If the feds needed elevator music would they claim the right to violate the patents and copyrights of the record industry?
If this patent can be set aside because the feds want it so, then why not half a million other patents and copyrights ?
The US patent system is so screwed up that you can patent a ham sandwich SIMPLY because no one else thought to do so before.
But this is a case where blackberry clearlu stole the technology and is not seen as having a chance at prevailing in the case, and will be forced to fork over millions.
Another attorney said the case promises to be one of the most momentous patent cases in history. "This could turn out to be as big as or bigger than Kodak v. Polaroid, in which an injunction based upon Polaroid's patents put Kodak out of the instant camera business," said Bob Fieseler, partner and board member with McAndrews, Held & Malloy, based in Chicago.
And we all know how well the instant photo business is doing these days don't we....
I'm still trying to figure out what our government is doing on those easily hacked blackberries anyway?
Electronic Leashes for the big wheels.
Read email while at home, on the road, without lugging a laptop. New ones have cell phones. Unclassified only, and the data and voice traffic is encrypted.
Classified use requires a crypto module sled and is or is not allowed or in production. They keep changing policies on that.
I say chuck em, personally. Besides RIM is from Canuckistan.
Although one requirement for a patent is supposed to be proving that the inventor can actually do what the patent claims, it should not be possible for the first company that comes up with an anti-impotence drug to patent the concept of "improving potency via medication".
Polaroids are still used for a number of things, though digital is gradually replacing them. Actually, it's interesting that nobody's picked up any of the instant-photography stuff whose patents have expired. I would think there would be uses for some of it, though I have no idea what the raw materials costs are.
I'm sure this action by the Feds is just their way of letting the judge know that whatever remedy he prescribes, it should not include putting RIM out of business completely.
On a related note, maybe this is why when I installed the BlackBerry Enterprise Server software and 12 devices for a customer last month, Cingular gave us the $4000 software from BlackBerry for free.
If you read the article correctly, which it appears that the headline writer did not, you see that the Feds consider the service essential to the use of the Blackberry ( well duh) ... NOT that the use of the Blackberry was essential to the government.