Firm Seeks To Ban Mobile Companies' Imports To US 137
snydeq writes "Texas-based Saxon Innovations has filed a complaint with the US International Trade Commission to bar six companies — including Research in Motion, Palm, and Nokia — from importing handheld devices into the US. At issue are three patents that Saxon purchased in July 2007; a patent for keypad monitor with keypad activity-based activation; a patent for an apparatus and method for disabling interrupt marks in processors or the like; and a patent for a device and method for interprocessor communication by using mailboxes owned by processor devices. Saxon, with five employees, purchased about 180 US patents formerly owned by Advanced Micro Devices or Legerity in 2007, according to its ITC complaint."
You know what they say... (Score:5, Funny)
If you can't innovate, litigate!
Re:You know what they say... (Score:5, Funny)
And if you can't litigate, fumigate!
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"And if you can't litigate, fumigate!"
And if you can't fumigate, Watergate!
And if you can't Watergate, fornicate!
And if you can't fornicate, read Slashdot!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
If you can't read slashdot, complain that ubuntu won't run MS Word so then you can't get a degree?
Re:You know what they say... (Score:5, Funny)
If you can't fumigate, masturbate... and it seems that's exactly what they're doing. Bloody wankers.
Re:You know what they say... (Score:5, Funny)
Bloody? That's gotta be pretty furious then.
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"Bloody? That's gotta be pretty furious then."
This thread is worthless without pics!
And if you litigate.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Say hello to my LITTLE FRIEND! /funny
Seriously, these suits are approaching a level of craziness that someone, somewhere, at some time will simply not retain counsel, and will instead just kill the IP firm's principals, lawyers, etc. Or spawn a "take care of it" industry that will indeed "take care" of the "problem" for under 10% of the amount at stake.
When billions of dollars are at stake, I'd never put anything past a CEO. When billions of tax revenues are at stake even the FBI will overlook a small loc
Very nice! (Score:4, Interesting)
As if the frakin' telecommunications industry in this country wasn't crap enough compared to Europe and Asia.
Way to go.
Re:You are kidding. right? (Score:4, Insightful)
EU could not handle a 9/11 in their system.
Neither could the USA it seems.
Litigation is expensive (Score:5, Informative)
...but filing ITC complaints is cheap.
The whole point here is that enforcing these patents against all of those companies is an expensive proposition with no guarantee of returns. However, they can get Free Money by extorting those companies to pay them royalties, backed up by the threat of an import ban from the ITC, and even if their complaint is rejected, they've spent practically nothing.
Re:Litigation is expensive (Score:5, Insightful)
Can we require businesses that patent the ideas to have real, actual products to retain the patent?
They buy an idea, then sit on it. No one benefits from it (except lining their pockets with no efforts on their part). Bad for consumers, bad for other businesses. Boo!
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I'll bet that this is the real reason that the iPhone doesn't have a keyboard.
Re:Litigation is expensive (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll bet that this is the real reason that the iPhone doesn't have a keyboard.
When was the last time Apple based a product on what their lawyers told them? Seriously. Apple has a long and flagrant history of violating 'intellectual property' laws starting with name of the company itself. Anybody remember the 'sosueme' audio file?
Re:Litigation is expensive (Score:5, Informative)
You must mean Sosumi. [wikipedia.org]
Re:Litigation is expensive (Score:4, Insightful)
To be fair, Apple Computer wasn't violating IP law when adding sound capabilities to their operating system, they were violating contract law when they violated the details of their settlement with Apple Records. At least, arguably. And given that computers making music was utterly inevitable and that the argument that there would be confusion between Apple Computer and Apple Records was Just. Fucking. Stupid., it's hard to argue that they really did anything wrong there. My (admittedly limited) understanding of trademark law is that you can't create a trademark which is substantially similar if it will cause confusion. My also-limited understanding of this case is that Apple Records abused the system in the hopes of making some free money.
Re:Litigation is expensive (Score:4, Informative)
The iPhone doesn't have a keyboard because Steve Jobs hates buttons.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The iPhone doesn't have a keyboard because Steve Jobs hates people.
Fixed that for you.
Re:Litigation is expensive (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, since one of the things the complainant has to prove in the ITC is that they have a domestic industry practicing the asserted claims, yes, we can.
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Mod parent up. ITC != (USPTO || US Court System).
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Well, since one of the things the complainant has to prove in the ITC is that they have a domestic industry practicing the asserted claims, yes, we can.
