In Silicon Valley, a man without a patent

Geoff Goodfellow came up with the idea of wireless e-mail, but he will never see a penny of its $612.5 million payday.
The New York Times

The story "In Silicon Valley, a man without a patent" published April 16, 2006 at 7:30 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

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[patentnut]

Patent Trolls

Mark Lemley may be a legal scholar, but he is not a patent attorney. The oligopolists want to remove the patent system as a threat to their business. Nikola Tesla could not afford to construct an AC generation system. However, he did patent his developments. Mr. Westinghouse bought the patent rights from Tesla. The rest is history. The new patent changes being lobbied by oligopolists would make Tesla a patent troll, much like the early Internet developers (all of which did NOT succeed in commercializing their invention). Do we really want to prevent innovators from owning their inventions IF they cannot afford to commercial them? It takes nearly 4 billion dollars to develop and manufacture a new internal combustion engine. Should only engineers at Honda and Toyota be able to patent new innvotions in this field. General Motors (with a market cap around $14m) probably couldn't afford it right now. I don't think it's fair that anyone else would be excluded from obtaining and enforcing patents for a new internal combustion engine that gets 200bhp at 60mpg. We need to listen to everyone's views on Capitol Hill, not just the views of oligopolists with large lobbying budgets.

[patentnut]

patentnut

Mark Lemley may be a legal scholar, but he is NOT a registered patent attorney. The oligopolists want to tag inventors without commercialization power as "patent trolls".

Nikola Tesla couldn't afford to commercialize AC power generation, but he did receive patents for the innovations. Mr. Westinghouse paid him $60k, and the rest is history.

Do we really want to shut out innovators that can't afford to commercialize their inventions? It takes nearly $4 billion to build an internal combustion engine plant. Do you really believe that the next great internal combustion engine design will come from an engineer at Honda or Toyota (because they are probably the only entities with enough money to commercialize such an innovation? General Motors market cap is now around $14b - they can't do it! We need to hear all views before deciding on patent changes. The consequences could be very great, and they cover all fields of technology (not just the Internet).

Maybe the U.S. won't innovate and protect the next catch-all cure to cancer IF patent laws are changed. U.S. corporate entities are already at a disadvantage due to lower cost innovation services in India and China (thanks to globalization). Without strong patent laws (including enforcement), expect to see fewer innovations in the U.S., along with fewer successful start-up companies (in the U.S.). They will still be created, but in other countries.

Right now, we are hearing the call of the oligopolists as they spread lobbying money across Capitol Hill. Be careful who you listen to.

[pch4101]

re: patentnut

Obvious ideas should not be patentable. Patents with prior art should be invalidated right away. And submarine patents should not be allowed.

[pch4101]

re: patentnut

Although people should be rewarded for coming up with innovative ideas, they shouldn't be allowed to sit on a patent and wait until another company has created a market and made millions just so that they could sue them. That's punishing innovation and risk taking.

[samkass]

Agreed

If the system had "worked properly", Goodfellow would have patented his idea and made a million dollars. The whole thing seems to have gotten messed up because Goodfellow declined to patent, and thus properly document, his invention. This article, instead of pointing out flaws in the patent system, seems to be a great example of when using it more would have benefited everyone involved (except the litigation attorneys.)

[techie99]

Unbelievable twist

I am completely impressed with news.com's deep digging into this story. I don't believe any news source mentioned the existence of Mr.Goodfellow in any of their articles regarding this patent dispute case.

NTP: We invented wireless email
RIM: No, we did
Mr. Goodfellow: Er, actually I did (Port 99. Ring a bell ?)
NTP: Shut up
RIM: (clueless) Who are you ?
Patent office: Too late ...