The Real Inventor of Wireless Email? 106
theodp writes "The NY Times reports on Geoff Goodfellow, possibly the real inventor of wireless e-mail, who says NTP was concerned that his earlier work might undermine its patent claims and went to some lengths to ensure that it did not, including gagging Goodfellow during the RIM lawsuit. Not only did high-school dropout Goodfellow - who hung out as a teen in the lab of Doug Englebart -
describe wireless e-Mail in 1982, he implemented it in the early 1990's."
Ya know... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ya know... (Score:5, Insightful)
What puzzles me is how RiM failed to get in touch with him anyway. According to TFA, RiM was part of the partnership that brought RadioMail to market.
Re:Ya know... (Score:1, Insightful)
Buttered and Toasted, beware the NDA. (Score:5, Insightful)
It looks hypocritical but it should be a lesson to all of us. First, they flattered him by remembering who he was. Then they just wanted to talk to him to learn more of that history. Then came the "standard" NDA. The alarm bells should have sounded, but he was too close to the picture to even imagine what he knew was hard to find out. You can only imagine what kind of threats they could have leveled at him after he signed. The lesson here is that NDAs are always anti-social and have the potential for greater harm than you might realize. I can only hope that this backfires bigtime on the lawyers. In the meantime, beware and seek independent legal help when things don't seem right. Hiding evidence sure sounds like a crime. [slashdot.org]
RIM will not comment on the situation because they too are restrained. As the fine article has it:
"The moral of the story is that for a long time now the patent system has been misused," said Mitchell D. Kapor, founder of the Lotus Development Corporation, the software publisher, and an adviser to Mr. Goodfellow in the early 1990's. "If it had been properly used, NTP would never have been issued its patents, and they never would have had a basis to pursue a lawsuit against R.I.M."
They had the basis and they extracted the payment and fear of an injunction is going to keep them quit, forever:
Although the NTP patents have been tentatively invalidated by the United States Patent Office, a jury upheld NTP's infringement suit in 2002, and R.I.M. chose to settle the legal fight for fear of a federal court injunction against its popular service.
Half of the burn you smell is provided by NDAs. Non disclosure is an enemy of the truth and that's where abuse happens.
Re:Buttered and Toasted, beware the NDA. (Score:2)
those aren't lawyers, they're comedians. check out this gem FTA :
Re:Buttered and Toasted, beware the NDA. (Score:1)
If RiM decided to depose him, there is little NTP could have done about it (in terms of suing him for breach of contract). RiM would have had to have some idea what questions to ask, since perhaps Goodfellow couldn't be too 'helpful' during the deposition, but they wouldn't have been able to stop him from talking to them.
The catch would have be
Re:Ya know... (Score:1)
I heartily encourage him to work hard for little reward and for my improved quality of life.
Re:Ya know... (Score:2)
Hypocritical would have been using the patent system for his own financial gain but, even then, business is amoral to begin with. The real hypocrites are those who realized that prior art existed and sought to prevent evidence of it from coming to light.
Re:Ya know... (Score:2)
Hypocritical would have been using the patent system for his own financial gain
Er, which is what he did. He took 20K to keep his mouth shut about a miscarriage of justice involving the patent system.
business is amoral to begin with
Only because it's run by immoral people who try to pass off their immorality by claiming that because they are in business they should be allowed to act like shits and not be run out of town on a rail. The simple answer to which is: "shut the fuck up and get on the rail befor
No (Score:2)
The thing that makes my mind boggle a bit, is that RIM doesn't seem to have made a big deal out of this. You'd think if you were trying to defend agaisnt a patent, you might try to invalidate that patent by point out prior art. Yes?
The impression I came away from this with is there's a guy who invented a great concept, walked away when the instance went belly-up and happily got on with his life.
There's NTP
Re:Ya know... (Score:1)
A great reason to be against patents is when they squelch innovation, but if we could all be creative and something we create takes off I'm sure we'd all want some sort of compensation. Be that compensation material wealth, recognition, or simply the joy that what we made is helping others, it doesn't matter, we all probably want some compensation.
