Tag Archive for Patent troll

| February 15, 2020
Comments Off on Blackberry is Dead – Long Live Blackberry

Blackberry is Dead – Long Live Blackberry

Blackberry is Dead - Long Live BlackberryLast week BlackBerry (BB) tweeted that they were letting their agreement with the Chinese electronics group TCL Communication lapse at the end of August 2020. This most likely is the end of the BlackBerry smartphone. TCL had been manufacturing BlackBerry smartphones since the Canadian company stopped making its name-sake phones in 2016 amid an attempt to re-shape itself into a cyber-security company.

BlackBerry’s preceded the iPhone and Android in important ways. How did the Blackberry phone go from world domination to last week’s announcement?

Blackberry history

March 1984: Research in Motion (RIM) was founded in Canada.

October 1997: RIM went public with an IPO on the Toronto Stock Exchange which raised $115 million.

July 1998: The RIM 850 the initial BlackBerry device offered something all its competitors couldn’t touch at the time – access to emails on the go (no voice).

1999: RIM joined NASDAQ as RIMM.

November 2001: Patent holding company NTP sued RIM for patent infringement RIM lost and was forced to settle for $612.5M in 2006.

March 2002: BlackBerry 5810 released, with both voice and data support. It ran on a 2G network and came with a color screen. It became the device of choice in corporate America due to its enterprise-level security.

BlackBerry Messenger2005:  RIM launched a proprietary mobile instant-messaging application BlackBerry Messenger. BBM came at a time when other mobile messaging options — like SMS messages — were subpar.

March 2007: The company “restated” $250M earnings relating to a “backdating” stock options scandal. RIM executives changed the date of stock sales to a low share price date to make money on their stock options. The scandal cost RIM’s co-CEOs Balsillie and Lazaridis and others their jobs at RIM and a total of C$77M in fines.

January 2007: Apple launched its first iPhone, opening the market to full touch screen phones.

January 2007 Apple launched its first iPhone,June 2007: BlackBerry had some 8 million customers.

October 2008: First Android-powered smartphone is released.

November 2008: BlackBerry launched the ill-fated Storm, its first full touch phone in reaction to iPhone.

September 2009: BlackBerry hits 20.7% worldwide smartphone market share in Q3. iPhone is at 17.1% and Android at 3.5%.

April 2010: Apple released the original iPad.

April 2011: RIM released the PlayBook tablet as a knee-jerk reaction to the success of the Apple iPad. Contributing to the PlayBook’s poor sales was the dumb decision to not offer email services without a BlackBerry smartphone.

July 2011: 10% of RIM workforce (2,000 workers) laid off.

October 2011: RIM had a global failure of its infrastructure – users are left without service for four days (Oct 10-13).

June 2012 RIM announces 5,000 layoffsJune 2012: RIM announced 5,000 layoffs.

January 2013: The company changed its name from Research in Motion to Blackberry and goes from RIMM to BBRY on the NASDAQ.

September 2013: BlackBerry peaked with 79 million global users and 4,500 employees are laid-off (40% of staff).

November 2013: John Chen becomes CEO and starts to pivot BBRY from a phone maker to a security firm.

September 2015: BlackBerry launched the Priv, the first Android-powered BlackBerry smartphone. BlackBerry acquired mobile security provider Good Technology for $425M and integrated it into the BlackBerry Enterprise Mobility Suite, for its enterprise customers.

September 2016: Blackberry becomes Blackberry Limited and stops making smartphones and outsource all hardware development and manufacturing.

BlackBerry users plummets to 11 million.May 2017: The number of BlackBerry users plummets from 80 million to 11 million.

October 2017: BlackBerry Ltd moved from NASDAQ as BBRY to BB on the NYSE.

November 2018: BlackBerry Limited purchased security firm Cylance for $1.4B.

May 2019: BBM for consumers is shut down.

