News - BT takes its turn to sue Google's Android OS and much more

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Claims almost all Google products and services infringe on its patents.

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Read more.

Prats

IIRC A number of years ago BT tried to claim they owned the patent on hyperlinks.....

I think they have made quite a few vague entries in the patent database!

What a bunch of muppets. Wait and see the line rental charges go up again and again to cover this one :( Time to switch to sky!

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Originally Posted by shaithis

IIRC A number of years ago BT tried to claim they owned the patent on hyperlinks.....

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I vaguely remember that one - I also remember shaking my head over it as yet another example of dumb USPTO.

As to this current writ-flinging exercise, remember that the then-BT chairman was quoted as saying "Everyone sues all the time in the States, anyway". I would have thought that more than just Google would have been subject to these patents - iOS and WP7 surely also "infringe" if these patents are valid. So presumably BT will also be persuing Apple and Microsoft? :rolleyes:

I suspect that BT will lose this, after all they're a UK company going after a US behemoth, and they filed in Delaware not "Hick County", Texas, (where patent troll-ery usually goes). I don't wish BT well in this! :p

really? BT should be spending there cash making internet better for them selfs no wounder virgin is the fastest

Where are the BT products that use these patents ?

Patents should protect products and not just ideas.

Ideas are free, converting them to working products is where all the investment (time and money) goes.

The current system disgusts me in the way dyson who actually created a revolutionary product dropped his patent on cost grounds and so everyone has now copied it. Yet now we get trolls investing in pieces of paper with the intent of profiting of anyone that converts it into a product unaware that the patent exists.

You cant even give something away for free these days without having an enormous legal department trawl through billions of patents first just in case someone had thought about it before (but not made anything from it)

BT have been a very innovative company in the psst, I used to work at martlesham laboratories and there's some cool stuff going on or used to be anyway. Seems they sat back a bit and it's taken the government to force a faster broadband roll out from them, along with a hefty chunk of taxpayer money.

Now they do this? I think they need to go back to their roots.

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Originally Posted by keithwalton

The current system disgusts me in the way dyson who actually created a revolutionary product dropped his patent on cost grounds and so everyone has now copied it. Yet now we get trolls investing in pieces of paper with the intent of profiting of anyone that converts it into a product unaware that the patent exists.

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What innovation did Dyson not bother to patent?
As I understand, at least as of a few years ago the only thing he'd actually invented was the ball wheelbarrow - later added to the range of Dyson vacuum cleaners.

The later products like the fan and the recent heater I'm not sure about, but I'm fairly sure the vacuum cleaner and the hand dryers were just good designs based on existing innovations.

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Originally Posted by capt_cornflake

The later products like the fan and the recent heater I'm not sure about, but I'm fairly sure the vacuum cleaner and the hand dryers were just good designs based on existing innovations.

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I remember a programme from last year in which JD was interviewed and stated that he got the idea for the Dyson vacuum cleaner from seeing a cyclonic separator on the side of a factory (my - admitted fallible - memory claims that it might have been a sawmill). Okay, he didn't invent the technique, but I'll happily give credit for seeing that the technology could be applied in a domestic situation.

Don't have a Dyson vac (got a much more expensive Kirby instead) but that fan thingy fascinates the heck out of me.

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Originally Posted by crossy

I remember a programme from last year in which JD was interviewed and stated that he got the idea for the Dyson vacuum cleaner from seeing a cyclonic separator on the side of a factory (my - admitted fallible - memory claims that it might have been a sawmill). Okay, he didn't invent the technique, but I'll happily give credit for seeing that the technology could be applied in a domestic situation.

Don't have a Dyson vac (got a much more expensive Kirby instead) but that fan thingy fascinates the heck out of me.

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I thought I'd read that the vacuum already existed in industrial cleaners and he'd just adapted for consumer market, but I can't find anything to back this up, so I admit this may be wrong.

I remember seeing hand dryers very similar to the blade in Japan back in 2000 though so those were definitely not an innovation that can be laid at his door. I've never understood why the Dyson one's don't have a drain on them though, leading to a rather manky puddle on the floor everywhere their installed...

BT waits till now, until Google becomes huge, before it sues. It seems, in such situations, that people sueing (suing?) for patent infringement after-the-fact are letting other people stir the milk (do the work) and then collecting the cream (suing (?) for profits).

BT should have been having words with Google quite a while ago.

Having said that, I think patents are a good idea. They can protect the 'little people' (including BT!?) who have the big ideas.