OMG, a comms channel. We could, like, communicate! (Score:5, Insightful)
I get steamed when people suggest that every new combination of communications channel and message format is an invention. A new communications channel is an invention, and a new communication format is an invention, but merely thinking "hey, we could do that over this"?
I think not.
Re:OMG, a comms channel. We could, like, communica (Score:2, Funny)
Re:OMG, a comms channel. We could, like, communica (Score:2)
Re:OMG, a comms channel. We could, like, communica (Score:2)
(people took more care of the language in those days)
Re:OMG, a comms channel. We could, like, communica (Score:2)
*) While high also implies such concepts as "on weed", "stoned" and any other such concept derivable from THC based mind fuck.
Re:OMG, a comms channel. We could, like, communica (Score:4, Funny)
My goodness - they did things like invent the 'aloha' protocal that's still in use today on various media.
Nothing's new...
FP.
Re:OMG, a comms channel. We could, like, communica (Score:5, Interesting)
Thomas Jefferson, the original formulator of what is and is not patentable in America would disagree with you somewhat. He was rather stricter in his ideas of what was a patentable invention, i.e., the sort of invention that could be given a government enforced monopoly on copying.
He understood the difference between invention as an idea which could be passed mind to mind and no man or government has the right to control and the invention which was a device which required manufacturing; and thus could be held as a monopoly by force of arms.
Under Jefferson the Morse Code would not have been patenable, because it is a just an alternative alphabet. A pure abstract idea; and one already prevelant at that.
It was the telegraph that was patentable.
KFG
Re:OMG, a comms channel. We could, like, communica (Score:3, Interesting)
WTF do I care what some guy who's been dead for a few centuries *may* have thought? I've got two centuries of history on him, in a field (human innovation) which has evolved beyond his possible imaginings. If you want to resurrect him and get him up to speed opn what he missed, I'd love to talk it over with him. But speculating on what he may have thought absent such knowledge, and worse y
Re:OMG, a comms channel. We could, like, communica (Score:3, Interesting)
Jefferson is one of the people that helped write the Constitution, wrote quite a few papers back in the day pertaining to our government, and generally set the mood until Andrew Jackson came along and screwed everything up. We know quite clearly what he intended because he wrote about it. Same with the other founding fathers. Anyway, the beauty of this is that we don't care what technology you use. We only care about what it does. Yes, technology moves on. But the basic fundamentals of how it works, remarka
Re:OMG, a comms channel. We could, like, communica (Score:1)
No. Jefferson did not help write the Constitution. It was primarily written by Madison. Jefferson was not at the Constitutional Convention, he was in France.
Jefferson didn't like the Constitution.
Re:OMG, a comms channel. We could, like, communica (Score:2)
Re:OMG, a comms channel. We could, like, communica (Score:2)
What kind of lights? e.g. should using LEDs vs incandscent lamps mean a different patent? Does it matter which colour light is used? What about using non-visible light...
The way things are at the moment you could probably get a patent on sending Morse code by waving a flag (so long as nobody else beats you to the patent office.)
I get steamed when people suggest that every new combination of communications channel and message format i
Re:OMG, a comms channel. We could, like, communica (Score:1)
1. Doing something wirelessly that is now done with wires.
Why? The point of a wireless network is to make it transparent to the higher application layer as to whether it's wireless or wired.
Now, that doesn't mean a particular implementation can't be patented -- there's plenty of room for clever solutions to do things wirelessly to overcome the lag and chatty interaction problems.
2. Simulation of any real-world, or real-worldish thing on a com
Re:OMG, a comms channel. We could, like, communica (Score:2)
Re:OMG, a comms channel. We could, like, communica (Score:2)
Re:OMG, a comms channel. We could, like, communica (Score:2)
Re:OMG, a comms channel. We could, like, communica (Score:2)
Re:OMG, a comms channel. We could, like, communica (Score:1)
Fucking Marconi. [wikipedia.org] The art, she does not get much more prior.
