Smartphones Patented — Just About Everyone Sued

This week the US Patent and Trademark Office issued a surprisingly (although I guess it shouldn't be) broad patent for a "mobile entertainment and communication device". Upon closer inspection you may notice that it pretty much outlines the ubiquitous smartphone concept. "It's a patent for a mobile phone with removable storage, an internet connection, a camera and the ability to download audio or video files.

The patent holding firm who has the rights to this patent wasted no time at all. At 12:01am Tuesday morning, it filed three separate lawsuits against just about everyone you can think of, including Apple, Nokia, RIM, Sprint, ATT, HP, Motorola, Helio, HTC, Sony Ericsson, UTStarcomm, Samsung and a bunch of others. Amusingly, the company actually first filed the lawsuits on Monday, but realized it was jumping the gun and pulled them, only to refile just past the stroke of midnight.

In 1997 they filed a patent for "phone". Then every 6 months they added whatever new features appeared on the market in the last 6 months. Those features were researched, engineered and built by someone else. They kept doing this, twice a year, for ten years. Then they closed the application and now they have a patent for everything.

The simple fact is if they can get the patent and then makes tons of money for not doing anything then they are going to keep on doing it.

Nice.

I think that's the method Microsoft would prefer to shut down Linux.

And I just wonder why the owner of the Wheel patent in Australia didn't do the same.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of…e_winners#2001
(It's in the list of 2001.)

Everyone on earth should united and sue the crap out of whoever suing us for owning smartphone devices and causing mental distress and spilled coffee after reading the idiotic law sue…

I doubt they can make that work. A patent will only hold up in court if there is no other patent about it and if there is no prior art (just as the article states).
I would be surprised if this will hold in court.

This reminds me of how at the onset of the Internet craze some enterprising individuals registered every valuable domain name they could imagine, just to own the rights to them.

Later, when places like Procter & Gamble wanted a domain name of their own, they discovered that every varient of their company name was already taken. They found themselves negotiating with some guy living in an apartment in New Jersey.

Thousands of domain names were registered this way, leading to thousands of confrontations. Sometimes justice and reason prevailed, but for the most part the enterprising individuals won out. It was just easier to offer them money.

That's why I think there's a chance for someone to make some easy money here.

yeah, I wish that I'd have caught on to that earlier. Even cultural trends, you know, Harrypotter.com and stuff like that. It still happens all the time, you just have to be quick and figure out what is going to be "in" next.

Unfortunately for me, i'm tragically unhip I'd be no good at this sort of thing.