The Blackberry Limited tweet marks the end of a line of devices that revolutionized mobile productivity for the enterprise. For the uninitiated (those under 30) in its heyday, Blackberry set the bar for mobile innovation. BlackBerry smartphones or “crackberries” as many referred to them helped set the stage for many of the mobile features we rely on today.

Blackberry Curve_8320The company made its own hardware which included a QWERTY keyboard. Qwerty keyboards that made it easier to fire off emails and instant messages. BlackBerry smartphones were the best way to stay connected without a laptop.

BlackBerry Mobile Services provided business users with quick encrypted end-to-end email over a low bandwidth connection. BMS also provided users access to not only their contacts, calendar, and email, but connected enterprise apps and data.

Back in the day when I was sharing technical services we even stood up a Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) for our customers to link their BBeries to Exchange. BES was sold as a highly secure BES platform that ensured the content was always encrypted and uncrackable.

Holger Mueller, the principal analyst at Constellation Research, pointed out to TargetTech the irony of BlackBerry’s fall.

That’s the irony — users and CIOs got rid of [their] BlackBerrys despite email volume being up … Business users went from being productive on the go to [becoming] lurkers and [doing] email at night.

Tuong Nguyen, a senior principal analyst at Gartner, told TargetTech the BlackBerry smartphone relevance disappeared well before this week’s announcement.

By the time the company stopped making its own phones, its global smartphone market share was well under 1% .. In fact, they had started dipping under the 1% threshold [around] 2013-2014.

rb-

I think the market has space for a productivity-oriented company that respects its users. But to unseat Apple, that firm would have to excel at something else, like folding screens, projection, AR/VR.

Why Blackberry phones are deadThe original BlackBerry company — BlackBerry Limited — now focuses on security software. This is ironic since the Snowden papers revealed that the NSA has access to user data on BlackBerry devices.

In the end BlackBerry, just like Nokia, Palm and Microsoft underestimated the challenge from Apple  Perhaps BlackBerry needs to be done with phones.

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| August 6, 2015
Comments Off on Facebook Friends Without Benefits

Facebook Friends Without Benefits

Facebook Friends Without BenefitsThe USPTO has granted Facebook (FB) a patent that could be used to help lenders determine your creditworthiness. The Social Networker plans to allow creditors to look at who is in your social network to judge your creditworthiness.

bank check the credit rating of the members of you Facebook network to decide if you are worthy of a loanBusiness Insider says the patent would make it possible for banks to check the credit rating of the members of your Facebook network to decide if you are worthy of a loan. It seems that your shiftless uncle Louie is going to determine if you get a mortgage. According to BI, the patent states:

… When an individual applies for a loan, the lender examines the credit ratings of members of the individual’s social network who are connected to the individual through authorized nodes. If the average credit rating of these members is at least a minimum credit score, the lender continues to process the loan application. Otherwise, the loan application is rejected.

TFacebook logohe patent was first discovered by Atlanta legal tech start-up SmartUp was part of a bundle of patents Facebook acquired in 2010 when it purchased the patents from failed social network Friendster for $40 million.

BI reports that the patent may walk a legal tight rope. The U.S. Equal Credit Opportunity Act requires creditors to tell applicants why they have been denied credit, so using social data to determine someone’s credit risk could walk a fine line. Despite federal law, the author points out that financial institutions are already using applicant’s social data to help verify their identity. For example, Lending Club, and Affirm use online data for decision-making.

Rb-
Back in 2010, I wrote about this day coming.

Many banks are now outsourcing their social network data mining operations to firms such as Rapleaf. (now TowerData).

Maybe it is time to un-friend your kid in college with no job and crazy aunt Patti in Paducah and instead friend Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg.

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| May 7, 2015
Comments Off on World’s First Hacker?

World’s First Hacker?

World's First Hacker ?The story of the first hacker could be a 21st-century tale. It includes a zero-day exploit, patent trolling, a live demo, egos, and industrial espionage. New Scientist has identified its candidate for the world’s first hacker. The hacker found a security hole in Marconi’s wireless telegraph technology and used it to publicly show the inventor up.