Patent trolling companies cover this by purchasing common stock in a company that practices whatever idea they are suing over. Stock represents equity which represents ownership of said 'domestic industry'. It's messy, but it works.
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Horseshit. Patent 'trolls' buy an idea and then license it. Only an idiot would spend good money for something and then sit on it - especially something like a patent with a limited lifespan.
Again, horseshit. If nobody licenses it, then and only then does nobody benefit. If a company does license it - then they make money selling the product, and the buyers benefit from th
Re:Litigation is expensive (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, you haven't been keeping up. The popular M.O. is to sit on the idea until it has already become popular, THEN offer licenses. If you come out with the patent to begin with, potential licensees will just work around it. Waiting until they have built their business on it is far more profitable in the long run.
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How does a company that has developed, manufactured, marketed and sold an actual product benefit when years later comes around and says "Nope, you can't keep selling that until you license your idea from us."
Patents have their uses. An invention a person or company spends time and money researching should be protected to a degree. IFF it is original and non obvious - especially if there is an actual product you're selling incorporating this patent.
However, filing a patent for every damn thing you can think
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Yes, of course they offer licenses, AFTER they sit.
If they offered licenses up-front it wouldn't be a scam. They'd have to have a useful tech and people would see that and pay to use it, new products would be made, everyone WOULD benefit.
But in the patent-troll scenario they obtain a patent on a useless piece of tech, not something nobody wants, but something so simple everyone independently invents it, and they wait until everyone does when they suddenly "offer" licenses. If, by offer, you mean threaten to
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It's way past time for patent reform, these patent trolls are way out of hand.
Why is this not happening? Seems like the companies who actually produce stuff have a major economic interest in this, that usually translates into lobbyists and shortly, political action. Seems like the only time big buisness doesn't get it's way on issues like this is when there's another big buisness interest opposing it.
What exactly is keeping patent law open to trolling like this? Big powerful patent troll association I've never heard of? Or is it more that the buisnesses hurt by abuses don't have
Re:Method! (Score:2)
"A system whih can dispose of soiled water while retaining life forms which possess at least one million cells and in the primate kingdom. This has the side effect of also assisting singers with primate pets from losing them too."
Re:Litigation is expensive (Score:4, Insightful)
Can we require businesses that patent the ideas to have real, actual products to retain the patent?
No, because some times sitting on an idea to get another company to pay for it is a legitimate practice.
Let's say I create Startup Inc, and design a new type of lithography. I don't have the money to build a fab or anything, so I show the tech to Intel and offer to let them use it in exchange for royalties. Under your system they could say no, use it anyway, and I wouldn't be able to sue, because I don't have an actual product.
Patent trolls suck, and there should be a way to stop them through litigation, but we have to be sure that we don't kill off real innovators in the process.
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Re:Litigation is expensive (Score:4, Insightful)
"Let's say I create Startup Inc, and design a new type of lithography. I don't have the money to build a fab or anything, so I show the tech to Intel and offer to let them use it in exchange for royalties."
In order for you to convince Intel you show them a prototype. *Then* you have a working example covering your patent. If you don't have even a prototype then all you have is an idea and ideas shouldn't be subjected to patents.
"Patent trolls suck, and there should be a way to stop them through litigation, but we have to be sure that we don't kill off real innovators in the process."
Two words: Trade Secrets.
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In order for you to convince Intel you show them a prototype.
Uh, what? You are so wrong. That's not how science necessarily works. You can do a lot of science without ever actually building anything. Then you run the idea past some other smart people, and they say "yes, this ought to work" and then you sell your idea and they go forth and build a technology on it - or you show them a prototype. Just demonstrating the effect might well be enough, you don't actually have to necessarily do anything useful with it if it is clear that it will be useful.
J. Random Fucko who
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"Uh, what? You are so wrong. That's not how science necessarily works."
Not at all. But *you* are so wrong. Where was I talking about science? I was talking about *patents*, which should be tied to an industrial endevour.
"Ideas are precisely what patents are designed to protect"
*You* are *so* wrong! Please pay a little attention what patents are about and come later. Hint: patents are about protecting industrial processes, machines, articles of manufactures, not ideas.
But it's true there's a strong lobb
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Sure, there would be ways to protect your idea while seeking investors, but eventually that takes lawyers, and money, and the whole point of patents is that you don't need a lot of money to make an idea rel
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If you didn't build a prototype then you didn't know whether your process would actually work. If you didn't know whether it would work then you didn't really invent anything. And if you didn't really invent anything then you didn't deserve a patent anyway!
