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Microsoft sues TomTomMicrosoft sues TomTomPosted Feb 26, 2009 1:04 UTC (Thu) by bojan (subscriber, #14302)Parent article: Microsoft sues TomTom
6,202,008 (Vehicle computer system with wireless internet) A vehicle computer system has a housing sized to be mounted in a vehicle dashboard or other appropriate location. A computer is mounted within the housing and executes an open platform, multi-tasking operating system. The computer runs multiple applications on the operating system, including both vehicle-related applications (e.g., vehicle security application, vehicle diagnostics application, communications application, etc.) and non-vehicle-related applications (e.g., entertainment application, word processing, etc.). The computer system has an Internet wireless link to provide access to the Internet. One or more of the applications may utilize the link to access content on the Internet. I would like to meet the clown from the patent office that pushed this through. This isn't just obvious - it's bloody trivial! Requirements: a bracket and two screws from you nearest hardware store. I'm guessing the reason why TomTom want to go to court: someone has to take a stand and get this nonsense out of the way. It's becoming ridiculous. Hope they have deep enough pockets to do it.
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6,202,008 Posted Feb 26, 2009 1:09 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] If you read the claims (which really define what has been patented) it's even more obvious. Claim 1 is, in its entirety:
A vehicle computer system comprising: a housing of a size suitable to be mounted in a vehicle dashboard; a computer mounted within the housing; an open platform operating system executing on the computer; and an Internet wireless link to provide access to the Internet. A smartphone in a little plastic holder would seem to qualify.
6,202,008 Posted Feb 26, 2009 1:24 UTC (Thu) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
or a laptop on a mount (like many police cars have had installed for a decade or more)
'sized appropriately' can mean just about anything
6,202,008 Posted Feb 26, 2009 9:55 UTC (Thu) by sjlyall (subscriber, #4151) [Link]
The movie Terminator 2 was released in 1991 and set in the early 1990s. 12 minutes into the movie a dashboard mounted computer is used to lookup records in a police database.
6,202,008 Posted Feb 26, 2009 10:19 UTC (Thu) by Zhaknafein (guest, #56868) [Link]
even before (1980), in The Blues Brothers movie, when the police uses a "computer" to look up Jack's driving license :)
Another film sighting Posted Feb 26, 2009 10:37 UTC (Thu) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link] That reminded me: Right near the begining the Wim Wenders film "Until the End of the World", we see the main character using an in-car computer that works much like a TomTom, except a bit smarter as it warns about a traffic jam ahead on its own. This sci-fi film was released in 1991, the events are supposed to happen in 1999-2000.From a gadget point of view this film is very interesting in other ways as well. The makers obviously tried very hard to predict what technology would realistically be common 10 years in the future, enlisting help from tech companies (Sony figures prominently in many gadgets). Some things they got tight, like very small video cameras and the afore-mentioned car navigator (although that was not yet very common in 1999), but curiously there are no mobile phones, the characters make calls from video-equipped phone booths instead. And no Internet.
Another film sighting Posted Feb 26, 2009 14:20 UTC (Thu) by klaasjan (guest, #5492) [Link]
"an in-car computer that works much like a TomTom, except a bit smarter as it warns about a traffic jam ahead on its own."
The high-end TomTom units contain a GPRS modem and report their position to a central server which is able to detect traffic jams by lots of slowing navigation units ;). So in exchange for TT knowing where you are you get an early warning about traffic jams.
Also, I suppose that's the "mobile internet" feature the patent is about.
Another film sighting Posted Feb 27, 2009 6:58 UTC (Fri) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link] Interesting, I didn't know about this feature. I wonder where Wender's team got the idea for the smart navigator shown in the film? Probably ideas related to it appeared in publications already in the 1980's (the film took a long time to make), and could be useful prior art for TomTom.
is there a place to contribute prior art? Posted Feb 26, 2009 1:29 UTC (Thu) by stevenj (guest, #421) [Link] Is there somewhere we can go to help point out prior art? The patent was files on 9/10/1999, so one needs to find examples of wireless-internet enabled car-mounted computers before then.A quick search on the Factiva news database turns up a number of obvious hits:
There were more, but the above already sound like enough to demolish this patent (or at least, that independent claim). And that's just press articles about commercial technology; I would be surprised if there weren't academic and hacker examples from long before that — Steve Mann has been making wearable computers with wireless networking since the early 1980s, after all!
is there a place to contribute prior art? Posted Feb 26, 2009 1:38 UTC (Thu) by stevenj (guest, #421) [Link] Actually, if I remember correctly, in the US you can file up to a year after disclosing your invention in public, so one actually needs prior art before 9/10/1998 to be airtight. But one of the press articles I already quoted was from before that, and it seems clear that finding even earlier examples should not be difficult.The really pathetic one is the Fortune article citing Microsoft on this topic from 7 September 1998, more than a year before they filed for the patent on their "invention"!
