In our recent discussion on the discontinuation of Jepp printed charts a number of contributors expressed the view that various electronic systems, and one in particular, form an adequate alternative. I'm long a convinced user of SD and the glorious Foreflight although I don't rely on them exclusively for VFR flight, I can see the day coming when printed charts will be impracticable.
I haven't always used Foreflight on my US adventures. Some years ago I discovered a miraculous system called Runway Finder, a free online solution that solved at a stroke the problem of spreading multiple US sectionals across a small hotel table and trying to tie up the drawn on track lines from one to another. Runway Finder clicked directly through to Airnav and completely revolutionised the process of selecting destinations, refuelling spots and stop overs. Then, like a bolt from the blue, the owner, Dave Parsons, announced that he was under attack by patent trolls and the site closed soon after.
On Sunday Avweb revealed that the US AOPA is in receipt of a $66m lawsuit in regard of it's online flight planning product FlyQ. The originators of the suit appear to be the same people who brought about Runway Finder's demise.
Although the action is specific to flight planning in Oregon and software patents are much less enforceable in Europe (if the disputed patents were even filed here) you have to wonder about the effect of such an action if it occurred. Dave Parsons gave up because, although he regarded the claim as baseless, the cost of defending it was beyond reach. Hopefully US AOPA have deeper pockets and will be able to kick the whole thing into touch. Otherwise, I'll have to buy a new roll of Sellotape to patch up those old paper maps ...
Blimey. According to the article the ... "The patents in question are for "generating travel plans on the Internet" and for "generating computer flight plans on the Internet." The first one must be a bit of a worry for Expedia.
OK, so you come up with something good and you have to protect your intellectual property, and where required enforce it, but it seems to me granting a patent like this will not only stifle competition, but if its a worldwide / european patent - then it could potentially stop a lot of good products advancing the industry. Fair enough if there is a certain modelling technique / algorithn / function that is identifiably unique, but to patent the two items above is very lucky for the 2 patent holders, but very unfair.
I'm minded to patent "picking up a square device capable of receiving voice transmissions and talking into it" and see what fortune that might bring me :-) Quite rightly, i'd expect such a patent request to be kicked out. We are enduring that testing time where everything from the shaped edges on a phone, to the swipe action answering a call have all become patented. Has someone patented "Online forums where people might talk about aviation" - I hope not...
You can patent a lot of stuff for which there is prior art.
Einstein was a patent examiner, before he got famous for other stuff, but there aren't any more like him 
You just have to pick something very specialised.
So getting a patent granted by the Patent Office doesn't mean a lot. The only test of a patent's validity is in a court.
I've seen many patents in electronics, and all were worthless. Very specialised, and describing a very oddball way of doing something.
Perhaps someone should patent "providing legal services in connection with patents".
Then when the troll comes, complain that they are breaching your patent ;)
The problem with patents (or software patents in the US at least) is that patents are supposed to satisfy these things: they should be novel, they should be useful, and they should be non-obvious to someone "ordinarily skilled in the art". Many of what the US patent office fails at least the "novel" test and most fail the obviousness test. The USPTO even admitted that only 5% of the patents they receive are "pioneer patents". The trouble is that they are funded by patent applications, so there is grotesque incentive to approve really bad patents and let the courts sort it out.
The trouble is you can barely write a program more complex than Hello World without infringing on some trivial patent, and the cost of defending yourself against a bad patent is so high that unless you're a huge company, all you can do is fold and either pay up or just go out of business. Needless to say if you win, you don't get paid your court or lawyer costs - so even when you win you lose.
Not only that the patents are written with such odd language that it can be a real challenge to work out what they mean. But a patent isn't supposed to be like that, it's supposed to be divulging information on how you're supposed to accomplish making the patented invention (that's the whole point - grant a temporary monopoly in return for revealing how to make the invention and therefore enrich the applicable art). If I see the word "plurality" once more I may just vomit.
Patent trolls are a huge problem in the US presently. I understand from several folks I know over there that software companies get sued regularly and with unfortunately good chances of success for the claimers. Not too long ago I read about this in an Android forum where it was stated that due to two patent trolls it is very unadvisable to sell any Android app in the US as chances you get sued are close to 100%. Apparently some patent trolls have achieved some patent which make a part of the Android standard routines their intellectual property and therefore sue everyone who uses it.
Here is a link where the story of Austin Meyers is related, the inventor of X-Plane, who saw himself confronted with a lawsuit threat over his Android app. In the article, it is mentioned that even Microsoft had to finally give in to that company who claims to own the idea of a computer program checking a central server for authorization. They seem to have threatened thousands of app producers and other companies and in some cases achieved massive compensations for the sheer fact that they do own this patent.
One lawyer I talked to recently has told me that he sees the current situation as a serious threat to the US economy as well as to software development as a whole, as the pure threat of legal action is often enough to put smaller companies out of business. He referred to patent trolling as a new form of cyber criminality, which currently is supported by the laws in place.
Austin Meyers and some others now have started a petition to the White House to examine the situation and to change the law in such a way that a company suing for patent infringement maliciously will be responsible for all costs generated by the lawsuit in case they loose.
Anyone see the film "Kearns"?
He invented the concept of intermittent operation of windscreen wipers. I was involved in the case, albeit in a fairly distant way
Ooops! The film was called Flash of Genius, it was about Robert Kearns, his invention, and his fight to get something from the companies who stole his idea.
