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Patent troll claims to own Bluetooth, scores $15.7M verdict against Samsung

arstechnica.com

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Re: Patent troll claims to own Bluetooth, scores $15.7M verdict against Samsung

#41

Post by msandford »

gyc wrote: post #40
msandford wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EE/CE here. Yeah that's a garbage patent. I'm a practitioner in the field and 20 years ago that would have been some forward-thinking stuff. But in 2009, when it was filed? Total joke.

The priority date of the patent was Dec 5, 1997. So was it forward thinking a little over 17 years ago?

Well there's something weird going on there, then, because priority dates and filing dates aren't supposed to differ by more than a year or so.

So either it was invented in 1997 and should have been patented then and would expire in 2017, or it was "invented" in 2009 and they trolled for something to give them a much, much earlier priority date so that it would seem more legitimate somehow.

Either way I'm not sure that I buy it.

EDIT:

I mean, hell, dial-up modems did the same thing basically. Connect and sync at a low baud rate, then switch to whatever the modems agreed the channel could support. How old are dial-up modems? 1980s? Acoustically coupled modems are at least as old as the 1970s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modem#Acoustic_couplers

Re: Patent troll claims to own Bluetooth, scores $15.7M verdict against Samsung

#42

Post by aceperry »

chrsw wrote: post #26
throwawaykf05 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many think that the spec itself is crappy, so there's not much an implementation can do to fix that. Witness, for instance, the number of hardware vendors like Logitech that eschew Bluetooth in favor of their own proprietary wireless protocols.

I have no doubt the spec is crap, but some implementations are better (read: somewhat less problematic) than others. Which leads me to believe there is some degree of freedom with respect to quality here.

I fully agree with you there. I'm working on some BT stuff, and find it to be lacking, mainly the software stack. The spec looks ok for a wireless interface, the quality of the stacks are all over the place.

Re: Patent troll claims to own Bluetooth, scores $15.7M verdict against Samsung

#43

Post by aceperry »

throwawaykf05 wrote: post #10
TorKlingberg wrote: post #3

The telecom industry is unfortunately very patent heavy. It holds back startups from entering, and the standardization groups become a game of trying to push in things covered by your own patents while dodging others.

There is a paper by a Qualcomm engineer that talks about how standards are set and how patents play a role in it, specifically in the context of 3GPP. It is a pretty complex process involving attending meetings and casting votes, and many participants do not contribute any technology. Surprisingly, patents seem to be an afterthought. But then Qualcomm makes a billion or so every year in royalties, so that's something…

I would love to see that paper.

Re: Patent troll claims to own Bluetooth, scores $15.7M verdict against Samsung

#44

Post by aceperry »

throwawaykf05 wrote: post #8

Sigh, par for the course for any patent-related reporting on Ars. 1. The headline is pure clickbait, and is obvious from the article itself. From a quick glance, the patents concern a specific feature of Bluetooth 2.0 that enable selecting different modulation schemes, one with a higher data rate, based on a header. Whether that's novel or non-obvious depends on the prior art, which isn't discussed in TFA. In any cas…

"the patents concern a specific feature of Bluetooth 2.0"

That's not a "feature" of Bluetooth 2.0+, it's a fundamental part of the Bluetooth spec. Without it you couldn't have Bluetooth. So the headline is correct.

Re: Patent troll claims to own Bluetooth, scores $15.7M verdict against Samsung

#45

Post by throwawaykf05 »

msandford wrote: post #41
gyc wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The priority date of the patent was Dec 5, 1997. So was it forward thinking a little over 17 years ago?

Well there's something weird going on there, then, because priority dates and filing dates aren't supposed to differ by more than a year or so. So either it was invented in 1997 and should have been patented then and would expire in 2017, or it was "invented" in 2009 and they trolled for something to give them a much, much earlier priority date so that it would seem more legitimate somehow. Either way I'm not sure th…

The weirdness is due to these patents being "continuations", that is, follow-on patents that keep the priority date of the original, but file new claims on the same subject matter. This is usually done to get broader (or sometimes just different) claims than the original. On the flip side, the follow-on patents lifetime is still based on the original filing date.

Also, if there was any prior art that did "basically the same thing" you can bet Samsung would have brought it up. TFA does not give much detail about Samsung's arguments, but only mentions a non-infringement defense.