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If there's any astrophysicists reading this, don't hurt me!
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They didn't patent anything ...
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...to not patent ideas because ideas are ten a penny, but rather to patent working inventions which actually require some effort?
Yes, easy. Doesn't even need any new legislation.
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How about getting rid of patents altogether? Not just on software, but on everything. They ain't natural, but are purely government created monopoly privileges.
History seems to hint that rather than foster innovation, patents retard it. Here's an article summary that suggests Watt's patent slowed down steam engine innovation [reason.com].
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History seems to hint that rather than foster innnovation, religion retards it. Here's an article summary that suggests sectarian fighting between Jews, Christians and Muslim [osu.edu] Alexandrians were the last nail in the coffin for the Library - which had fostered people like Heron, the inventor of the steam engine (around 50 BC) [wikipedia.org].
It just makes me want to scream when I think that we lost 1500+ friggin years...
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No one benefits from it (except lining their pockets with no efforts on their part).
The winning lawyers profit. The losing lawyers profit. The judge profits with demand for his services. The clerk profits with record requests. The transcriptionist gets profit from her work.
Who doesn't profit? Generally, the parties at issue and the general public.
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They buy an idea, then sit on it. No one benefits from it (except lining their pockets with no efforts on their part). Bad for consumers, bad for other businesses. Boo!
Let's step back a bit here though. "no efforts on their part" is not exactly true. They have capital in the matter. They are investing in those patents, presumably because they think the idea has merit -- but they are taking the risk that it does not. They do not "line their pockets" without the patent having some form of merit.
The patents came from somewhere, their original creators presumably got compensated and therefore had more incentive to patent in the first case (instead of keeping their ideas a tra
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But they do absolutely nothing for society. Bank robbers have capital - the masks, guns, the car (even if stolen), the "plan" is valuable IP. They're risking their capital versus greater rewards. If they merely had a Marque and the bank were a Spanish Galleon (and this the 1500s...) this would be legal...
Real patents - ones that function as society intends and help people, are disclosed. They're advertised. The company WANTS people to know that their methods are easier. They want you to use their proven tec
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Patent holding companies need to disappear forever. Let me define that for you - businesses whose primary source of revenue is generated from the purchase, sale, litigation and licensing of patent rights.
If a company wants to protect their patents, they should be forced to demonstrate that they are intent on manufacturing devices that utilize that patent's claims. I don't mean "manufacture" like auto companies homologate race cars(build 1, call it a production car...). A company should be planning to manufa
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What about for example ARM, which designs chips and licences them to other people to manufacture? They don't make any actual products themselves, but nevertheless their business model is much more agreeable than your average patent troll.
It is very difficult to make rules that target the people you are after without adversely affecting other people.
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. . . these patent trolls are way out of hand.
More chopping, less talking, please.
"Son, we live in a world that has [trolls], and those [trolls] have to be [slain] by men with [swords]. . . . I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand at post. Either way, I don't give a damn . . ." about /. comments.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Loser pays won't work unless you adjust for the financial load.
The RIAA can sue a college student and spend a million dollars, let's say 1000 times more than the student has, and easily afford to pay this if they lose. The student can only afford maybe $100 to actually pursue justice and could never hope the pay the RIAA legal team's lunch bill if he lost.
But we all know the court system is worthless anyways because the party with the most money wins - even if they don't "win" you die a pauper, likely with
Pooling litigation funds - very interesting idea (Score:2)
I wonder why I've never heard this suggestion before, it's such an elegantly simple and clever solution:
Some people will no doubt complain that this is somehow unfair. Your rationale says it better than I could, so I'll counter that argument by simply quoting you again here. :)
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The other benefit of ITC proceedings is they are very, very fast. I don't see that a trial date is set yet, but I would expect to see this go to trial around August or September.
But don't make the mistake of thinking ITC proceedings are cheap. Basically, you're paying much of the cost of a district court proceeding, but all in a compressed time period. So don't expect this to be something like the NTP case. You should expect to see something (most likely a settlement---that's what always happens anym
Let me guess .. (Score:2)
Saxon, with five employees
All IP lawyers, no doubt. Well, okay, maybe four and a secretary.
patents (Score:3, Insightful)
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This is exactly what is wrong with the patent process. You have a "company" of only FIVE people, who could potentially stop any technology that might "infringe" on these obscure patents.