Filing after publication (in the US and *not* in thee EU) Posted Feb 26, 2009 2:45 UTC (Thu) by dps (subscriber, #5725) [Link]
In the EU any publication, which is broadly defined, prior to the filing date makes it impossible to obtain a patent, period. This is why RSA was never patented anywhere in the EU. There can be no doubt about the inventive steps and non-obviousness of RSA.
I believe the only thing the US allows is for those filing to exclude material they published themselves. If anyone else substantially discloses their invention prior to the filing date then that is prior art (and grounds for the patent application to be refused).
A fortune article prior to the filing date is probably sufficient unless Microsoft can somehow proved they published that. I suspect this is impossible even in Microsoft's universe.
Filing after publication (in the US and *not* in thee EU) Posted Feb 26, 2009 19:13 UTC (Thu) by pboddie (subscriber, #50784) [Link] There can be no doubt about the inventive steps and non-obviousness of RSA. That is maybe how you perceive that work, but there is plenty of material in the "History" section of the Wikipedia article on public-key cryptography (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_cryptography) to make a sound argument against granting monopolies on such works, let alone doing so in a near-arbitrary way based on the vagaries of some patent regime or other.
Filing after publication (in the US and *not* in thee EU) Posted Feb 27, 2009 15:20 UTC (Fri) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link]
Don't forget ... RSA had been *in* *use* for *seven* years before the patent was applied for.
GCHQ had been using it for secret-agent communications that long ...
Cheers,
is there a place to contribute prior art? Posted Mar 4, 2009 14:54 UTC (Wed) by fieroboom (guest, #56956) [Link]
Found a CarPC created in '87 based on an Atari game system:
http://www.dellabarba.com/ibug/FirstPC.html -Paul
is there a place to contribute prior art? Posted Feb 26, 2009 1:39 UTC (Thu) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] We don't necessarily need prior art, given the recent Bilski decision. The threshold for obviousness has been raised.But perhaps Microsoft hopes that if it sues on the basis of six questionable patents (or maybe more), at least one will stick.
Bilski Posted Feb 26, 2009 1:59 UTC (Thu) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link] Bilski isn't the one about obviousness -- it's the one about a new btest for software patentability: how much of a real-world effect does software have to produce in order to be a patentable process and not an unpatentable mathematical fact. KSR v. Teleflex was about the test for obviousness. We still don't know how the two tests will interact.
6,202,008 Posted Feb 26, 2009 2:40 UTC (Thu) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]
I haven't read (and would prefer not to for reasons LWN has discussed previously) this set of claims. But does it ever talk about a housing /not/ mounted in the dashboard?
TomTom's main range of products mounts on the windscreen glass, which is clearly not the dashboard. The usual construction of patent claims is to either add to or expand on the first claim (which is nearly always so trivial it should never have passed examination), but they sometimes miss a trick. It would be amusing if one of their patents is rendered useless by a lawyer's assumption that "mounted in the dashboard" was how new devices would inevitably be added to a motor vehicle. A lot of unusual engineering solutions in the everyday world are the way they are, despite being non-optimal, to sidestep the wording of a patent.
6,202,008 Posted Feb 26, 2009 5:51 UTC (Thu) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link] A smartphone in a little plastic holder would seem to qualify.Does it even have to be a smartphone? All cellular phones are basically network-linked computers. "Hands-free" kits for cellular phones have been available about as long as there has been hand-held cellular phones. These hold the phone and provide an external speaker, maybe also a microphone and antenna connection.
6,202,008 Posted Feb 27, 2009 1:50 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
I remember reading an Australian patent once (from Motorola, I think) that had claims to the effect of an electronic device that has software capable of downloading and applying an update to itself. I mean, stuff like that is what your reasonably bright high school kid would come up with. It is entirely ridiculous to give people monopolies over ideas like that.
Unfortunately, powerful lobby groups control the legislation and most people are under the impression that monopoly rights such as copyright and patent are some kind of natural human right. In the meantime, they are the ones paying for it. World really is a strange place...
Microsoft sues TomTom Posted Feb 26, 2009 9:41 UTC (Thu) by k3ninho (subscriber, #50375) [Link]
I don't know if any TomTom has the 'Internet wireless link to provide access to the Internet' which, because it's in every independent claim, is an essential feature of the patent.
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