In-flight device maker sues everyone seeking flash memory bonanza Struggling in-flight entertainment house e.Digital is challenging some of the world's biggest gadget companies with claims that it owns vital patents for using removable flash memory in portable devices. It's targeting brands such as Casio, LG Electronics, Olympus, Samsung and Sanyo in a legal scrap filed last March. But e. …
F***ing trolls, they can't make anything worth buying so they wave around a few ideas that have been around since at least the late 70's and claim everyone owes them money. Sooner they go to the wall the better, the only negative is they are going to make some lawyers fatter doing it. When are the states going to pull their head out of their arse and sort out their f***ed up patent system?
Is how, exactly, the US Patent Office managed to grant a patent for a digital dictation machine which is an obvious combination of existing technologies at that point. It is no wonder there is a patent problem in the US when you do not need to have actually invented the claim (just first to pay a patent lawyer and submission fee) or pass any meaningful 'new and novel' assessment.
Like any good corporate, the USPO has restricted its activities to what makes it money (issuing patents) and externalised the expensive bits of its operation, by getting the law courts to check if the patents have merit.
Typical of a government which links itself so closely to business and business practises rather than its citizens.
if i was the judge i would slap them with a fine for wasting the time of the court
NOW seeing digital voice recorders are like 4-5 years old and so commonplace it isn't funny you cannot tell me they JUST noticed them infringing on a patent.
and funny on their file system patent "memory being broken into a number of blocks in which data is stored." sounds almost exactly how a hard drives file system works
There is no real incentive for anyone involved in the patent process to reform it.
Patents like these often have a very hard time being upheld in court. there is so much prior art, or the patents are just to wide in what they encompass.
So when it gets to court, the judge normally rules on common sense, and most of the time they are just rejected.
Patents, have really turned into tools of big business, used to slow down production lines by competitors, most don't expect to win in court.
Patents were meant to be for the little guy, but now patents are for the the big pharmaceutical companies, were patents could possibly be actually costing lives, making simple drugs not affordable for those dying.
There does need to be some reform, the idea of protection on an idea is a valid one, but not to this extent. One solution is to allow patents only in the hands of individuals and not companies, and vary the amount the patent can be licensed so the larger an organization is the more it has to pay for the patent. That would help keep innovation fresh, and allow smaller companies to have more of a chance at innovation. The patent is just one step in the idea run, smaller companies or individuals can typically take those ideas forward faster.
Won't happen though, because the players in the patent world see patents as a cash cow, with use beyond that of original intention
They are claiming infringement from those who make devices that use the removable flash. They are not going after the flash makers so they obviously don't think they own anything there, and they are not going after anyone using FAT filesystems so they obviously don't think they own anything there either. And they are not going after PC's or Printers that allow the use of removable flash, so they don't think they own anything there either.
The mobile device makers are using technology from the flash makers (for the adapters and access methods) and are (almost exclusively AFAIK) using the FAT filesystem (or derivations of it) to organize and store files on the flash (for which they probably pay Microsoft licensing fees).
Where in between these technologies do these people feel they have a valid claim that is not already covered by the IP of others?
announced today that it has retained Duane Morris LLP (Duane Morris) as its intellectual property (IP) counsel for license enforcement of its flash memory-related patent portfolio.
Among the 100 largest law firms in the world, Duane Morris was recognized as the 13th most active patent litigation firm in the U.S. and was ranked 16th in the number of new patent litigation matters undertaken in 2005, according to IP Law360. Duane Morris represents clients in enforcing their patents and in patent licensing and has played a leading role in some of the most important cases in the field of patent law.
In March 2007 we selected and engaged the international legal firm Duane Morris LLP to handle certain patent enforcement matters on a contingent fee basis.
I'm no lawyer but from what I can see all those patents are null and void.
US5491774 - Logical step from tiny "spy" tape recorders.
Obvious logical steps are not patentable.
US5742737 - Hopelessly pathetic non-patent. They are trying to patent a switch that enables recording and the concept of caching.
US5787445 - Irrelevent and should actually be Copyright, not patented.
Software patents legality is grey at best.
US5839108 - Pointless as it's just defining a filesystem which means either they are trying to patent FAT or they invented their own and no one uses it.
I've been waiting for one of these to come along so that I could post this.
We went to a birthday party a couple of weeks back. All the tables were decorated with helium-filled balloons anchored to tables with some paper-decorated weights.
During the speeches my ADHD kicks in so I start fiddling with the things on the table (no pen so I can't doodle) and start moving the balloons around (adjusting their relative heights etc.) until Ivana clips me one and tells me to stop messing about.
As the speeches drone on the fidgeting starts again so I start looking for things to read. Chilean wine bottle labels are all I can find - until that is, I turn over one of the aforementioned balloon weights.
There, on the bottom of a weight on the end of a string, was a US patent number!
the problem seems to be that in the USA you can copyright anything. the people in charge obviously dont understand tech and think that by simply taking 2 existing technologies and sticking them together you own a new type of tech. you simply dont!
im going to copyright a new system where your house uses hydrogen cells. there we go. massively vague and fucks up anyone in the future (as we all know hydrogen cells are our saviour, hopefully)
all that will happen is that the USA will become a 3rd world country (even more) as tech firms refuse to release anything in the US for fear of petent infringement.