Necessity is the mother of invention. -- Aesop
Patents are the motherfucker of necessity. -- Me
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Saxon tried suing Necessity, but Aesop was called as an expert witness to establish the allegations were fables.
Until.... (Score:3, Funny)
Just until they threaten a company with large revenues run as a mob front and their office is suddenly visited by Luca Brasi and Furio....
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The cost of buying a patent, any patent, from anyone should legislated be one billion dollar minimum with half of that going to the government. Enough already.
The law needs to be changed (Score:2)
Change the law so that they cant go to the ITC and ask for an import ban, they instead need to go to the courts and ask for an injunction. If they have to go to the courts, they presumably have to at least demonstrate something vaguely resembling evidence to back up their patent claims.
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The ITC basically follows all the rules of federal evidence. The big differences are (1) it's much faster, (2) there's no jury, and (3) you have to prove that you have a domestic industry practicing the asserted claims. If
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If Saxon only has 5 employees, it will be interesting to see what their domestic industry is.
Licencing Patents?
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But they do. They have an actual patent. That's evidence that backs up their patent claims. The real problem is that they got the patent in the first place.
IP - Imaginary Property (Score:4, Insightful)
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There really should be an open platform that allows the publ
This is bad for the US... in the long run. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:This is bad for the US... in the long run. (Score:5, Insightful)
The costs will then be passed on to the US consumer. The end result is a private taxation system where every consumer and every business effectively pays a "high tech" tax on every high tech device purchased and every service used. And the money just disappears into the pockets of the patent speculators ... with no net return to businesses, consumers, or even to the people who created the inventions in the first place.
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Note quite right either. Yes, there needs to be a market for the resources of a fallen business, and patents are as valid as copyrights...
BUT, patent trolls don't buy proven patents, or ones they think will be useful (and thus valuable). Those patents are bought by honest speculators - people who will expect people will want its value and thus pay for it.
The trolls buy the patents that should never have been granted, the ones that are so obvious you could cry, and even then they don't offer licenses to peop
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But multinational companies, even US based, will be looking at the US as a secondary market because of the risks.
I know little to nothing about this area, but it seems to me this may already be the case (maybe for different reasons? I don't know). Witness the truckloads of bleeding edge and even in many cases several year old technology that just isn't available in the US, but which the rest of the developed world enjoys...
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US patents already not accepted outside US, no? (Score:2)
Um, I could be wrong, but I thought that was already the case ... ? I.e., patents must be filed in every country for which a potential patentholder desires patent protection. US patents are no good in Japan, for instance -- a separate Japanese patent must be applied for. The World Intellectual Property Organization [wikipedia.org] (WIPO, website here [wipo.int]) is an attempt at streamlining this process to some degree.
Cheers,
Judge to dismiss with prejudice (Score:2)
The judge in the case should say "Uh... that's not what patents are for... buying them so you can sue people. I find your behavior is not consistent with the spirit of the law and that as a result, your case is done."
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This is a problem that needs to fixed by changing the law.
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Will this be litigated in Texas?
I say giv'er (Score:1)
Seriously. Imagine the public outcry if even just RIM and Nokia stopped all imports of mobile devices overnight (people luuuurve their N810s---don't even get me started on Crackberries). Since RIM's communications all go through a couple of central points, maybe they could even disable ALL of their devices.
"Sorry John Q. Public...this company here, at address ABC, phone number NNX-XXXX, says we're being bad. Take it up with them."
OK, so maybe that wouldn't really happen...I'll go back to the basement now. O
Excellent (Score:2, Funny)
Speaking as a non-American, I think this is fantastic! The faster the ban happens the better! What an excellent way to make sure that the US lags in technology and becomes non-competitive. Neat way to destroy your technology lead.
Now if we can encourage you to do the same in other fields of endeavor. Shakes head with wonder and disbelief.
I guess it's clear why AMD sold them... (Score:5, Informative)
...because they're crap. I looked at the first patent and the first few claims looked suspiciously like the (certainly not novel) idea of connecting up a keyboard matrix in such a way that pressing a key triggers an interrupt on the row lines, which triggers a wake-up event and a keyboard scan. I couldn't tell about the later claims. Then I looked at the interrupt mask patent
You've got to be kidding me. AMD patented a common interrupt mask circuit... in 1994? Apparently it isn't only with respect to software that the patent office is out of touch.
