TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Judge Hits Vonage With Injuction; Stop Using

Re: Judge Hits Vonage With Injuction; Stop Using

T (nospam.kd1s@cox.nospam.net)
Thu, 5 Apr 2007 21:08:19 -0400

In article <telecom26.90.6@telecom-digest.org>, kludge@panix.com says...

> In article <telecom26.88.9@telecom-digest.org>,
> <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:

>> And is exactly the same as electronic technology 50-60 years ago.
>> Back in 1957 IBM research discovered something they thought was
>> perfectly obvious but to their surprise was never patented. So they
>> filed and got a patent for it. On the flip side, a dubious patent
>> claim forced IBM to pay out millions of dollars in royalties.

> The difference between this situation and the current situation is that
> in 1957, the patent office had inspectors who were familiar with the
> technology, and who would reject attempts to patent devices that did not
> work, or which had become part of standard industry techniques decades
> beforehand.

> Today, we have the additional issue that the patent office does not
> have enough inspectors with actual familiarity with software
> technology or with algorithms. This is how Microsoft can get away
> with patenting the ring buffer, a data structure used at least as
> early as the CDC 6000.

> We currently have a situation where huge numbers of obviously invalid
> patents are being issued, and there is no way for the patents to be
> declared so without going to court. And once it comes time to go to
> court, sadly it tends to be a situation of the person with the most
> money winning.

So the patent office needs to hire some CS, IS and EE grads. That'd
change things in a hurry.

Post Followup Article Use your browser's quoting feature to quote article into reply
Go to Next message: Thomas: "Re: Judge Hits Vonage With Injuction; Stop Using Verizon Technology"
Go to Previous message: harold@hallikainen.com: "Re: Verizon Objects to FCC Rules Preventing Pretexting"
TELECOM Digest: Home Page