On August 17, 2012, BriarTek IP filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission that alleges that Delorme's and Yellowbrick's 2-way Satellite Emergency Notification Devices (SENDs) infringe upon a BriarTek patent and should be barred from importation. BriarTek admits their goal is to pressure 2-way SEND manufacturers to license their patent. There's a lot more to this story, including questions as to the validity of BriarTek's patent.

http://www.equipped.org/blog/?p=504

One more case for why current patent law is crap.

At first blush they look like another patent troll.

Not really a patent troll, as that definition specifies a troll as a patent holder who doesn't actually have or intend to have a product to market utilizing the patented technology they claim. BriarTek at least has a SEND device on the market now, and they were members of the relevant RTCM committee.

Doug you have my sympathies, this is the dilemma of every standards organization. You might ask your legal counsel if the following amendment might have caught BriarTek's claim at an earlier juncture: “The ballot to approve every RTCM standard shall ask the member to identify **IN WRITING** any applicable patents **ISSUED OR PENDING** they are aware of which are not identified in the standard.” Patent law is way more complicated than I can really understand, but we wrote our own bylaws to attempt to compel everyone voting on a standard or guideline to disclose a patent interest before approving the standard. Its damned miserable to look around a room and realize someone working with you in the standards effort may have embedded their novel idea into your standard and are awaiting ratification to seek compensation for it. In an industry where innovation takes place among numerous companies outside the standards body, this is a constant risk (or, temptation for patent holders everywhere).

I should have put it like this- they look like Apple, another company with no problem patenting obvious things, seeking blanket patents for whole categories of vague ideas and calendars that don't match the rest of the world.

Maybe so, I don't know - at the moment to me this is just another guy driving a Blue Ford, hardly enough to brand them either a miscreant or having a valid patent claim. I think sometimes people's frustration with the complexity of patents derives from the complexity of technology, and any time we see something we don't really understand or can't differentiate from another technology we may understand better, we leap to an assumption of obviousness and begin to ascribe motives. To me everyone in the field of PLBs are driving Blue Fords. I wish they would all get along and cooperate on standards and such, but sometimes like in many other fields, that ain't gonna happen.

It's hard to believe that all of the satellite telephones over the years don't make considerable prior-art here. And that's a pretty recent patent.

But I'm retired now and refuse to read another patent. A root canal is more fun.

Patent law is about the most respectable areas of the law. If a guy invents something and can prove it in front of a lot super smart people, the inventor deserves the spoils. A patent that is worth anything must go through the grind of many years of investigation, probing, and proving itself. By the time we see news about a patent, it has already gone through years, maybe over a decade, of scrutiny. Patent law encourages innovation because it costs a lot of money to innovate and chase a dream. It even costs a lot of money to sit around and think of inventions, even if the inventor never produces a product. There would be LITTLE INCENTIVE for companies and their inventors to innovate if they could not capitalize on an invention. Thus, there would be far less innovation without our patent law system.

I believe that if someone invents something truly unique and non-obvious they deserve to benefit from its commercial success. But what I see here is an obvious application of an existing technology.

For those who feel strongly either way, I recommend preparing an amicus brief for the court, or prepare a brief and send it to the law firm representing the party you believe. The court system is where patent matters are decided.

Yes, but patented products and ideas are only as good as the originator's willingness to defend it. The concept that the inventor deserves the spoils is fine but somewhat naive. The reality is that almost everything we have is an invention that is built on the shoulders of someone else.

The inventor of the stand-up walk-in tub (a fellow Canadian, Ladimer Kowalchuk from Ituna, SK) decided NOT to patent his design and as a result a large niche industry has developed from his idea. He, himself and his family still run their own stand-up tub business (Safety Bath) and do quite well but he was not willing to take it to a higher level or willing to apply for the patent because of the rigors of getting and defending it. Other companies with more financial and marketing resources have also profited deeply from his invention. Could he have been richer if he had sought and enforced his patent? Perhaps, but by letting it go "wild" the idea took a wider hold and the entire walk-in tub industry grew from it.

The other side of the coin is the inventor of intermittent windshield wiper, Robert Kearns. He got his patent but it took many years and lawsuits to finally get his just rewards from Ford/Chrysler.

Anecdotal evidence of a few patents does not rule the day because the U.S. Patent Office alone has issued over 6 million patents. I'm not even talking about other countries. U.S. companies collectively have owned millions of patents on which they rely to be what they are. The following companies would not exist in their current form if it weren't for our patent system: Intel, Qualcomm, IBM, Apple, SAP, Microsoft, and many others. U.S. pharmaceutical companies would not research and make new drugs if it weren't for the U.S. patent system. Heck, they wouldn't even exist.

The reality is that an invention in the USA is determined by the Patent Office and by the U.S. court system, not by commentary on the Internet. If you want to prove or disprove a particular invention, we have this system setup for people to go through the proper channels. It's naive to think you can make up your own Internet definition of what you think an invention is. Well, you can, but it won't matter for capitalization purposes in the real world.

Not sure exactly what I said but I obviously touched a nerve. I said absolutely NOTHING or made NO assertion about patents being proved or defined on the internet either by direct words or by implication. Don't let your imagination run wild on you. My anecdotes are simply there to say there are pluses and minus for those willing to choose to patent their products.

My comment about the "naiviety of the inventor should get the spoils" refers to the fact that a patent system is only partially effective especially in the current world wide trade. In a perfect world, where everyone respects another's rights and obeys every law on the planet is nice but it simply doesn't exist -- hence my use of the word naive.

Quite often a invention is copied in part or nearly in whole in another country outside the US where it would be very expensive to try to reach out and defend their patent from a foreign interest. In some Asian countries, for example, 90% or better of all software is pirated and/or reverse engineered or directly copied with no compensation given to the originators. These software companies sometimes do go after the cheaters but it can be expensive and often impractical with the differences in culture, language and laws.

Patent protection is only as good as those who will respect it kind of like a locked door keeps out only the honest people. And there are fewer and fewer honest people out there. A lot of people/companies will push and exceed the boundaries of law regardless of whatever patent protection is in place.

I would agree that because of a patent system protecting the rights of the inventor is a great incentive for innovation but to assert that research would not exist without it is a bit strong. Inventions and new ideas are quite often born out of a perceived need for something different or better and are only brought to market because of a perceived financial benefit to the inventor. Sooner or later someone else is going to get a brainstorm and build upon previous inventions. If and when that invention relies too much prior ideas, we have a legal system(s) in place to have it debated and adjudicated.