Authored by: lightsail on Friday, May 26 2006 @ 11:12 AM EDT

WOW!



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Open source is in the public interest! [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: lightsail on Friday, May 26 2006 @ 11:14 AM EDT

Double WOW!



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Open source is in the public interest! [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 26 2006 @ 11:20 AM EDT

Triple wow! [and so on]



Score one for the good guys. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 26 2006 @ 11:24 AM EDT

How does the idea of the long tail relate to patents? How big is the long tail of patentable ideas compared to the handful of developments that get anywhere commercially? [ Reply to This | # ]



The Long Tail - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 26 2006 @ 01:07 PM EDT

- Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 26 2006 @ 01:07 PM EDT The Long Tail - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 27 2006 @ 02:01 AM EDT

Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 26 2006 @ 11:29 AM EDT

Any chance of criminal prosecution for this? [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: rsmith on Friday, May 26 2006 @ 11:38 AM EDT

Is Forgent a budding patent troll? Apart from a subsidiary that sells a

scheduling package, their only "products" are a couple of patents.



Better to nip this one in the bud before it grows into an SCO.



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Intellectual Property is an oxymoron. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: DebianUser on Friday, May 26 2006 @ 11:45 AM EDT

This looks to me like a preemptive strike by the pubpat organization against a

would-be patent troll. It seems to have worked.



I wonder if prior art ever helps once someone actually is under attack from

someone who has decided to "monetize the intellectual property

assets".



The two cases that come to mind are the Blackberry (RIM) case, and the case

reported earlier where Kodak went after Sun with some old apparently overly

broad patent they had bought. RIM seemed to lose the infringement case even

though the troll's patents were in the process of being thrown out. Sun seemed

to decide it was cheaper to pay off Kodak, and judging from what happened to RIM

it seems hard to argue that paying was a bad financial decision by Sun. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 26 2006 @ 11:47 AM EDT

How to get a recommendation wrong... (18-May-2006) "Dutton Associates Announces Investment Opinion: Forgent Networks Strong Buy Rating Maintained By Dutton Associates " Link to Release "assuming a possible judgment of $100.0 to $200.0 million from the '672 Patent litigation" Never assume. It makes an...(complete the well known saying) [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: belzecue on Friday, May 26 2006 @ 11:52 AM EDT

You hear that sound, Forgent? THAT is the sound of your license to litigate getting revoked. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Altair_IV on Friday, May 26 2006 @ 11:56 AM EDT

I want to know how they know that Forgent knew about the prior art before

filing.



(I also want to know many knows you can actually use in one sentence and still

know who knew what.)



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Monsters from the id!!

m(_ _)m [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: arthurpaliden on Friday, May 26 2006 @ 12:00 PM EDT

What will be really interesting is what will the "56 companies that include

a wide variety of businesses, and recorded revenue of over $106.8 million in

license fees." that already licenced the patented item going to do now. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: PhilFrisbie on Friday, May 26 2006 @ 12:04 PM EDT

Those companies that caved in and gave Forgent over $108 MILLION in fees the

last three years should feel foolish ;)



Oh, and RIM should also feel foolish because their $612 million settlement was

just like hanging a sign on their back that says "Sue Me!" [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 26 2006 @ 12:21 PM EDT

I seem to remember that when applying for a US patent you sign your name against

a statement that you have included all the prior art you know of and that you

have made reasonable efforts to discover more. Furthermore isn't this statement

made "under penalty of perjury?". If this is so should not the

inventors be expecting a call from officers of the law? [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 26 2006 @ 12:36 PM EDT

This is good news. It will be even better if the patent office shows some

spirit and actively pursues the people who filed the patent on the perjury

angle. I've heard that this almost never happens, so patent filers think they

have nothing to fear should they fail to do a thorough search for prior art. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Laomedon on Friday, May 26 2006 @ 12:44 PM EDT

USPTO Issues Office Action for Forgent's '672 Patent Majority of Patent Claims Are Upheld AUSTIN, TX, May 26, 2006 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX News Network) -- Forgent(TM) Networks (NASDAQ: FORG) announced today that on May 25, 2006, the United States Patent and Trademark Office issued its first office action, a non-final action, confirming a majority of the claims in United States Patent 4,698,672. The action upholds 27 of the 46 claims of Forgent's patent. Forgent will vigorously defend the remaining claims that were not initially upheld in this first office action. "We understand this is an extended process and we are pleased with the progress of the patent reexamination," said Richard Snyder, CEO and Chairman of Forgent Networks. "We believe the remaining claims are also valid, and we will work directly with the Patent and Trademark Office to clarify and defend our position." Forgent is currently in litigation regarding the '672 patent with approximately 30 companies. The current parties include: Acer America Corporation, Agfa Corporation, Apple Computer, Incorporated (NASDAQ: AAPL), BancTec, Inc., Canon, USA, Concord Camera Corporation (NASDAQ: LENS), Creative Labs, Incorporated, Creo, Inc. (CREO), Creo Americas, Inc., Dell Incorporated (NASDAQ: DELL), Eastman Kodak Company (NYSE: EK), Fuji Photo Film Co U.S.A, Fujitsu Computer Products of America, Gateway, Inc. (NYSE: GTW), Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HPQ), International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM), JVC Americas Corporation, Kyocera Wireless Corporation, Matsushita Electric Corporation of America, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT), Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America, Incorporated, PalmOne, Inc. (PLMO), Panasonic Communications Corporation of America, Panasonic Mobile Communications Development Corporation of USA, Ricoh Corporation, Savin Corporation, Sun Microsystems Inc. (NASDAQ: SUNW), Thomson S.A. (NYSE: TMS), TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO), Toshiba Corporation and Veo Inc. Since the filing of the litigation, more than a dozen companies that were defendants have entered into license agreements. Since its inception over three years ago, Forgent's intellectual property program has generated more than $105 million in revenues primarily from licensing the '672 Patent to companies in Asia, Europe and the United States. The '672 Patent relates to digital image compression used in digital image devices that compress, store, manipulate, print or transmit digital images such as digital cameras, personal digital assistants, cellular telephones, printers, scanners, and certain software applications. The company's patent portfolio includes the combined inventions of Compression Labs, Inc., VTEL Corporation, and Forgent Networks, Inc. About Forgent Forgent(TM) Networks (NASDAQ: FORG) develops and licenses intellectual property and provides scheduling software to a wide variety of customers. Forgent's intellectual property licensing program is related to communication technologies developed from a diverse and growing patent portfolio. Forgent's software division, NetSimplicity, provides a spectrum of scheduling software that enables all sizes of organizations to streamline the scheduling of people, places and things. For additional information please visit www.forgent.com. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: lightsail on Friday, May 26 2006 @ 01:01 PM EDT

