Firstly, the point is that the _editors_ are constantly passing judgement on patent issues, something which they are not only _not_ expert in, but that they're obviously completely ignorant of. If they don't know what they're talking about, then they should simply not pass judgement publically.
Secondly, they are substantively wrong in this case. Comcast's Triple Play and most other products out on the market _today_ are _not_ under threat because this patent only has the potential to apply to services that converage these 3 services on a single communications protocols (e.g., IP). The fact that Comcast and others deliver these services over several different protocols protects them. Cisco would not have a leg to stand on if they want to go after Comcast et. al right now.
Thirldly, I do in fact have real knowledge of and experience with intellectual property matters. I am the inventor of record with on a patent and I helped with the filing. My wife is a laywer and she also passed the patent bar. Furthermore, I come from a family of engineers/entreprenuers that has created over 100 patents and successfully commercialized them (read: real innovation, strong IP, and building real companies with them). I would not call myself an expert, but I am certainly conversant in the issues (which comes in handy with my own business plans). That said, you do not need to be an expert to read a patent and get a fairly decent sense of what the patent is trying to protect. (Though it does help if you want to know how strong the patent really is).
Fourthly, there are _real_ problems with the patent system (which I won't go into here). However, people on slashdot and forums like this one that ignorantly spout off nonsense only serve to discredit and distract from the real problems and the real abuses of the system.
Lastly, patents and copyrights are wholly different things. Please read up.
I'm with Pete here. Please read at least read the independent claim before saying something like "USPTO just issues patent on the wheel!"
Here is the claim from the Cisco patent. Not so broad anymore is it?
1. A method for providing integrated voice, video, and data content in an integrated service offering to one or more customer premises, comprising: receiving television programming from a programming source; converting the television programming to a common format for communication over a single network infrastructure using a common communication protocol; receiving data from a data network in the common format of the common communication protocol for communication over the single network infrastructure; receiving telephone communications from a telephone network; converting the telephone communications to the common format for communication over the single network infrastructure using the common communication protocol; communicating the converted television programming, data, and converted telephone communications in the common format over the single network infrastructure using the common communication protocol to one or more customer premises to provide the integrated service offering; and assigning customer premises to multicast domains to support conditional access of the customer premises to content that is selected from the group consisting of selected television programming, video-on-demand, pay-per-view video, near-video-on-demand, audio channels, audio-on-demand, and interactive gaming, wherein the conditional access is implemented using interdiction.
Plus it was filed in 2000. I've seen patents that are much, much worse. Even from the claim construction it looks like they threw in the last interdiction feature to overcome prior art.
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Michael,
Firstly, the point is that the _editors_ are constantly passing judgement on patent issues, something which they are not only _not_ expert in, but that they're obviously completely ignorant of. If they don't know what they're talking about, then they should simply not pass judgement publically.
Secondly, they are substantively wrong in this case. Comcast's Triple Play and most other products out on the market _today_ are _not_ under threat because this patent only has the potential to apply to services that converage these 3 services on a single communications protocols (e.g., IP). The fact that Comcast and others deliver these services over several different protocols protects them. Cisco would not have a leg to stand on if they want to go after Comcast et. al right now.
Thirldly, I do in fact have real knowledge of and experience with intellectual property matters. I am the inventor of record with on a patent and I helped with the filing. My wife is a laywer and she also passed the patent bar. Furthermore, I come from a family of engineers/entreprenuers that has created over 100 patents and successfully commercialized them (read: real innovation, strong IP, and building real companies with them). I would not call myself an expert, but I am certainly conversant in the issues (which comes in handy with my own business plans). That said, you do not need to be an expert to read a patent and get a fairly decent sense of what the patent is trying to protect. (Though it does help if you want to know how strong the patent really is).
Fourthly, there are _real_ problems with the patent system (which I won't go into here). However, people on slashdot and forums like this one that ignorantly spout off nonsense only serve to discredit and distract from the real problems and the real abuses of the system.
Lastly, patents and copyrights are wholly different things. Please read up.
I'm with Pete here. Please read at least read the independent claim before saying something like "USPTO just issues patent on the wheel!"
Here is the claim from the Cisco patent. Not so broad anymore is it?
1. A method for providing integrated voice, video, and data content in an integrated service offering to one or more customer premises, comprising: receiving television programming from a programming source; converting the television programming to a common format for communication over a single network infrastructure using a common communication protocol; receiving data from a data network in the common format of the common communication protocol for communication over the single network infrastructure; receiving telephone communications from a telephone network; converting the telephone communications to the common format for communication over the single network infrastructure using the common communication protocol; communicating the converted television programming, data, and converted telephone communications in the common format over the single network infrastructure using the common communication protocol to one or more customer premises to provide the integrated service offering; and assigning customer premises to multicast domains to support conditional access of the customer premises to content that is selected from the group consisting of selected television programming, video-on-demand, pay-per-view video, near-video-on-demand, audio channels, audio-on-demand, and interactive gaming, wherein the conditional access is implemented using interdiction.
Plus it was filed in 2000. I've seen patents that are much, much worse. Even from the claim construction it looks like they threw in the last interdiction feature to overcome prior art.