Another iPhone Lawsuit

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A group of private investors is suing Apple for $360 million because the iPhone’s visual voicemail feature allegedly infringes on patents held by the group.

The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in the Eastern District of Texas, asserts that sales of that iPhone, Visual Voicemail and other visual voice messaging services implemented by AT&T infringe Klausner’s U.S. Patents 5,572,576 and 5,283,818.
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WTF, it seems like these "companies" patent ideas and wait for someone to utilize the patented idea and then just sue.

I wonder how much it costs to patent ideas, as I have some neat ones and maybe I could sue some big company and make a living like that.
 
actually thats exactly what some idiots do. they patent an idea and wait for someone to make it. thats why patents expire.
 
true, but if you patent say, 100 ideas, there is always a decent chance that before they expire at least a few of them can be used to sue for millions or billions.
 
WS6 said:
WTF, it seems like these "companies" patent ideas and wait for someone to utilize the patented idea and then just sue.
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That is exactly what they do. Throw a couple hundred broadly worded patents out there and hope someone releases a product that sounds remotely similar. If they do, sue. The "infringing" party might settle just to get rid of you or you just might get a judge and jury stupid enough to rule in your favor. At the worst, your case gets dismissed and you are back to square one minus legal fees (patent farmers are often lawyers and law firms anyways).
 
WS6 said:
WTF, it seems like these "companies" patent ideas and wait for someone to utilize the patented idea and then just sue.

I wonder how much it costs to patent ideas, as I have some neat ones and maybe I could sue some big company and make a living like that.
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These ideas were patented in '94 and '96. This seems to be fairly legit actually :eek:
 
Hurdler said:
These ideas were patented in '94 and '96. This seems to be fairly legit actually :eek:
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The thing is, Apple and its lawyers have research this to death. However, what these companies do is try to use "very broad" terms to cover a large area and thus sue anything that moves. The real problem is all you have to due is threaten to sue and show why you believe they are in violation but the people who are defending against it typically have to spend a bucket more because not only do they have to defend, but they must spend a ton more money trying to find a way to invalidate the offending patent.

I am personally trying to get a patent on a system which uses oxygen to perpetuate itself along with other fuel sources that has an approximate life of 60-100 years.
 
Patents should be a use it or lose item. You should get 1 year to make use of it or it goes into public domain instead of waiting to see if someone uses it and waiting to see if that product becomes real big then sue.
 
Use it or lose it is stupid. That would effectively deny any garage inventor or university from patenting anything, and put even more power in the hands of large corporations.

Think about it--say you think up some awesome new device for cooling a cpu, and try to get a patent on it. Sure, you can tell people how to make it and maybe even make one or two of them yourself, but you don't have the time or money to quit your life and make a new business.

Should you be denied protection?

Additionally, it costs millions ($10-15m) to litigate a large patent case through, so it's already extraordinarily difficult to enforce.

You either want to reward people for good ideas or you don't, but you certainly can't draw arbitrary lines. The Supreme Court has already disfavored "trolls" (ie: people who patent but do not practice their invention) in getting injunctions.
 
Well, Apple is known for stealing ideas and trying to get away with using them.

Heck, they sue everybody and their brother for using their ideas, it's only fair that people sue them for the same thing.

So what if people patent soemthing and don't use it. It's their choice. It's their idea.

Apple should stop trying to make a killing off other people's ideas and they wouldn't get sued.
 
Who patented the patent system?:p

In all seriousness, it took them THIS long to figured out "oh, well holy shit, our patent was infringed".

Ridiculous.:rolleyes:
 
Ok then they should have a limit on how long they wait to file an infringement lawsuit. All this wait until its popular then sue bullshit has got to go. It fucks us all over in the end because the company will not be the one to pay the judgment it will be the consumers, and the more we allow groups to do this the more we get fucked over.
 
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