Wallace should be disbarred and fined (Score:5, Insightful)
For those reasons alone NTP should also have its relevant patents revoked and RIM shouldn't be paying a dime to them.
Re:Wallace should be disbarred and fined (Score:2, Insightful)
NTP is already close to certain to lose their patents. Under the threat of an injunction, RIM was forced to pay $600 million to NTP, nonrefundable. NTP knew that their patents would fall, so they made sure there was no "give it back if your patents are finally declared bogus, with no more appeals" conditions.
Re:Wallace should be disbarred and fined (Score:2)
Re:Wallace should be disbarred and fined (Score:2)
"erroneous"?
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Re:Wallace should be disbarred and fined (Score:1)
Stiffer penalties (Score:1, Interesting)
"including gagging Goodfellow during the lawsuit" (Score:5, Insightful)
To me the most interesting part of the article was Yet another brilliant illustration why patents don't help independent inventors. Is there a site collecting all these stories?
Tesla did it (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.teslascience.org/ [teslascience.org]
His equipment was not very portable though.
Is there any validity to this patent (Score:5, Insightful)
This is where patents break down, when people simply mash two patents together and feel they are justified for having a patent based on other people's work. Wireless communcations is patented, as well as the concept of email. Someone saying, hey, lets patent wireless-email should be shot.
I am sure there were inherent difficulties and specific problems that had to be resolved before making wireless email work properly, but come on. This is the application of two existing patented process, not the INVENTION of a new process.
This is why patents are failing to encourage innovation, because people with a law degree are simply taking combinations of other peoples inventions, mashing them together, and hoping that someone one day might use the right combination of inventions so they can sue them in courts for stealing their "innovation".
Patents are stifling innovation because they are being filed by people with no intention of developing the process, simply sitting on them until someone that actually makes the idea work is successful enough to earn them millions in a lawsuit for infringement.
Patents are shyster documents designed to make shysters richer.
Re:Is there any validity to this patent (Score:2)
Total crap.
Re:Is there any validity to this patent (Score:2)
I gu
Re:Is there any validity to this patent (Score:2)
Wrong tense, email (in a form recognisable as that which we use now) was invented over 30 years ago. A patent from then would have expired, even if patents did last that long telegrams and telex messages predate "email" and rely on electrical/electronic telecommunications.
Just because the transport medium is wireless instead of over a wire, is there any validity in a patent for "wireless" email?
There's also the issue of why
Re:Is there any validity to this patent (Score:2)
Very few things are done for the first time (Score:5, Insightful)
Very few things are really done for the very first time.
A high-school dropout, Mr. Goodfellow had his light-bulb moment in 1982, when he came up with the idea of sending electronic mail messages wirelessly to a portable device -- like a BlackBerry.
Morse code to portable radios is WW I and field radios would qualify as a message over wireless to a portable device.
See Wiki wireless [wikipedia.org] and note the part about telegraphs being sent.
The sum of it is this guy is a publicity whore and these patents are all frivolous so should be treated as such. Or perhaps it is more correct to say all these patents are patents on prior art. Take you pick, like NTP they are fraudsters.
Re:Very few things are done for the first time (Score:3, Informative)
Only to the extent that anybody who has a product that they're selling is a publicity whore. Yes, Geoff did an implementation of wireless email many years ago, and was arguably the first inventor of it. At some trade show I went to, he had hired women to walk around like cigarette girls with a laptop and attached radio to invite people to send wireless email.
Re:Very few things are done for the first time (Score:2)
"Portable" radios were probably around for quite a while before. WWI simply encouraged them to be developed to be more rugged and easily portable. Wars tend to have this effect on any technology useful in fighting a war.
Goodnight? (Score:2, Informative)
Am I missing something? Maybe theodp needs some sleep?
Radiomail? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, it's [google.com] a good [interesting-people.org] thing google [vt.edu] wasn't around [palmtoppaper.com] at the time [highbeam.com] to help.
