that an IC used this particular architecture, and would be reasonably easy to work around I think.
Sort of like how no one can patent a wheel (prior art) or a tire (prior art), but Goodyear could patent a specific tread pattern or novel method of manu
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Not "Bluetooth" (Score:2)
And if you follow Microsoft's thinking, they could go after any company that has bought any bluetooth hardware, not just the manufacturers or distributors.
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Are you sure? (Score:2)
Patent number: 6631256
Filing date: Oct 27, 2001
Issue date: Oct 7, 2003
Oct 27, 2001 is more than a decade ago? I'd suspect this is not the patent being discussed.
We're probably talking about a few of the older ones (didn't read them, only a quick search on the authors name)
6,631,256 Simplified high frequency tuner and tuning method
6,427,068 Simplified high frequency tuner and tuning method
6,069,913 Method and apparatus for determining an identifying bit sequence in a radio frequency waveform
6,0
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What patent does it infringe on (Score:2)
Suominen's patents (Score:2)
It's a design for an image-rejecting mixer with low intermediate frequency. It's not specific to bluetooth but the type of RF tricks used in this patent are important for building a receiver on a silicon chip while minimizing the number of external analog components.
Re:Timing of Patent (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Timing of Patent (Score:5, Informative)
The said patent seems to be hardware related.
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The said patent seems to be hardware related
But isn't the old pro-software patent argument that hardware=software? So once you've described it in any way, that would count as prior art for hardware or software or anything in between?
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Not unless the software modelled the task using the same mechanism as the hardware, which is unlikely. The fact that two things do the same thing is not necessarily patent-infringing, only that they do it in the same way.
The patent appears to be on hardware mechanisms which would be useful in making a Bluetooth component. As far as I can tell these mechanisms are not required for a compliant Bluetooth implementation, they just help make a good implementation. The claim seems to be that a chip provider used
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"You can find a way to do it [use Bluetooth] that doesn't infringe on the patents, or you can buy it from Broadcom. That's why WRF is not going to sit back and let it go without it being addressed," Lisa said. Seems obvious that a specific implementation of Bluetooth could infringe on patents filed after the Bluetooth standard was
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That specific way is not specified in the Bluetooth protocol.
Also, this patent isn't limited in any way to Bluetooth only. It can be applied to any RF receiver that is designed in a similar way for any protocol.
Likewise, a Bluetooth chipset manufacturer can choose a receiver architecture that doesn't infringe on this patent. It just may suffer from reduced perf
Stupid Patents (Score:1)
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Just wondering; seemed kinda vague
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bluetooth is an IP minefield anyway (Score:1)
Why do they suck so much? (Score:2)
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Well, these are the same people that use Windows. You could ask the same questions about that...
reminds me of qualcomm (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:reminds me of qualcomm (Score:5, Insightful)
If Qualcomm did the R&D work as part of an open bid contract to develop a product or provide service to the government AND the product or service was indeed provided on time and per the terms of the agreement then I am not against Qualcomm profiting from their work on the contract in future dealings. However, if this money was given as a grant or the product or service was NOT delivered as per the terms of the agreement then Qualcomm has some explaining to do.
Then just as the technology started to become developed in the market, they patented the shit out of everything to do with CDMA.
If the entire arrangement was above board (which it probably was not) then there is no problem with this, especially if Qualcomm had language in the contract stating that they had the right to patent any technology that came out of the research (probably in return for granting a perpetual license to the government). However, I am generally against funding research projects with public money (there are too many projects that would want funding) and especially when the project could feasibly be funded with private investment. This is the reason why I voted AGAINST the stem cell research bonds here in California. If the investors feel so poorly about an opportunity that they do not want to risk their own money then why should the public be forced to take that risk? It is also the case, as you have already said, that if the risk DOES pay off then the public gets screwed out of their rightful return on the investment. The same thing goes for airline bailouts and most other forms of corporate charity. If the taxpayers do not share in the rewards then why should we share in the pain when these business ventures fail?
I always thought that was sort of unfair, after all my tax money paid for that R&D, and even if it didn't - it seemed like there was incentive was already out and that it was going to be invented anyhow.
It is unfair and if something is really that worthwhile then there usually is enough incentive already out there for private investment to develop it. The few projects that are left (i.e. stem cell research, farm products research, and other bogus or risky projects funded by taxpayers) are usually lemons or very risky (junk bond type investments with high risks and long payoff horizons) and the public gets stuck holding the bag.
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Because some things (including quality of life) should not have a price. Companies exist to make money, and that's all there is to it. Some research fields should be protected from capitalism because a lack of profitability does not mean a lack of virtuousness.
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This is a common sentiment among the left and it sounds good during an election year (i.e. won't somebody please think of the children?), but it is not grounded in the reality of a world with limited resources and competing priorities. The chance that any individual citizen will ultimately benefit from stem cell research, for example, is so small relative to the cost of the research and the probability that the research will not tur
Not going to sit back? (Score:1)
That's "not going to sit back" in the exact same sense that I'm not going to sit back and post to a slashdot non-story, trashed, and listening to cricket at 4:30 in the morning.
Harald 1 would be disappointed (Score:1)
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A lot more info here (Score:1)
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Oh! when will they learn? Probably never, the size of those monetary damages clouds all reason.
Hey...That was my idea...I swear! (Score:1)
Here's the patents for review (Score:1)