The BT digital answering machine had a plug in 1MB flash module, circa 1992, 4 years before this 'invention'.
That was a digital voice recording and playback device with plug in memory modules. (It had a flash expansion card you plugged in the base where the backup batteries went).
Patent != Copyright
This article is about Patents.
You can't copyright 'a system', you can patent it
Intellectual 'property' rights can be confusing enough without people further muddying the waters by mixing up different types.
</rant>
Also known as a Psion.
Once you have the concept of flash hosting a self contained file system, all of these become obvious developments... And psion (and others!) gave us that looooong ago.
If they'd patented wear levelling, then I'd be impressed. If their ideas don't include wear levelling then they don't actually describe how flash can be used. Thank you and good night.
Worse, the external arbiters (the US court system) is under the assumption that, since the USPTO granted the patent, you have to PROVE it is invalid. The reasoning being that the USPTO have checked the patent for validity.
As you just pointed out, they have outsourced that to the courts.
Pity they didn't let the courts know.
PS: I read "crap" rather than "scrap". wishful thinking...
A long, long time ago
Before your company was born
We were using technology
That now, you call your own
Thanks to a crappy patent system
You think you've got a chance
But we've got prior-art on our side
So, we don't give a damn.
------
United Kingdom, nil points
But patents aren't for IDEAS, they are for the IMPLEMENTATION of such ideas.
And in software, that's called "copyright".
You can't have "copyright" on a mousetrap, though. Even though it's implementing the IDEA of catching small rodents in a domestic setting.
So the confusion is entirely understandable given that software patents ARE copyrights, it's just that with lawyers interpreting their words, they are expanding patent to mean "protect the IDEA if you can copyright the implementation".
http://www.owonder.com/udis. Furthermore, another British company prototyped a digital recording device that stored the recordings on solid state memory cards. (no time to research them in Google, but they got some press in the late 1980s I believe.) The Paris angle? This company is behaving like a clueless blond devoid of ideas.
besides the comments about trying to patent the cache in 1996,
reading the file (United States Patent 5,787,445
Daberko July 28, 1998 ) is quite amusing since it contains following:
"A cache memory the size of at least one of the read/write blocks is then coupled to the primary memory and provides temporary storage space for data being written to and read from primary memory."
by writing "at least" the troll forgot to try to patent the "buffer" which
normally just holds some of the words contained in a block.
This qualify them, on top of all rest, as incompetent patent troll.
Paris because she at least nicer than a troll
1) The definition of a "Troll" is a company that buys up patents with the sole intention of sueing and or licensing the protected property. Edig did not "buy" these patents, they filed for them after they invented them. They were granted the patents and the courts will determine the validity.
2) Obviousness in "hindsight" is not obvious.
3) "Typical of a government which links itself so closely to business and business practises rather than its citizens" Our country is not perfect, our government certainly is not either...no more than yours is. Next time you need someone to bail you out of an invasion, call someone else.
4) Companies and inventers from around the world (including your country) seek US patents as the strongest protector of "inventions" (not ideas) anywhere.
5) "What do you expect from a country that thinks everyone should have a gun" The very same belief protected us from a country that would come and steal our freedom from us, guess it's not surprising that you would think it's ok to steal an invention.
6) "When the trolls lose they have to pay lawyers fees for both sides!" Good thing eDig is not a troll...also interesting that Duane Morris took this case on a contingency basis and has agreed to use their own monies to prosecute the cases with no recovery of said funds unless or until they win...Guess it has no merit at all and they are just looking for tax write offs.
7) This whole forum is an exercise in either innocent ignorance on the part of some or all of the posters, or has been instigated by someone with something to lose. Whether eDig actually wins or not I encourage those who care to know the truth to do "legitimate" research on this company, its inventions and even the inventor. Who knows maybe you could make some money. By the way I love all of Europe.
US Patent # 5,790,423
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5790423.PN.&OS=PN/5790423&RS=PN/5790423
This is a US patent for an interesting toy that I picked up at a Lawn Sale. It's shaped much like an audio cassette, and can record voice, music, any analog signal, and saves it as digital for playback. There is a slot in the top of it for an MMC (Multi Media Card) flash memory to augment the capacity. This patent was issued on August 4, 1998, and predates, therefore, patent number 5,839,108 by three months. Oh, and USP # 5,790,423 was applied for on June 14, 1995, whereas # 5,839,108 wasn't applied for until June 30, 1997.
Think some of the litigants might be able to use this?
I used to work for e.Digital. (Hence the AC posting) Got laid off in Jan. '02 after Apple demolished their MP3 player business with the iPod. I was wondering what they've been up to lately. It was a small company when I worked there, the engineering team was all of about 8 guys. Most of them had become rich exercising their stock options the year before I started there, paying pennies for stock worth much more than that. Of course, my options were always upside down since they could never break into NASDAQ like they promised me they were on the verge of when I turned down an offer from SAIC to work for them. The year or so that worked for them, I watched a company that didn't really know what they wanted to do, a head of engineering that was either not to be trusted or completely incompetent (not sure which), and a CEO that was trying to take control of a chaotic house. Now they join the ranks of the patent trolls. I hope they get destroyed!
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