Re: Patent troll claims to own Bluetooth, scores $15.7M verdict against Samsung

#46

Post by throwawaykf05 »

mcmancini wrote: post #33
throwawaykf05 wrote: post #8

Sigh, par for the course for any patent-related reporting on Ars. 1. The headline is pure clickbait, and is obvious from the article itself. From a quick glance, the patents concern a specific feature of Bluetooth 2.0 that enable selecting different modulation schemes, one with a higher data rate, based on a header. Whether that's novel or non-obvious depends on the prior art, which isn't discussed in TFA. In any cas…

> Sigh, par for the course for any patent-related reporting on Ars. Honestly, I think there's a quality drop all around and not just in patent-related articles. Reading the comments on any legal-related articles is as much fun though as people watching in the homeopathy section of Whole Foods. On 1, I didn't look at the cited references, but it'd be interesting to see if any of the Bluetooth-related patents were incl…

There is a lot of talk about patent reform, as TFA mentions, and it contemplates disincentives along the lines you mentioned, e.g. fee-shifting and requiring plaintiffs to be more specific in laying their case up front.

Re: Patent troll claims to own Bluetooth, scores $15.7M verdict against Samsung

#47

Post by throwawaykf05 »

aceperry wrote: post #44
throwawaykf05 wrote: post #8

Sigh, par for the course for any patent-related reporting on Ars. 1. The headline is pure clickbait, and is obvious from the article itself. From a quick glance, the patents concern a specific feature of Bluetooth 2.0 that enable selecting different modulation schemes, one with a higher data rate, based on a header. Whether that's novel or non-obvious depends on the prior art, which isn't discussed in TFA. In any cas…

"the patents concern a specific feature of Bluetooth 2.0" That's not a "feature" of Bluetooth 2.0+, it's a fundamental part of the Bluetooth spec. Without it you couldn't have Bluetooth. So the headline is correct.

> ... it's a fundamental part of the Bluetooth spec...

The key word being "part", so the headline is incorrect.

> Without it you couldn't have Bluetooth.

While it was the main innovation in 2.0, EDR was optional in the spec.

Re: Patent troll claims to own Bluetooth, scores $15.7M verdict against Samsung

#48

Post by throwawaykf05 »

aceperry wrote: post #43
throwawaykf05 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a paper by a Qualcomm engineer that talks about how standards are set and how patents play a role in it, specifically in the context of 3GPP. It is a pretty complex process involving attending meetings and casting votes, and many participants do not contribute any technology. Surprisingly, patents seem to be an afterthought. But then Qualcomm makes a billion or so every year in royalties, so that's something…

I would love to see that paper.

Found it!

http://www.law.northwestern.edu/research-faculty/searlecente...

Re: Patent troll claims to own Bluetooth, scores $15.7M verdict against Samsung

#49

Post by aceperry »

throwawaykf05 wrote: post #47
aceperry wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the patents concern a specific feature of Bluetooth 2.0" That's not a "feature" of Bluetooth 2.0+, it's a fundamental part of the Bluetooth spec. Without it you couldn't have Bluetooth. So the headline is correct.

> ... it's a fundamental part of the Bluetooth spec... The key word being "part", so the headline is incorrect. > Without it you couldn't have Bluetooth. While it was the main innovation in 2.0, EDR was optional in the spec.

'The key word being "part", so the headline is incorrect.'

That's a ridiculous argument. Parsing the spec like that is meaningless.

"While it was the main innovation in 2.0, EDR was optional in the spec."

Can't argue with non-reasoning like that.

Re: Patent troll claims to own Bluetooth, scores $15.7M verdict against Samsung

#50

Post by throwawaykf05 »

aceperry wrote: post #49
throwawaykf05 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... it's a fundamental part of the Bluetooth spec... The key word being "part", so the headline is incorrect. > Without it you couldn't have Bluetooth. While it was the main innovation in 2.0, EDR was optional in the spec.

'The key word being "part", so the headline is incorrect.' That's a ridiculous argument. Parsing the spec like that is meaningless. "While it was the main innovation in 2.0, EDR was optional in the spec." Can't argue with non-reasoning like that.

You can implement Bluetooth 2.0 without EDR, so how is it meaningless? If you explain, maybe we'll see if indeed pointing out "optional" is the opposite of "fundamental" is indeed "non-reasoning".
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