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As Google Voice Opens For All... It's Hit With Patent Infringement Claims

IOWA

Mr. Logic Pants
Dec 2, 2009
8,898
2,484
Chicago
I've used Google Voice for years -- since back when it was Grand Central -- and over the past few months have been ramping up how much I use it, as it really is quite useful, especially as someone who has multiple phone lines. I've recommended it to a few different people, and it's nice to see that Google has finally opened it up to anyone in the US, after years of keeping it only open to legacy users (like me) or those lucky enough to get an invite. However, there's some interesting timing here, as just as Google announced that Google Voice was open to the public, it was hit with a patent lawsuit from Frontier Communications, who just got the patent in question (7,742,468), yesterday, the same day that it sued. The patent itself basically describes some of the core functionality of Google Voice: the ability to ring multiple lines from a single number being the main one.

It's difficult to see how there's much of a claim here. The patent was filed for in September of 2009, but is a continuation patent (ah, that old trick again) of another patent filed on February 9, 2007. The problem? Well, in October of 2006, I attended the DEMO show with a bunch of other reporters and investors, and we all got to see GrandCentral demo its technology that does pretty much exactly what's described in the claims in the patent. Google didn't acquire the company until July of 2007, but it's difficult to see how the 2006 demonstration of the technology shouldn't be seen as prior art that invalidates the patent. Of course, it would have been nice if the patent examiner on the case had bothered to look around and find such prior art, but apparently that's too difficult these days.

Oh, and if you want to see how continuation patents are abused, you can check out the original patent application, which focuses on something quite different than the eventual patent. It's much more about switching calls from one line to another. It's only in the later patent (not filed until well after Google Voice was widely established in the market), that Frontier made the patent sound a lot more like what Google Voice actually does.

As Google Voice Opens For All... It's Hit With Patent Infringement Claims | Techdirt
 
Yea, I saw that. But, if there's anyone with the time, money, and lawyers to fight the case (assuming that the case is meritless), it's Google. What I mean is, if the case has the ability to be won, it's them.

I swear, we need to just pluck everyone, i mean EVERYONE, judges, congress, president, senate, pluck them ALL out, and start over.
 
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I swear, we need to just pluck everyone, i mean EVERYONE, judges, congress, president, senate, pluck them ALL out, and start over.

This has nothing to do with Congress or the President. It's the patent office that is the problem. It's the same reason why Apple's multitouch patent was granted. The people in that division are quite idiots. If the person who wrote the article was able to easily find something in 2006 that was basically what the patent stated in 2007, then how come the person who approves patents accepted it?
 
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I swear, we need to just pluck everyone, i mean EVERYONE, judges, congress, president, senate, pluck them ALL out, and start over.

This has nothing to do with Congress or the President. It's the patent office that is the problem. It's the same reason why Apple's multitouch patent was granted. The people in that division are quite idiots. If the person who wrote the article was able to easily find something in 2006 that was basically what the patent stated in 2007, then how come the person who approves patents accepted it?

Where I'm finding fault is how do these things even make it to trial?

Tapatalk. Samsung Moment. Yep.
 
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This has nothing to do with Congress or the President. It's the patent office that is the problem. It's the same reason why Apple's multitouch patent was granted. The people in that division are quite idiots. If the person who wrote the article was able to easily find something in 2006 that was basically what the patent stated in 2007, then how come the person who approves patents accepted it?

Congress and the President do pass and approve the laws that the patent office must follow... right?
 
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Yes I did hear Gods voice, or the voice of the Holy Ghost, lets see please explain what your voice sounds like so I can have a reference to how to explain it better. But it sounds like a whisper in your head one that you feel more than hear. One that is neither soft or harsh, it is not high pitched neither is it low. Oh I could go on but if you decide not to hear his voice I can never explain it to you, because you will never believe me anyhow, because it takes faith to hear his voice. But if you ever really want to hear his voice then I can help you to hear it.

wtf?!? :thinking:

pretty sure since google (grand central) was using the technology before the patent was ever applied for there isnt a chance in the world anything is really going to come of this.
 
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Where I'm finding fault is how do these things even make it to trial?

Tapatalk. Samsung Moment. Yep.

Because there could be a patent infringement, it happens. It's the duty of the court to say "we'll look over their fairly and let both sides present their argument" as opposed to just telling one to **** off. Yea, there are a lot of frivolous lawsuits, but sometimes these suits turn out to be right.
 
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