Patents and the monkeys typing Shakespear... (Score:5, Insightful)
Im thinkin the real weight of the patent system isnt even touched by major corps. Individual and small group/investment firm patent companys like Eolas looking for that ONE patent to go home on, by sheer numbers, probably dwarf the IBM and MS's of the world.. regardless..
By sheer brute force attack on common technology methods, conduits, hardware and the like they create a "monkeys typing Shakespear" effect, not with letters, but with common terms and principles.
At the rate the monkeys are being added, soon no one should be able to do anything without everyones approval.
Tada...
Re:Patents and the monkeys typing Shakespear... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Im thinkin the real weight of the patent system isnt even touched by major corps. Individual and small group/investment firm patent companys like Eolas looking for that ONE patent to go home on, by sheer numbers, probably dwarf the IBM and MS's of the world.. regardless.."
I really don't know, but it doesn't matter. The core of the bussines here is not having "that ONE patent" but having that one patent WITHOUT an industry backing it up. Big corps have used patents as deterrent weapons against their rivals for decades now but the problem here is not a little tech company with the "ONE patent": as long as they produce something, they are probably in violation of dozens of patents belonging to the very ones they want to license to, so they will be forced into a mutual agreement; if the case is between two big corps they have such a big patent arsenal that they again are forced to cooperate or face an assured mutual destruction scenario. But lawyer-based firms don't produce anything so they are immune to the usual patent counterattack which has made the patent system flaws more obvious.
Domestic Industry? (Score:3, Informative)
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I think the lesson here is that the system was designed with some basic assumptions about the "anybody" who would be running it, but the Founding Fathers were not aware that The Enlightenment would be just a temporary aberration.
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These guys bought their patents from the inventors, who did have a working product.
If IP is treated as property, you need to protect the exchange and new ownership as well.
One Guess Why Saxon is based in Tyler, TX (Score:4, Informative)
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, ding ding ding
I'm from Texas and I think every judge in that district should be removed.
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I would really dearly love to see a lot of tech companies start refusing to ship products to east Texas, and start refusing to do distribution deals to stores there. Take every single useful gadget off their market with an industry boycott, and tell 'em that they can have their shiny gizmos back when they stop producing ludicrous patent decisions.
Saxon? (Score:1)
Saxon... handheld devices... Sounds like a masterplan. What are they going to do next? Shoot some satellites into orbit and start an earth-wide mobilephone satellite network?
Huh? Do you hear that sound? Kinda sounds like drums!?
You should be cheering this. Really. (Score:3, Insightful)
You worked out yet why your economy is in the crapper?
Imports. And outsourcing all your manufacturing to China.
If you *really* wanna find why econ is in crapper (Score:2)
... you should try to work out why all that manufacturing went overseas in the first place.
Cheers,
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Because Americans won't work for 3 pieces of rice / day, and require that their employers don't needlessly endanger them?
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Because Americans won't work for 3 pieces of rice / day, and require that their employers don't needlessly endanger them?
How many Slashdot users would ever make shoes or plastic toys?
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I wouldn't mind, if they paid me $75 an hour to do it. :)
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Talk about selective memory. Did you miss the global financial crisis? Everybody elses economy is in the crapper too. Including China.
I think I speak for quite a few when I say (Score:1)
Quickest solution (Score:3, Interesting)
Buying stuff is the new innovation (Score:2)
"Saxon Innovations... purchased about 180 US patents formerly owned by Advanced Micro Devices or Legerity in 2007"
Not a massive amount of innovation going on there really, is there?
prior art (Score:2)
Mercury Computer Systems, Inc.
late 1990's, maybe early 1990's, maybe ongoing
Each CPU had mailboxes in the north bridge chip.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I can do much better than that. Honeywell Level 66 mainframes had mailboxes in their CPUs to talk to the I/O processors. This dates back to at least 1975, when I first encountered them. Probably true for Multics mainframes from the '60s too.
When will it end.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Drill --> Nose --> Power On --> Push upwards
patents should be non-transferable (Score:3, Interesting)
Either that or they should be treated as real property and taxed, like real estate is taxed in most states. Then annual taxes would be assessed to patent holder.
Are you on crack? (Score:1, Informative)
What ARE you talking about? Who could forget the WWI flying ace who played Commodore Schmidlapp on Batman? [wikipedia.org]