🚀 go-pugleaf

John Navas wrote:
> [POSTED TO alt.cellular.cingular - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]
> 
> In <9h86g.27768$iB2.5506@bignews4.bellsouth.net> on Wed, 03 May 2006 20:24:45
> GMT, rico_001@hotmail.com (Rico) wrote:
> 
>> In article <t756g.21969$Fs1.21112@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>, John Navas <spamfilter0@navasgroup.com> wrote:
>>> VISTO WINS MOBILE EMAIL VERDICT AGAINST SEVEN NETWORKS,
>>> FILES ACTION AGAINST RESEARCH IN MOTION (RIM)
>>> <http://www.visto.com/news/releases/06_05_01_seven.html>
>>> [SNIP]
> 
>> I read somewhere (boy is that a good source) that vs RIM the Visto claims 
>> maybe a bit more tenuous. Of course time and a trail will tell us how valid 
>> that observation is.
> 
> That the patents have been upheld in court would seem to put Visto in a very
> strong position, since the most common defense against patent infringement is
> to claim that the patents are invalid.  RIM would thus seem to be left with
> the usually harder argument that it's not actually infringing the patents.

As I understand it, US courts initially do not look at the patent as 
such, they look only at the patenting process. If that follows the 
rules, then the patent is "valid." Whether the patent covers a 
patentable process is a different issue, and one that the courts may 
rule on only if the alleged infringer brings non-patentability as a 
defense. Moreover, AFAIK even if a patent is eventually declared invalid 
by the Patent Office, and that ruling is used as a defense, the courts 
generally deem the patent was valid until the time the Patent Office 
said otherwise. Which IMO is absurd.

There is a wrinkle on which I would like some clarification. Suppose RIM 
could show that it used the allegedly patented process(es) prior to the 
filing or granting of the patent: would that not be prima facie evidence 
that Visto did not invent the process(es), and therefore has no claim?

Another wrinkle: Suppose RIM could show that the processes it uses, and 
which Visto claims are their property, were in fact widely known and 
understood before RIM itself applied them to its technology, would that 
not be prima facie evidence that Visto's claims are void?

I'm waiting for some leech to patent the answer to a first year 
electronics course problem -- if that hasn't been done already.