Talk:NTP, Inc.

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Contents 1 "Conviction" used incorrectly 2 Discussion of patents 3 NTP Sues Verizon, AT&T, Sprint Nextel and TMobile 4 Request: can someone figure out when the relevant patents were filed

[edit] "Conviction" used incorrectly

TFA states "conviction for patent infringement." Meh. This wasn't a criminal case. --Gtcaz 06:56, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I've fixed it. In the future, if you see any mistakes in an article, you should be bold and just fix them. --Terry Carroll 15:25, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion of patents

Is there a discussion of items in the patent somewhere? I can personally think of 3 prior art that could refute subsections of NTA patent. --Hans Schulze 2007/09/12

Hans, There are direct links to copies of the patents on the patents page. What you need to do is look at the claims of each patent and the priority date. If your references disclose all of the elements of any given claim and they are published earlier than the priority date of a given patent, then they could potentially invalidate the patent.--Nowa 11:11, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

To see the arguments that have already been presented to invalidate the patents, you have to go to [1] and look up the PAIR site. Once you are in PAIR, you can put in the serial numbers for the reexaminations and then view all of the documents and discussions that have been submitted.--Nowa 11:14, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

In 1988, I worked at a startup called Sedata Inc, which manufactured VHF mobile radios for many Canadian utility companies. They had identified an upcoming business opportunity called the cell phone. Based on available AT&T specifications, we started creating both a cell phone and cell base station design, with built-in voice and text messaging capabilites. Unfortunately the company never finished the products and was forced into bankrupcy by a local bank.

In 1990, I incorporated a BBS company in Montreal called Cervotel Inc, which acquired the rights to existing software sources from Cerveau Services Reseau Inc, to establish a service which could, like many BBS systems before it, send messages between users, except that we had added the ability to route pager messages based on various events in the system. It being a very modular software, allowed the inclusion of the SendToPager request at just about any part of the user interface, including email, system faults, support request, voice mail available, etc. At that time, these Motorola pagers were capable of receiving messages (it's own store-and-forward system, based on servers sprinkled around the area). Our software used some gateway to connect to and relay messages to the pager network. Additionally, we added the capability for voice mail was also forwardable to audio pagers a year or so later.

Around 1992, using some of the ideas from Cerveau's architecture to create another form of store and forward system, which was capable of relaying messages between instances of itself, and other media, such as fax, pagers, modems. I wasn't aware of POP3/SMTP at the time, or I would have saved myself some future compatibility issues. The client which commissioned the work, used this software as a message sending / broadcast relay for press releases and other sorts of bulletins. The specs for the original message transfer system was based on a someone else's dialup modem-based message protocol, which formed one of the layers of this software. It had similar features and fields as today's email, including headers, a form of attachment, distribution lists, and format conversion from HPPCL and other format attachments into fax images. This software, written in C, only took about 7 man-weeks to get working.

Also in the early 90's (find exact date) I created a software / hardware based on a Radio Shack model 100 portable computer (runs on 4 AA cells for weeks!) to gather and relay text files from an E. F. Johnson Company VHF repeater to another system over a built-in modem.

In those days, protocols weren't that complicated, but hardware needed a lot of handholding. Gadgets and methods were plentiful, each connection had to be built one at a time. Designing similar systems today could be done from scratch in weeks of programming using off-the-shelf modules and API's, and can send their messages universally using TCP/IP. As far as I am concerned, any company that didn't implement all the layers in their own product during their first years in operation isn't a true telecommunications company. --Hans Schulze 2007/09/15

[edit] NTP Sues Verizon, AT&T, Sprint Nextel and TMobile

According to Slashdot,

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/12/1956202

An anonymous reader writes to tell us that following in the wake of their patent suit against Research in Motion (RIM), NTP has filed suit against Verizon, AT&T, Sprint Nextel, and T-Mobile for infringing on several patents. All of the patents in question relate to the delivery of email on mobile devices. "Five of the eight patents being used in the telco cases were the subject of NTP's 2001 patent suit against Research in Motion, the maker of the BlackBerry. In November 2002, a jury found that RIM infringed upon NTP's patents. The case continued to make headlines until 2006, when RIM agreed to pay NTP a settlement of $612.5 million, nearly four years after RIM had first been found guilty of infringing on NTP's patents."

Maybe someone should add this to the article.

Done--Nowa 11:40, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request: can someone figure out when the relevant patents were filed

I don't have the time or expertise (or energy) to go through the patents, but in the late 80s, the Los Angeles Fire Department was implementing a wireless email system (part of a wireless hookup of every fire department vehicle) to their central servers. That wireless system was based on a Motorola radio with antenna on Mt. Hollywood. Users could "email", or "chat", query a central server to query information about various LA addresses: hazardous waste manifests, reasons for prior paramedic calls, etc. At the time, I don't believe there was anything special about the LAFD system -- I believe it was mainly a cut and paste of what various police departments were doing.

It would be very helpful if someone could look through the various patents and let us know what years the prior art needs to come from.

The short answer is 1992. If you have prior art, however, that hasn't been considered by the parties involved in the lawsuits and you think said prior art might anticipate or make obvious the claims of any of the patents, you should consider contacting a registered patent attorney or agent. He or she will help you determine if the prior art is important. If it is, then your knowledge could be quite valuable. There are hundreds of millions of dollars at stake in these lawsuits. --Nowa 11:52, 13 September 2007 (UTC)