Comments on: RIM Sues Handspring for Patent Infringment

Wow! It's amazing how little some people understand business. Yes, RIM is bigger than Handspring (~740M vs. ~140M market cap), but they are by no means a "megacorp". But patents work both ways... it allows the little guy the protection from the big boys, and keeps the little guys from stealing the big boys stuff. A small company needs to patent its ideas to keep a big company from duplicating the idea and marketing it with its larger resources. But if a larger company that holds a patent doesn't enforce the patent, then all the R&D that went into the patentable design has been wasted, and shareholders like me get cheated. That's not to say the the patent process isn't flawed... it is. There are patents issued every day that shouldn't be, and there are ideas thought up by inventors every day that don't get patents because of the arduous process and cost involved. But most infringement cases end up in a settlement that is equitable to both parties.

Also, please cite examples of "our president Bush" favoring large businesses, other than in his personal preferences of past employment. Many of us work for large companies... is that wrong? And don't bother with Enron... the market punished them severely well before the government got involved.

"and make it impossible to design anything unless you are a megacorp"

RIM is a "megacorp"?

RIM might not be a megacorp, though $140 Million can afford a few lawyers. The point is, i believe, patents for obvious concepts will only favor large corporations in the long run - if at all -, and will certainly hinder innovation tremendously.

"impossible to design anything unless you are a megacorp -- of the kind so favored by your president Bush -- with megabucks to smother these issues away."

Wow, we've progressed. I remember the days when Reagan use to get blamed for everything.

Just remember, all of the Enron hootenanny happened during Clinton's watch. Not to mention the nuke info China now has thanks to Uncle Bill.

Please stay off your political viewpoints in the open forums.

Where would we be today if the developer of the phone key pad had a patent and didn't let anyone else use it? How about a patent on four wheel devices used for moving humans?

New phone from Motorola with the phone keypad arranged like the old rotary dial job. Are they going to patent they new layout?

Why do numeric keypads on calculators, and keyboards go one way and keys on a telephone keypad go another?

Those four wheel devices ... a majority of the technology behind them is held by two international companies. A small German company called "Daimler", and a Detroit company called "Ford" ... but at least they are pretty good about sharing ideas.

If the loser has to pay, it would make it even harder for the little guy/small business inventor, since big companies will usually win with all the $$$ and laywers they can throw at a case.

Well, first it was the Xerox vrs. Palm regarding grafitti, now Blackberry vrs. Handspring about the Treo´s keboard...

Now I´m wondering... should we wait until whe have telepathic PDA´s to stop worring about input systems patents or is that already taken? Maybe Uri Geller has it...

amflores

"If the loser has to pay, it would make it even harder for the little guy/small business inventor..."

It is already tough for the little guy. The large corporations are filing the suits against the little guy to put him out of business. Loser pay would even the playing field. It would also lessen the use of "litigation blackmail" for worthless lawsuits. Everything from fraudulent malpractice suits which drive up your health costs to stomping on small business with hugh law suits to force him out of business.

The only person who wins the law suit is the attorney's who file and defend them. Look at most class action law suits. the individuals usually receive pennies, while the attorney who filed receives millions.

A Palm in hand is worth two in your pocket.

"If the loser has to pay, it would make it even harder for the little guy/small business inventor..."

Not really. If loser-pay is put into effect like it is in some other countries, what's to stop the "little guy" in an obvious nuisance case from running out and hiring the most expensive team of 20 lawyers in town? I imagine all of these nuisance suits would come to an end pretty damn quick if the companies who initiate them realized that they could lose a couple hundred thousand dollars in a judgment directly, and then have to tack on another 3 or 4 hundred thousand becuase the "little guy" snapped up a whole law firm for his defense team.....

It would be sort of like playing poker at that point. If the little guy really has a winning hand, he could amass all the firepower in the universe, since the corp will have to cough up when they do lose as expected. And no corp in their right mind would even bother to try a certain loss.

IBM sues Palm over Graffiti. Only other logical alternate method of input is keyboard. Handspring sued. ...

One patent covers the technique of accessing "alternate" character sets by scrolling with the thumbwheel while holding down a key.

The other patent covers the curved arrangement of the keyboard and the oval button shape.

> One patent covers the technique of accessing
>"alternate" character sets by scrolling with the
>thumbwheel while holding down a key.

This is ridiculous. Is there a patent for getting a capital letter by pressing "shift" at the same time as the letter? Or for using the CTRL key for ..er.. control sequences?

If patent law had always been as preposterous as it is today, we would need keyboards witn 300 keys ... or maybe those would also be patented ... Hell, pressing a button to get a letter could be patented as well!

Rest assured, I'm sure someone DID patent the idea of pressing a key to make a letter. But patents have a limited lifetime (I believe 20 years now), so that idea passed into the public domain a long time ago.

Also, remember: there is a big difference between having a patent and winning a suit for patent infringement. The defendant in a patent infringement suit has lots of potential defenses, such as that the initial patent is invalid. One basis for invalidity is that the patented idea was obvious.

As a lawyer, it bothers me when people equate filing a suit with winning a suit. You always read about people filing ridiculous suits, but there's never a follow-up about how the lawsuit was dismissed. Or you read about an absurd jury verdict, but you never read about the fact that an appeals court reduced or reversed the judgment.

Here, I doubt anyone here is familiar enough with RIM's patents and the R&D behind them to form a judgment about the merit of this suit. Companies generally don't file totally meritless suits -- it's expensive, distracting, time-consuming, and embarrassing. But, maybe this suit is silly. If so, I trust the courts to dismiss it. Or, maybe Handspring has taken unfair advantage of research worth tens of millions of dollars conduced by RIM. I don't know.

"As a lawyer, it bothers me when people equate filing a suit with winning a suit."

That would be all well and good if the person being sued didn't have to spend their money on legal expenses to defend these insane suits (not to mention wasting their precious time.)

Filing a suit is certainly different to winning it, but that doesn't mean a wrongful suit is nothing to be concerned about.