[asterisk-biz] Click-to-call lawsuit - Voip Inc.

[Trixter aka Bret McDanel]

On Tue, 2008-08-05 at 13:10 -0400, C. Savinovich wrote:
> How can a concept be trademarked?  Isn't it the technical implementation
> (architecture) of the concept that can be trademarked?? 

no.  Trademarks cover logos and similar things.  Copyright covers
implementations, and patents cover processes or too often enough "vague
ideas that a 3 year old had".

There is some overlap between the two, think of the 3 circle primary
color image thingy.  http://img.tfd.com/wn/CB/660B6-color-circle.gif 

This is not exactly correct, but ...  If one circle is copyright, one
trademark, and one patent law, any given thing can fall somewhere on
that, either 1,2 or all 3 spheres.

With asterisk, the name is trademarked, the code is copyrighted, and
some processes are/were patented, like GSM 6.10 (partially and that
expired last year).

You cant trademark a concept, you cant patent a name.  Because patents
cover a method or process if you write one generic enough, like using a
laser to play with a cat no one else will easily be able to do that.
Seriously, the segway guy has that as one of his "over 100 patents" only
1 he has is real the rest are just as insane.  Now if you switched the
laser out for say a flashlight, you may be able to get away with it.  It
depends on how the claims are specifically written.  You just need to
change enough so that you have a different process from what the patent
describes.

And because I know this list I would like to say I AM NOT SPEAKING ABOUT
THE PATENTS VALIDITITY IN THE ABOVE EXAMPLE.  I just know that if I dont
make some large disclaimer about that it will start a flurry of posts
about how you can just challenge it in court.


>    Am I wrong? Fine, I am no trademark lawyer.  Someone please correct me if
> I am.  But to me it just looks like someone who wants to bully its way into
> the market by scaring companies who won't want to spend the legal fees.

That was the most accurate thing you said so far :)  Many companies are
formed for no other reason than to get patents and try to do "nuisance
lawsuits", basically demand small enough amounts of money that its not
cost effective to go to court.  RTI with their LCR patent asking only
$20k for example, J2 with their fax->[email,ftp,web,almost everything]
at something like $1/customer, its just easier to pay than fight, and
often cheaper.  

Even if the patent is bogus and you can show that through prior art, or
other means useful for voiding patents, it still costs money to goto
court over it, often a lot of money.  This is how SCO is able to demand
$700/cpu for linux licenses and get it, most companies dont want to
spend millions when they could spend a much smaller figure - and SCO
sees millions to pay to their lawyers.


-- 
Trixter http://www.0xdecafbad.com     Bret McDanel
Belfast +44 28 9099 6461        US +1 516 687 5200
http://www.trxtel.com the phone company that pays you!