XM and Sirius face lawsuit from patent-holding Keystone Autonics

Already the second bit of bad news for XM / Sirius this week: Austin biz Keystone Autonics is suing both companies for infringement of a patent issued Keystone's George Hindman earlier this year. (Sorry, we couldn't find it on the USPTO site or Google Patent Search -- one of you eagle-eyed readers wanna spot us one?) According to The Street, the patent is a modification of an earlier patent (also granted Hindman), which applies to satellite radios (as well as CD players and analog radios) that input and display wireless data from satellite sources. Apparently the suit claims GPS, location-based services, and crash and theft detection all owe the patent some due, so it's likely Hindman & Co. will start swarming all sorts of businesses if they can wrestle a settlement free from XM and Sirius.

[Via Orbitcast]

Read - The Street writeup
Read - Federal Court filings

[joel k @ Mar 20th 2007 1:20AM]

i believe this is the one:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=%22Hindman,+George%22.INNM.&OS=IN/%22Hindman,+George%22&RS=IN/%22Hindman,+George%22

patent # 7165123

[phigmeta @ Mar 20th 2007 2:04AM]

LOL

wow ... I/O from the air


Can .... you ... say .... previous art

Hope they win ... then go after lockheed and the US goverment for thier tech ..

then FINALLY the patent laws will change and these leeches can all go F themselves

[Lazarus Dark @ Mar 20th 2007 6:58AM]

"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. patent office, 1899 (attributed)

-note- should be changed to: "Everything that can be invented, has been patented."

[Mike @ Mar 20th 2007 8:47AM]

Yet another reason you shouldn't be able to patent an Idea. Patents should only be fore specific items you've already created or specific technology done in a very specific way. All these stupid generalized patents are just dumb. US Patent Office needs a serious makeover.

[Scott @ Mar 20th 2007 9:36AM]

He didn't patent an idea. He patented "An apparatus for input/output management in a mobile computing environment" and "A method of communicating data in a mobile environment". At least the apparatus claim has a concrete, tangible thing associated with it. In any event, EVERY invention is an idea at some level of generality.

(NOTE: I am not saying that this patent should or should not have been granted. I don't know what the prosecution history looks like, and I haven't done a prior art search. So don't start flaming me as a fervent defender of the patent system. Though I am a patent attorney, I fully recognize that the PTO grants stuff that it probably shouldn't, and probably wouldn't if it had the time and resources to do it's job. I think the patent LAWS are fine, but I don't think that individual applications always get the attention they deserve and/or require, making the application of the laws to the facts suspect in some cases.)

[Andrew Jones @ Mar 20th 2007 10:02AM]

So, about that patent law reform...

[Frankenstein Black @ Mar 20th 2007 10:59AM]

Scott, I have a sports equipment invention and I need a good patent attorney in the Northern NJ/NY area. Any ideas?

[Scott @ Mar 20th 2007 11:22AM]

Yes, but we should talk off-line. scott2001 AT cox DOT net.

[anonymouspimp @ Mar 20th 2007 5:16PM]

It appears that this is a continuation from a previous application filed in at least 1998, and most likely will be able to claim a priority date of Feb 24 1997 (possibly May 10, 1995, I am not sure how strong a "USPTO Disclosue Document" is...)

Thats a pretty long time ago. Also its called "prior art" not "previous art."

Like the IP attorney above said, I am not saying that the USPTO doesn't screw up and issue patents that it shouldn't... but chances are, the inventor paid someone to do a rather extensive prior art search (usually done by the firm who does the prosecution of the patent). And the USPTO does in fact have a pretty sophisticated search engine.

Then on top of it, the firm they choose to litigate with (not always the same firm, for numerous reason I am not going to explain at this time) most likely did their own review of the patent and the prosecution history (especially if the firm is hired on a contingent fee, which may be possible depending on the size and financial situation of the plaintiff).

I know that there are a lot of frivilous lawsuits that get filed. But it also gets annoying when every time someone opts to defend their intellectual property, (most likely jealous) people on the internet attack the inventor or company the patent is assigned to... calling them leeches or scum. Then (in order to sound as if they know something about patent law) they throw out the one patent term they know... "prior art"... in an attempt to sound credible (or in some cases they screw that up too lol).

Prior Art would have to be before the 1997 (or 1995) date. Any claims in the patent at issue were derived from the same specification used in the initial provisional application (Feb 25 1997). If the items claimed in the patent at issue were NOT derived from that specification, then the patent could not be considered a continuation of the first patent and would not be able to benefit from the earlier filing date. It would be considered new material and have a priority date of Sept. 19, 2001.

Hope that helps to clear things up for some of you. Or if you want, you can just keep yelling "prior art!" and "invalid!" lol