Comments on: Comcast, Time Warner And Charter Sued Over Modems

By: Chetan Shah

Chetan Shah — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 14:04:58 +0000

DHT, You are not an authority either or a glorified bully. Open Standards are meant to be implemented for the benefit of the end users. Company voted for their so called proprietary standards to go main stream for their benefit. They should make products and sell them instead of taking this route to sue other companies who have maximized it potential. Remember Verizon suing Vonage. Companies try to prevent their technology from use for the fear of losing the benefit they have vested in currently. New technology may make them obsolete. However, they patent them and then try to run their competitor if they are in infringement. Most of the patents applied are silly. It should be applied on a break through and not tweaks of the break through to present old wine in a new bottle.

As a side discussion we know that the US government owns every development it has nurtured be it in internet, wireless, spread-spectrum or medical research. They own the rights on every product commercialized from. US G should go after those companies to get their due sure. This will wipe out our deficit.

By: DHT

DHT — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 08:44:27 +0000

John, you have no idea what you’re talking about… IEEE802.11a/g/n Standard did not pass until late 1990′s and early 2000′s… Wi-LAN was instrumental in voting for the Standards and had notified the IEEE members that it had fundamental patents in this area promising (FRAND) Fair licensing terms to companies planning to use the technology… I suggest you do some due diligence… Ask Intel (and gang), why they are being sued in E. Texas… and why they will lose big time comes January 4, 2011.

By: John

John — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 23:12:18 +0000

suing over a format…that’s ridiculous…so anyone who uses .mp3 as a format should be sued, what a joke..802.11 protocols were founded in the 1980, in America, I went to school for this stuff…802.11 got its name from the date it was founded: February<2> 11th <11>, 1980 <80>, if some research was done by this company claiming to own these formats, they would not try suing over what is not theirs

By: Joe Mullin

Joe Mullin — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 22:12:21 +0000

@MattR, if any companies actually paid for a license to the patent pre-2007, that license should stay in place even after the patent changes hands. So those companies could not be sued.

But it’s much more likely that this patent simply wasn’t enforced until now. Before 2007 it was owned by a few different small entities, which were probably under the control of the two inventors.

The patent was filed in 1997, and the patent owner is allowed to claim up to six years of damages, by law—whether the alleged infringers knew about the patent or not.

By: MattR

MattR — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 20:47:59 +0000

What about cable modems manufactured before 2007 – at which time it was sold to WiLan – subject to vagaries of patent sale and enforcement after the fact? If WiLan did not commence enforcement of their patent rights until late 2010, how are the modems made 2007-2010 different from those made before? Obviously I am not a patent lawyer, but cannot fathom how a patent can be sold and then subject the companies and services who used and licensed the patent to penalties which previously hadn’t applied.