Facebook and Snap jam Blackberry patent suit

Facebook and Snap are pushing to have the patents behind Blackberry's massive infringement suit invalidated and thrown out. The two companies last week both filed (PDF) motions to dismiss their respective cases on the grounds the four patents cited by Blackberry in its complaints were invalid for use in court. Blackberry …

[John Brown (no body)]

The "Alice" standard

"Both of the motions ask the court to apply the standard established in Alice vs CLS Bank, an infringement case that has become the basis for testing whether a concept is specific enough to warrant a patent."

Does anyone know, if the US Patent Office is applying this standard to patent applications made since then? You know, what with them being the "experts" and the "competent body" in this field, instead of passing everything and leaving an overstretched court system to deal with the fall out.

[Voland's right hand]

Re: The "Alice" standard

Does anyone know, if the US Patent Office is applying this standard t

They are. In their version Alice is in Wonderland though.

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: The "Alice" standard

instead of passing everything

Oh, good, this canard again.

The USPTO publishes these statistics online. The grant rate is around 50%. That may well be too high (or too low), but it is a far cry from "everything".

Five seconds of research, and you might have a substantive argument. I know, I know - that's too much work.

[Duncan Macdonald]

Competent ???????

The only way that the word competent belongs in the same paragraph as the US Patent Office is when it has the modifying letters "in" prefixed to it.

The only way to get the Patent Office to do its job is to change the pricing - patent granted - normal fee, patent rejected - double fee. This would make it in the Patent Office's interest to reject patents rather than automatically approve them.

[Herby]

At least...

The case isn't heard in the eastern Texas district court in Tyler. Many cases have gone down that rathole.

[Ian Michael Gumby]

Blackberry has a good case and chance to win...

The fact that they have the actual patent, FB is going to spend $$$$$$$ in an attempt to invalidate the patent.

The downside... every case where they do this... it weakens their own patent portfolio by showing why most software patents are BS and should never have been granted in the first place.

[Maelstorm]

Re: Blackberry has a good case and chance to win...

Not entirely true. The USPTO, with the backing of Congress, has created a process called the IPR (Inter Partes Review), which was recently upheld as constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 7-2 decision. This came about because of a problem with patent trolls, which is what Blackberry has been mostly relegated to these days. So for a sum in the low 6 figures, you can have the PTAB (Patent Trial and Appeal Board) of the USPTO review the patent and see if it meets the mark or not.

Apple cites figures of USD $350,000 for a PTAB review vs. a USD $3,000,000 cost for a district court review.

[Ian Michael Gumby]

Re: Blackberry has a good case and chance to win...

You have a strange definition of 'patent troll'.

Patents are IP which mean that they have value and can be bought and sold. A patent troll is someone who buys patents with the sole purpose of extorting companies to pay licensing fees which is the only source of revenue for said company.

Blackberry isn't a Patent Troll by any sort of the word since the patents in question originated w Blackberry.

(Would you call Motorola, Nokia, Ericson or other tech companies which sue to protect their IP and licensing revenue patent trolls? )

Even still, the point I was making was that the patent is in place and the burden of proof to overturn the patent relies on the IPR, FB and Snap. (Assuming that FB and Snap can get the IPR to review the patents. ) If not, then they have to go to Court. And even then they may not be successful.

That is to say that FB and Snap have an uphill battle where they have to show why Blackberry's patents should be invalidated.

Because of this... the odds are in Blackberry's favor.

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope that BB wins

if only to give super slurp Facebook a bit of a bloody nose.

{Not on FB and never will be and I don't care what shit gets posted there about me as I'll never see it. The same goes for all other Social Media sites}

[DMoy]

Re: I hope that BB wins

Just wonderin', how could anyone "post shit about [you]" if you're anonymous? No one would know about whom to post.

[Velv]

Alice?

Did anyone else need to go google to find out who Alice was?

[Ian Michael Gumby]

Re: Alice?

Didn't she chase the white rabbit?