2 ms·

1. What you quoted itself a far cry from "any electronic device that communicates in any way", a statement that mischaracterizes the patent as much as the title

1. What you quoted itself a far cry from "any electronic device that communicates in any way", a statement that mischaracterizes the patent as much as the title of TFA does the actual claim. Note that it says the header may be modulated using one method whereas the payload another depending on the header. Are you sure this applies to any of those you mentioned? (Except Bluetooth of course, as it was just found to infringe :-P) 2. The synopsis does not define the scope of what a patent claims.

msandford 12y ago
EE/CE here. Yeah that's a garbage patent. I'm a practitioner in the field and 20 years ago that would have been some forward-thinking stuff. But in 2009, when it was filed? Total joke.
- gyc 12y ago
  The priority date of the patent was Dec 5, 1997. So was it forward thinking a little over 17 years ago?
  - msandford 12y ago
    Well there's something weird going on there, then, because priority dates and filing dates aren't supposed to differ by more than a year or so. So either it was invented in 1997 and should have been patented then and would expire in 2017, or it was "invented" in 2009 and they trolled for something to give them a much, much earlier priority date so that it would seem more legitimate somehow. Either way I'm not sure that I buy it. EDIT: I mean, hell, dial-up modems did the same thing basically. Connect and sync at a low baud rate, then switch to whatever the modems agreed the channel could support. How old are dial-up modems? 1980s? Acoustically coupled modems are at least as old as the 1970s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modem#Acoustic_couplers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modem#Acoustic_couplers
    - throwawaykf05 12y ago
      The weirdness is due to these patents being "continuations", that is, follow-on patents that keep the priority date of the original, but file new claims on the same subject matter. This is usually done to get broader (or sometimes just different) claims than the original. On the flip side, the follow-on patents lifetime is still based on the original filing date. Also, if there was any prior art that did "basically the same thing" you can bet Samsung would have brought it up. TFA does not give much detail about Samsung's arguments, but only mentions a non-infringement defense.

msandford 12y ago

EE/CE here. Yeah that's a garbage patent. I'm a practitioner in the field and 20 years ago that would have been some forward-thinking stuff. But in 2009, when it was filed? Total joke.

gyc 12y ago
The priority date of the patent was Dec 5, 1997. So was it forward thinking a little over 17 years ago?
- msandford 12y ago
  Well there's something weird going on there, then, because priority dates and filing dates aren't supposed to differ by more than a year or so. So either it was invented in 1997 and should have been patented then and would expire in 2017, or it was "invented" in 2009 and they trolled for something to give them a much, much earlier priority date so that it would seem more legitimate somehow. Either way I'm not sure that I buy it. EDIT: I mean, hell, dial-up modems did the same thing basically. Connect and sync at a low baud rate, then switch to whatever the modems agreed the channel could support. How old are dial-up modems? 1980s? Acoustically coupled modems are at least as old as the 1970s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modem#Acoustic_couplers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modem#Acoustic_couplers
  - throwawaykf05 12y ago
    The weirdness is due to these patents being "continuations", that is, follow-on patents that keep the priority date of the original, but file new claims on the same subject matter. This is usually done to get broader (or sometimes just different) claims than the original. On the flip side, the follow-on patents lifetime is still based on the original filing date. Also, if there was any prior art that did "basically the same thing" you can bet Samsung would have brought it up. TFA does not give much detail about Samsung's arguments, but only mentions a non-infringement defense.