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Feb 06, 08 - 10:44 am Comment from: Jimbo von Winskinheimer

Wow, how long before the patent laws in this country are revamped to catch up to the 21st century? Many of the technical patents should be voided because they are extensions of currently existing technology. We pulled up email "visually" before the visual voice mail ever came into being. Visual voice mail is a logical step from visual email, yet someone is making a buttload of money in litigation with these companies.

Hmmmm,
Maybe once Pres. Bush is gone, we can get to the business of actually running this country instead of just making money for big business.

These lawsuits that are totally BS need to be stopped.

Just a thought. :-(

They are signing these up for free...and a commission later for anything they get from the big boys.

It is ridiculous that they have any kind of enforceable patent on visual voicemail.

Why hasn't someone got a patent on all touchphones?

Feb 06, 08 - 11:19 am Comment from: Gandalf

Maybe they're not making loads of money yet. These settlements are on undisclosed terms, maybe the settlement was Klausner giving GotVoice $100K just to do a nice press release and a little acting.

The settlements are to put pressure on Apple and to set precedents so that when Klausner and Apple get to court Klausner can say look all these others have settled, they realized the value of our IP, Apple is just holding out etc.

Don't worry about the patent laws, worry about the Chinese. Highest average IQ and the hardest working students who are very keen to learn, also they have the most people. A few decades hence China may well be outsourcing low skilled manufacturing jobs to the NAU (that's the North American Union).

Feb 06, 08 - 12:09 pm Comment from: Think

The last time this news surfaced, someone here said there was prior art on an old computer, Amiga maybe. Can't remember what system it was.

Anyone remember?

IBM Rolm phones, maybe?

Feb 06, 08 - 12:56 pm Comment from: KingMel

@Jimbo von Winskinheimer - you read my mind. Thanks for saving a few electrons. What kind of crap is a patent like this?

I'm going to patent a toilet paper printer. The paper comes in rolls, various scents and textures, and you will never run out of paper unless you have a family. Plus, you can receive hardcopies while you are on the can.

Feb 06, 08 - 01:10 pm Comment from: theloniousMac

@en

"...Maybe once Pres. Bush is gone, we can get to the business of actually running this country instead of just making money for big business. ..."

Your political naivete is that of a 10 year old. Are you a 10 year old? Big business and small business employes the vast majority of Americans in this country. Where do you think people work for crying out loud?

In addition, your assertion that making money for big business is somehow evil reveals that economics isn't one of your strong suits.

On top of that, you might be surprised to learn that preventing these sorts of frivolous law suits is something you and President Bush and most conservatives have in common. Republicans and Libertarians are strongly in favor of tort reform as well as fixing the patent system, WHICH WOULD HELP BIG BUSINESS, as well as small business.

You need to read a few, no quite a few books, and start thinking before tossing out the garbage that passes for your opinion, or do you just figure getting your opinion from Oprah is good enough?

Feb 06, 08 - 01:22 pm Comment from: theloniousMac

In 2007 the Supreme Court rulining in KSR V. Teleflex made it much harder to get new patents and to defend existing ones. The ruling seemed to underscore the new patent-law reform tenet that "obvious inventions are not patentable."

Apple has the money to fight this using KSR V. Teleflex as precedent. They could chose to pay to make the nuisance go away, but do everyone a favor if they fought, won, and established further precedent.


For more on KSR V. Teleflex see: http://www.friedfrank.com/index.cfm?pageID=41&itemID=1050&scID=65

@en, you do realize that the Clinton, Obama and Edwards are all lawyers, right? And, the large law lobbies all support the Dems, right?

Feb 06, 08 - 01:38 pm Comment from: theloniousMac

@KenC

In fact, Democrats including the infamous Howard "Never Met a Lobbyist I didn't like" Berman and Patrick Leahy introduced a Patent Reform Bill in 2007 that would make law suits like this easier. One fundamental aspect of their bill would switch the patent system from a first to invent system to a first to file system.

Back in the day I worked for a record company. We tried to figure out how to sell music online. My idea was to allow people to order custom CDs online. We came up with an entire system and applied for a patent. By the time we actually got the paper work in, CDs were getting cheaper, and people were making their own. Didn't seem like the idea would go anywhere.

Not too long ago, some of the folks I worked with contacted me about suing Apple over patent infringement with iTunes.

After I finished coughing up blood from laughing so hard, I explained to them that it was ridiculous. I was talking about selling CDs in the early 90s, not downloading digital content directly. Just cause the content was music doesn't make the ideas anywhere near the same. Not to mention the fact that we never actually finished getting a patent.

People will sue for anything as long as there is a buck to make.

There needs to be some kind of provision for someone who actually takes an idea to fruition tbecause searching for patents is ridiculously difficult.

Has anyone noticed that you always seem to hear about Apple patents being filed shortly before products are released? They seem to wait to the last second.

George Bush used to be a cheerleader!
http://mindprod.com/politics/bushismsgay.html

Turn on your Gaydar!

Feb 06, 08 - 11:44 pm Comment from: Swordmaker

@Think

Yes, I remember it because I was the poster. We used a couple of Great Valley Products (GVP) PhonePak VFX in an Amiga 2000 at our Dental Office circa 1991-1994 to manage phone messages, answering the phone and taking messages during closed hours, and receive faxes.

The PhonePak is an integrated FAX and Voice Mail full length Zorro II card. Multiple PhonePaks can be used in the same machine, sharing the mailboxes. The PhonePak is compatible with the PSTN, CentreX, PBX and DTMF (Touch Tone) standards. The PhonePak has two RCA connectors, one is a line-in for digitizing the sound (via the Yamaha YTM 401 voice chip) and the second is a line-out for passing the audio to another device, such as speakers. The card has two RJ-11 phone connectors, one attaches to the phone line, whilst the other is used to attach a telephone handset. A variety of applications and tools were supplied with the card, but the primary programs LineMan and PhonePak are used to providing the answering service and the mailboxes, with full AREXX support. Voice mail is recorded at 9600bps and can be played back through the Amiga's native sound or via the telephone. The PhonePak supports group III faxes at 9,600 with 2,400 fallback. Both compressed and uncompressed faxes are supported and saved in the Amiga's standard IFF FAXX format.

Phone messages could be selected from a visual list for listening. The system was able to work with Caller ID... but only displayed the caller's phone number. But that was sufficient to select certain numbers for priority listening from the list. That meets the criteria for being Visual Voice Mail.

everyone wants a piece of the pie.

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