http://msmobiles.com/news.php/4684.html

so much for people wanting to use MS "push" if BB gets shot down (that hopefully wont happend)

Guess its time for Microsoft/RIM to team up and buy the 2 others.

These patent companies suck. Why don't these people actually develope and patent something of their own. I do not think I could in good faith, patent something I did not develope, and charge millions of dollars to people who come remotely close to "my product" in the process of actually creating something of their own. Not to mention a product that is becoming "the norm" when it comes to any smartphone. Someone should go back and patent everything else that the consumer should expect with a phone...ringtone, voicemail. With the way things look now I am sure it could be done. What a bunch of lazy asses.

Just had to vent.

i think it was a wrong move to mess with Microsoft, Bill does not let up that easy. And i am sure that meeting that Bill had with Mike this past fall was to do something about this. I see a good fight and both RIM and Microsoft will come out on top.

Visto is not a patent holding company. They are a manufacturer of push email, ie, a competitor of RIMM, Good and, very soon, MSFT. The patents they are suing about are patents actually designed and implemented in their products.

Isn't it convenient that Visto is now partially owned by NTP?

Yes, Visto does actually have a competing product, so they don't quite fit the "patent troll" mold. I just find it a little fishy that they filed papers on M$ the same day they announced an agreement with NTP where NTP now has a partial share in Visto and Visto has full rights to NTP's patents.....hmmmmm, how convienent.

Whoops....posted the same comment at the same time

Awfully "good" of us to figure that one out, eh?

LOL.....did a patent holding company get you to say that?

NTP actually once had a wireless delivery product, though. Keep that in mind.

My bad. Guess I flew off the handle with that one before I researched the facts. I really dont think that any service will be stopped. I just hate the idea of a company who simply holds patents and waits for the first sucker who comes close to infringing (even moreso if they had no place in the development of that product in the first place...but I was wrong on that to begin with).

Did they? What was it?

As for NTP having ownership in Visto and Good, I think people are putting to much into that. Yes, they have a stake, however, Visto has been around for 10 years and has recently what looks like about $180 million in funding over the last 4 years. Good has been around 5 years and has received over $200 in funding in the last three years. There is not NTP member sitting on either board. I seriously doubt the equity stake that NTP has in Good gives NTP much control. However, I do agree that the timing of the suit against MSFT by Visto is a bit...well..suspicious.

NTP ownership in Visto and Good is merely the payoff for not being sued over the disputed patents..

Guess NTP didn't want to take on M$ by themselves? Probably the only time I'll say this crush'em or buy'em Bill!

Thomas Campana developed and patented a method of sending e-mail to wireless pagers for AT&T - this was in the late 1980's. AT&T wanted to add wireless e-mail to a laptop they had acquired. The technology was never used at that time, but the patents remained with Campana. I apologize about my comment earlier - no product was ever actually implemented and sold as a result of his development (not to say it couldn't though - just the technology was a bit premature). This is where NTP was established by Campana and his patent attorney. Campana died last summer, and thus, the attorney now runs the holding company.

So its not a matter of him never actually developing the technology and holding a broad patent over something that was nothing more than a visualization of technological possibilities - however, the patent is broad enough to extend to all wireless devices and wireless e-mail delivery technology that falls under the same sort of general idea (hence why some question the 'workaround' from RIM).

Ahhh...OK. I thought I had read somewhere about Campana and AT&T, but I thought I had missed something about an actual product.

Believe me, while RIMM is obviously the 800 pound gorilla that Good is battling, I think NTP are patent trolls. One side of me is glad that Good licensed the patents (being that they expire in 6 years, at least it won't be an ongoing payment) so that they can't come after us. The other side of me wants to see NTP get nothing and like it.

If NTP losses and all their patents are voided, does that also mean that Good and others like them that paid to license these patents would also stop paying NTP or would those licensing agreements live on?

Beyond what the articles are saying, companies like NTP are not a good thing to have around. If they would have had a product that was in line with what is currently available and actually tried to compete in the market in the last decade, I'd be more than supportive of their agenda, but unfortunately, their patent is based on a broad idea that was developed for a different purpose, time and technology almost 20 years ago.

To be honest, I'm glad to see someone associated with NTP and basing their case on NTP's patents going against the beast that is Microsoft. Looks like this could be the basis of a huge victory for the major players of wireless email when all is said and done. Let's just hope a precedent is not set with RIM in a negative manner before Microsoft has the chance to stomp Visto and NTP.

I looked at the patents that Visto is talking about. Pretty broad they are from reading the abstracts:

6,085,192 System and method for securely synchronizing multiple copies of a workspace element in a network

6,708,221 System and method for globally and securely accessing unified information in a computer network

6,151,606 System and method for using a workspace data manager to access, manipulate and synchronize network data

It's my understanding that Microsoft has in the past, paid off patent trolls like Stout because they are cash rich and don't want the hassle of dealing with creeps like NTP.

http://www.eeproductcenter.com/showP...icleID=X299047

so visto lost to 7 and now hits MS.

If it wasnt so sad that one can get so generic patents it would actually be funny.

edit

ah good one "Visto Corporation is embroiled in numerous lawsuits with suppliers of mobile information technologies, in an apparent effort to confuse the market ,defer attention from its own market performance, and impede true innovation.

http://www.seven.com/news/press_rele...demarkOff.html

have you read this one this morning?
news

I had posted a bit ago that Nextel has told me they would not be affected via a shutdown. I guess this backs that statement?