Comments on: RIM Wins Wireless E-mail Patent

Research In Motion, maker of the Blackberry, has won a patent to protect its method of directing e-mail to wireless devices, which could force Palm Inc. to license its technology. RIM said U.S. Patent No. 6,219,694 lets it claim ownership over its Single Mailbox Integration technology. This lets a user have a single e-mail address for both its desktop computer and mobile device, with the PC forwarding messages on to the device as needed.

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What The Fudge?

I.M. Anonymous @ 5/17/2001 4:48:22 PM #

RIM is probably doing this so they could just get more control of the wireless e-mail market!

RE: What The Fudge?

I.M. Anonymous @ 5/17/2001 5:04:32 PM #

Uhh, duh.

RE: What The Fudge?

RoofusPennymore @ 5/17/2001 5:46:56 PM #

Oh good, glad to see the genius internet IPO CEO's read this fourm.

maybe good...maybe not

twizza @ 5/17/2001 4:57:49 PM #

yo know. it kinda doenst matter so much that they do this if you are able to forward your email to your palm.net account and leave messages on teh server. you effectively have teh same thing as a single address without crossing the patent. nice move rim, could be a nicer move for palm.

atrizzah @ 5/17/2001 5:24:06 PM #

I hate the copyright system in America. Sure, it protects the entrepreneur, but it seems that big businesses only exploit it for their monopolistic purposes.

Peace Out
Alan

RE: Copyright system

JET8810 @ 5/17/2001 6:19:46 PM #

i do too! Especially the napster thing...that just pisses me off!

RE: Copyright system

I.M. Anonymous @ 5/18/2001 6:41:37 AM #

It's the US Patent Office that needs a few smacks in the head. They must be a group of 100 year old people sitting in a room still using scrolls and quill pens for documentation and records. We just basically need to get rid of software patents (or severely limit the length of time they last), the whole idea behind them is absurd. The US Copyright system works just fine in my opinion and should be the basis for how most all software is protected.

Patent is only for "push"

porter @ 5/17/2001 5:19:06 PM #

IANAL, but it would seem that Palm's wireless email retrieval is probably not in danger of falling within the scope of this patent. RIM's patent is for a method of pushing data to a mobile device from a host, while Palm's technology relies on the device pulling content from a host. Even if the device is constantly polling the host for new data, it's still not the same as the host pushing the content out to the device.

You can read the patent documents yourself here:

http://www.delphion.com/details?pn=US06219694__

The Wall Street Journal version of this article had an...

I.M. Anonymous @ 5/17/2001 10:21:07 PM #

...interesting quote from some analyst who said:

"It seems unlikely that the courts will rule that all forwarding of e-mail to wireless devices falls within RIM's patent..."

Here's the complete article:

http://public.wsj.com/sn/y/SB99012114954034060.html

They will give patents for anything

I.M. Anonymous @ 5/17/2001 9:33:19 PM #

Wait so if I forward my mail via unix to my wireless account I am infringing on RIM's patent. I am going to patent driving on the right side of the road.

RE: They will give patents for anything

I.M. Anonymous @ 5/18/2001 7:55:49 PM #

To late, SUCKER! U.S. Patent No. 6,219,853 for driving on the right side of the road is now MINE! Thanks for the idea.

By the way, if you mention it again, I'll sue you.
Buh-bye!

Prior Art

I.M. Anonymous @ 5/18/2001 5:43:10 AM #

Doesn't everyone and his dog forward email headers to their phones via SMS for like 5 years ?

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