The first hacker

Nevil Maskelyne haclerNew Scientist’s first hacker was, Nevil Maskelyne. Nevil Maskelyne was a stage magician who disrupted a public demo of Marconi’s wireless telegraph in 1903. He disrupted the demo by wirelessly sending insults in Morse code through Marconi confidential channels. Visitors to the Bach Seat should be sophisticated enough to know the risks of running a live demo, but 110+ years ago, they didn’t.

According to the author, the first hack occurred at the Royal Institution in London. As Marconi associate, John A. Fleming (inventor of the vacuum tube) was preparing the Marconi equipment for a public demo of the long-range wireless communication system developed by his boss, the Italian radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi when something unplanned happened.

Scientific hooliganism

Marconi's wirelessBefore the demonstration was scheduled to begin, the demo gear began to receive a message. The unplanned message included a poem that accused Marconi of “diddling the public.” Then it started in with some Shakespeare.

Arthur Blok, Fleming’s assistant, figured that someone else was beaming powerful wireless pulses into the theater. The new signal was strong enough to interfere with Marconi’s equipment. Unfortunately for Marconi and Fleming, Nevil Maskelyne figured out the hack first. Mr. Maskelyne’s hack proved that Marconi’s gear was insecure. It also proved it was likely that they could eavesdrop on supposedly private messages too.

Wood towers supporting Marconi aerial at Cornwall England

In response, Fleming fired posted a complaint in The Times. In the paper he dubbed the hack “scientific hooliganism.”  He asked the newspaper’s readers to help him find the hacker.

However, Maskelyne, whose family had made a fortune making “spend-a-penny” locks in pay toilets outed himself four days later. He justified his actions on the grounds that he revealed the security holes for the public good. (Sound familiar?)

Maskelyne who taught himself wireless technology had a great deal of experience with wireless. According to the article, he would use Morse code in “mind-reading” magic tricks to secretly communicate with a partner. And in 1900, Maskelyn sent wireless messages between a ground station and a balloon 10 miles away. But, his ambitions were frustrated by Marconi’s broad patents. The overly broad patent left him embittered towards the Italian. Maskelyne would soon find a way to get back at Marconi. It turned out that the Eastern Telegraph Company, worried that Marconi’s wireless would kill their global wired communications business hired Maskelyne as a spy.

Revealed security holes for the public good

eavesdrop on the "confidential channelMaskelyne built a 50-meter radio mast near the Marconi Wireless offices. From these offices Marconi was beaming wireless messages to vessels as part of its highly successful “secure” ship-to-shore messaging business. From there, Maskelyne could easily eavesdrop on the “confidential channel” Marconi wireless messages.

Maskelyne gleefully revealed the lack of security by writing in the journal The Electrician in November 1902,

I received Marconi messages with a 25-foot collecting circuit [aerial] raised on a scaffold pole. When eventually the mast was erected the problem was not interception but how to deal with the enormous excess of energy.

To further publicize his results and perhaps extract some revenge on Marconi, Maskelyne staged his Royal Institution poetry broadcast.

The New Scientist concludes that Maskelyne’s name had been forgotten but now he is in the history books as the world’s patron saint of hackers.

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him at LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| July 22, 2014
Comments Off on Top Patent Troll Reloads

Top Patent Troll Reloads

Top Patent Troll ReloadsIt’s been a good year for patent trolls, and now the biggest patent troll of them all wants to keep the party going. Jeff John Roberts at GigaOM reports that Intellectual Ventures (IV) has acquired more than 200 new patents. The acquisitions will help IV extend its legal tentacles in fields like wireless infrastructure and cloud computing.

Patent troll aquires more patentsGigaOM explains that IV’s peculiar brand of innovation involves acquiring old patents and using them to arm thousands of shell companies, whose sole business is to extract licensing fees from productive businesses.