Sheesh, I knew that RIM was getting some of their own medicine, so I was only partially sympathetic (both companies deserve a good legal slapping for pursuing such ridiculously obvious patents), but I had no idea NTP was THAT scummy. They knew about prior art. They hired the guy that was practically the embodiment of that prior art -- a guy that didn't merely have something on paper, but actually once ran a business on the principles NTP claimed to be a novel invention at the time of its patents. And they paid him to sign a contract to shut up.
Can this Mr. Wallace be disbarred for such unethical behaviour?
Re:Radiomail? (Score:2)
My understanding of the patent system is that you are required to reveal all prior art of which you are aware. Otherwise your patent is invalid. Er, or something like that. Anyway, not disclosing prior art is a Bozo no-no [snopes.com].
Re:Radiomail? (Score:2)
And I'm pretty sure I have a RadioMail t-shirt hanging around the attic somewhere.
Re:Radiomail? (Score:3)
Re:Radiomail? (Score:1)
electronic messages from wireless modems and channels them into the
Internet, which makes them instantaneously available to computer
users around the planet. Within seconds of the quake's beginning,
Mr. Opfer flashed a message to a broad list of subscribers around
the nation."
Wow.
patents AKA fraud/extortion (Score:1)
Typo (Score:5, Funny)
We need more Goodeditors.
Re:Typo (Score:1)
Re:Typo (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Typo (Score:2)
Lemme gues, he's working at Goodmail [goodmailsystems.com].
A new patent frenzy... this time it's wireless! (Score:2)
IPL A) "My client patented 'wireless' streaming media!, time for a lawsuit party!"
IPL B) "hold on, my client patented 'wireless' one-click buying... you won't get very far with that streaming media without me!"
IPL C) "Hey now, my client patented 'wireless' media plugins for 'wireless' browsers'... neither of you gets bupkiss without me!
IPL D) "Haha, my client trumps you all... 'wireless' Linux!"
IPLs A
Nothing like thinking ahead... (Score:2)
IANAL (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:IANAL (Score:5, Interesting)
Wireless Email Prior Art (Score:4, Insightful)
SMTP over packet radio? Decades ago, not just nineties.
Packet radio (Score:1)
Look at 73 magazine from the 70's. (Score:2)
RTTY in WWII (Score:1)
Invent??? (Score:2)
What about amateur radio? (Score:2, Informative)
The patent (Score:2, Interesting)
From my understanding, the patent in dispute here has to do with the ability to "push" email content to a device. RIM's solution to this was, as I understand, to change their methodology so that the client software asks "Do you want to read this?" and then PULLS the message instead.
If my understanding of it is correct, that's one helluva frivilous patent.
Re:The patent (Score:2)
And the second is kind of like, oh, POP, or IMAP?
Re:The patent (Score:1)
I'm not really sure, but that's probably a good analogy. I just find it rather crude that something so basic as push/pull of content could be "patented" and cause as much legal drama as it has.
It is a "method" but one that isn't entirely original. It's really a basic functionality of many different subsystems.
What if the NTP patent is invalidated? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wow.. (Score:2)
text of telecom digest 2:33 (Score:5, Informative)
other implementations in the early 90s (Score:1)
The Eon implementation used the I
Predating Geoff Goodfellow (Score:1)
I saw a Demo .... (Score:2)
I told my superiors they should get involved because it was insanely handy. To this day, I wonder if that's where the basic tech came from those guys.
I once heard some kind of pop star say, "more money. more problems." I think that sums it up pretty good.
I did packet radio email in the 1980's (Score:3, Informative)
There ought to be a death penalty for frivolous or fraudulent packet claims.
Honest Doubt of Wireless Email Patentability (Score:2)
The real real inventor! (Score:1)
Seriously.
- IP
From the TTY of Geoffrey S Goodfellow (Score:2)
Isn't he the dude with the TTY [google.com]?
-Don