Geoff Goodfellow, early inventor of wireless email, profiled
By Ryan Block 
posted April 17th 2006 9:18AM
posted April 17th 2006 9:18AM
Back in the
early 80s a man by the name of Geoff Goodfellow had an idea: to relay electronic mail from Arpanet to his alphanumeric
pager. He published his concept on an Arpanet mailing list in 1982 (he called his piece "Electronic Mail for
People on the Move"), and went on to found RadioMail in the early 1990s -- a wireless email service (surprise,
surprise). After working with such small clients and partners as Ericsson, Motorola, and RIM, Goodfellow left the biz
in 1996 and moved to Europe. But he was contacted in early 2002 by James H. Wallace Jr., a lawyer of patent-holding
firm NTP, who thoroughly researched Goodfellow's contributions to
wireless communications as they were gearing up to take on Research In
Motion. In fact, Wallace once introduced Goodfellow thusly: "Geoff's the inventor of wireless e-mail. My
client patented some of its implementation workings." The New York Times seems to think Goodfellow's prior art
should have been disclosed during the RIM / NTP dispute, but wasn't; that Goodfellow should have been available as a
fact witness, but wasn't. So why has no one ever heard of the talented Mr. Goodfellow? Because NTP paid him close to
$20,000 for "consulting" in 2002, which included several sessions with NTP's lawyers in noteless meetings, as
well as a contract and NDA that essentially barred him from discussing the case while it proceeded. You'll have to read
the Times profile for the full story, but whether or not NTP acted ethically (or illegally), or preyed on Goodfellow's
disdain for patents or his free-market attitude isn't exactly making the bad taste in our mouths from the settlement taste any better.
Having known Geoff in the early 1980s, I can say without a doubt he was FAR ahead of the technology curve. I still remember him filling an outhouse full of radio gear, then placing it in the middle of farmers field I think in Fresno (or maybe Modesto). All this was for a project for I think DARPA to prove CELL BASED communications (aka - cell phones).
He lived across the street from SRI in Menlo Park and had a dedicated data line so he could be online 24 hours a day from home. (keep in mind this was the 1980s).
This is all so off the deep end: An e-mail is a written message transmitted electronically -- as opposed to other means, like truck, ship, plane or, I don't know, pony. A wireless e-mail is a written message transmitted electronically using, in part, a system that transmits electronic written messages wirelessly. Sure, it's a good idea. Sure, it's a lot of work and requires a bright fellow to make it an elegant solution. But how is this so novel or unique it warrants a patent? It's just another way of sending a written message, an e-mail -- not by so different means, either, considering the message is already being transmitted electronically over some sort of wired data network.
San: where have you been the last 20 years? Of course it is debatable whether or not the patent system is fair or is serving the public interest (it no longer is - mostly). But this particular example - wirless email - if he was first to achieve it, is indeed patentable. Now, to you and me it's obvious as day that this should not be patentable, but based on the patent system - or based on precedent - this is as novel as a lot of patents.
For example: a company 2 years ago (can't remember the name) sued Palm for violating a patent that they had filed (not long ago, late 90s i think) for "wireless gaming between 2 'devices' ". Palm didn't explicitly even do gaming; their devices were just capable of it.
This is absurd because it's all tcp/ip - changing the freaking hardware layer to wireless does not mean that suddenly everything you can do with standard network protocols is suddenly patentable again as 'wireless'.
But that is exactly the kind of crap that happens. Never mind prior art; 'obviousness' of the invention (or obvious combinations of existing technologies)needs to be better accounted for in an overhaul of the retarded patent system.
SHoe: I think that's what I was speaking to, that it obviously *shouldn't* be patentable -- not the legal precedent. It used to be -- no I'm not all that old -- that to do well in business you made a product, you made it well, you made it an elegant, you might it a unique solution if that was needed, and this is how you made your money: quality. But now...
Check out those hotpants!
Yowzah!
So I read the NYT article, and though this guy may be a genius, he is also an idiot. Apparently he is one that likes open-source, other than patent lawyers and holding companies who doesn't. That doesn't mean he should not have patented this technology when he came up with the idea. No one says you have to charge people to use your patents. By his not patenting this idea RIM got screwed. But, with this new info out in the press they may just go back to court and try to have their settlement overturned.
People like NTP should be dragged through the streets, they do nothing but sue people for using good ideas, even though they hold the patents they come up with none of the ideas.
They get money for nothing. And it should sicken every american that believes we (should) live in a merit based society.
The Times caught James H. Wallace Jr. in a flat out lie. Wallace should be disbarred.