Here is the question:



Forgent should have known that there was prior art that invalidated theit patent

and failed to report this to the patent office.



Forgent made public claims against several companies on the basis of the tainted

patent.



Could a lanham claim be used against Forgent for making false statements?



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Open source is in the public interest! [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 26 2006 @ 01:10 PM EDT

It appears that the penalty for filing a bogus patent is to make $108 million

before having it revoked 10 years later. Is that all there is to it?

[ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 26 2006 @ 02:28 PM EDT

Now that it appears USPTO is finally starting to do it's job according to it's mandate, we need to follow up by keeping an eye on senators Dianne Feinstein (D) and Orrin Hatch(R). As you are probably aware, Feinstein is the poster girl for overreaching IP laws, due to her representing Hollywood. Hatch is the poster boy for same, due to the fact that he is a manufacturer of intellectual property. He is a capable song and hymn writer, and by pandering to ASCAP etc. he hopes to make his first billion this way. However, someone ought to tell him that the reason he isn't rolling in it has nothing to do with current legislation, but more to do with lack of salesmanship. If you go to hatchmusic.com to order the music you get:

"404 Error - The Page you have requested cannot be found." With USPTO enforcing the law according to intentions, I bet it will not take long before Hatch and Feinstein in bipartisan harmony will step up to the plate and introduce a bill to restore the broken order. Last time I saw them on C-SPAN they made a hash out of XM sattelite radio, pandering to the record companies and ASCAP etc. Did you know that old fashioned broadcast radio pays absolutely nothing in licenses? While internet streaming, and XM, Sirius etc. pays a huge chunk of their revenue? And that the record companies wanted even more, and have XM classified as distribution, instead of broadcasting.? [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 26 2006 @ 02:47 PM EDT

I strongly disagree that this shows the system working to any useful degree. 1. They have held the patent for a while, during which time they have intimidated people to prevent them from using the technology. Even if all the claims are invalidated, they will never be held liable for the untold damage they have done by disallowing people for using it for that period of time, and I see no disincentive to trying this sort of thing again just because they got caught on this particular nuiscance patent. 2. Demonstrating prior art is something that may not be doable in a vast majority of cases, because the evidence is not there. Even if there was no prior art, it is likely (based upon many examples) that it was the obvious direction to go to solve a problem but they are apparently doing nothing to fix that. I believe at this point, the system is still so open for abuse, that cooperating with the Patent system is endorsing its many abuses. It allows them to say that the submissions have been competently reviewed, which they clearly have not. People who file patents should be liable for class action lawsuits at the very least with attorneys fees paid so that there can be a strong incentive to overturn invalid patents and not the huge legal bill hurdle and a strong disincentive to do anything that harms others legitimate developments. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: argee on Friday, May 26 2006 @ 03:14 PM EDT

The problem in Patenting IDEAS is that probably, somewhere,

somehow, has thought up the same idea before, and wrote it

down. If you think about this for a while, it makes it very

hard to patent and IDEA, like software.



On the other hand, if you think up an IDEA, and track it

back to the original person, you are too late to have him

patent it because its already published as prior art.



I predict that in a couple of years, instead of having

"Patent Trolls" we are going to have "patent busting

trolls." These are the guys that, for a fee of course,

will Bust any software patent you want busted!







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argee [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: IRJustman on Friday, May 26 2006 @ 03:50 PM EDT

I think what's being said is that patent trolling should be made illegal.

Patent trolling is, by its very nature, fraud since organizations like Forgent

or RAMBUS don't use their patent portfolios for anything except as a cudgel to

bludgeon everyone for money. They don't actually MAKE anything with those

patents except money.



--Ian.

[ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 26 2006 @ 05:11 PM EDT

for an explanation of the Prior Art, read PubPats original request for reexamination from Nov 2005:

http://www.pubpat.org/ Chen_'672_Reexam_Request.pdf [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Arnold.the.Frog on Saturday, May 27 2006 @ 12:03 PM EDT