Zeldman’s post on a Web 2.0 patent, an Information Week article, and an exhaustive email thread I was on, demonstrates the general misunderstanding, ignorance, and myths about the patent office. We’re knee deep in the patent process now and our attorney would just shake his head at the alarmist reporting and the blogosphere’s propensity to pile on. Same thing happened with the patents on iPod menus. To see how patents play out, check the RIM case and the rejections issued on Friday last week.
Any one of patent-holder Balthaser’s claims could be challenged and overturned. And I could develop Comet, a web technology that cleans better than AJAX, apply for a patent, win it and attempt to license it to the world and claim in a press release that I’ll vigorously defend it. Better yet, I’d rollout Diamonds on the Soles of My Shoes an alternative to Ruby on Rails, and booyah I’m finally living some dotcom fantasy. Not exactly.
Periodically a reporter watches for new patents and reports on them and starts a flurry of speculation on what conventional wisdom thinks about the USPTO.
Key point:
Are we ready to defend our patent?” Balthaser asks. “Absolutely. We’re ready to defend it vigorously if we have to. But [litigation is] not the approach we’re taking in terms of licensing.”
Balthaser can yell bingo with the ruling and now will try to win the megalotto by hoping some company would rather license the patent then fight them. Check the name on the Attorney, Agent or Firm that prosecuted the patent and it’s Preston Gates Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds LLP.
That’s a big gun most likely aiming, if at all, at a company with bigger pockets than a design agency/application developer that gets real with web-based productivity applications; considering how dated the technology is, I’d expect the profitability of the patent to be as old and stale as the champagne Balthasher poured on Valentines day when the patent was issued.
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Derek Scruggs 02.28.06 at 4:37 pm
Yup. An IP lawyer acquaintance of mine followed this exact strategy. Why waste time on small timers when you can go after Intel and the Gap. (Which he did successfully. He sold the portfolio of patents he had acquired and enforced for tens of millions.)
-b- 02.28.06 at 5:10 pm
Agreed. And that brings me to RIM, which I can’t understand why they’re stressing their users and IT departments so much and haven’t settled. I mean, maybe people love them so much they don’t care what they’d do, but if I was a user, I’d demand they settle or patch the code like they’ve been threatening and move on.