News of IV’s restocked war chest, which Reuters says is partially funded by Microsoft (MSFT) and Sony (SNE) comes after earlier reports that initial investors, including Apple (AAPL) and Intel (INTC) declined to take part in IV’s newest trolling fund. According to the report, by the law firm Richardson Oliver and spotted by IAM, the fund is on track since IV purchased 16 percent of all available patent packages in the first half of 2014. A chart by the firm suggests it paid $1-$2 million in most cases; here’s a partial look:

The chart shows six patents related to the cloud computing industry, which has so far escaped the rampant patent trolling that has plagued mobile phone and app developers. The author speculates cloud computing could now be prime picking for IV in the coming year.

IV is well-positioned to exploit the patents thanks to Senate Democrats, who in May killed a bipartisan Patent reform bill that would have undercut many of the economic incentives for patent trolling according to Mr. Roberts. IV has also been active on the lobbying front, filing to start a PAC this year and donating sums of money to Senator Dick Durbin (D-Il), who is closely allied to the trial lawyer lobby that reportedly helped to derail reform.

corrupt politicansGigaOM believes darker clouds could be looming for IV. They cite growing public skepticism towards patent trolls, who now account for 67 percent of all new lawsuits. The trolls have received harsh treatment from the likes of NPR and the New York Times, while the Supreme Court’s repeated criticism of slip-shod patents may finally be making it harder for companies to abuse them.

Meanwhile, respected tech figures like Marco Arment have lashed out at IV’s business model as “cowardly” while inventors like Tesla’s Elon Musk have questioned the value of patents to begin with.

rb-
Uh oh, the world’s biggest patent troll has restocked its weapons chest — and it looks like their next target will be cloud computing.

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| August 20, 2013
Comments Off on US Internet Laws Unequally Enforced

US Internet Laws Unequally Enforced

US Internet Laws Unequally EnforcedThe Internet Society (ISOC) provides a summary of a report from the Fordham Center on Law and Information Policy (CLIP), entitled “Internet Jurisdiction: A Survey of Legal Scholarship Published in English and United States Case Law” (PDF) examining the case-law and legal literature analyzing jurisdiction for claims arising out of Internet activity in the United States. The report finds that despite definitive case law, the practice of U.S. courts “lacks uniformity”.

Internet SocietyThe report concludes that U.S. Internet law jurisdictions are typically set by the Second and Ninth Circuit Courts. The Second Court covers New York, Vermont, and Connecticut. The Ninth Court covers the west coast of the US from Alaska to California and from Hawaii to Montana.

The CLIP research found that the most frequent Internet jurisdiction issues addressed by the courts are intellectual property and defamation cases. According to Wikipedia, Intellectual property (IP) is a legal concept that refers to creations of the mind for which exclusive rights are recognized. Under IP law, owners are granted certain exclusive rights to a variety of intangible assets, such as musical, discoveries and inventions; and words, symbols, and designs. Common types of intellectual property rights include copyright, trademarks, patents, and in some jurisdictions trade secrets. (rb- I have written a great deal about IP in my Patent Trolling articles.)

intentional tortThe researchers found that 62% of Internet jurisdiction cases centered on disputes about intellectual property. Specifically, 43% of the cases related to trademarks; 20% related to copyright; and 9% related to patents.

Within the Fordham data. There were also 35 defamation cases studied with 23% of these cases related to the intentional tort. Wikipedia defines defamation as communicating a false statement that harms an individual, business, product, group, government, religion, or nations’ reputation. Under common law, to constitute defamation, a claim must generally be false and made to someone other than the person defamed.’

Internet jurisdiction casesAccording to the Fordham research, there are two primary cases the courts use to address most Internet jurisdiction cases, The first is Zippo Manufacturing Co. v. Zippo Dot Com, Inc. IT Law Wiki explains that Zippo created a three-prong test for determining whether a court has jurisdiction over a website. Under this test, there are three types of websites: Commercial, Passive, and Interactive.

Interactive websites allow the exchange of information between the website owner and visitors, may be subject to the jurisdiction, depending on the website’s level of interactivity and commerciality, and the number of contacts which the website owner has developed with the forum due to the availability of the website within the jurisdiction.

knowledge that his intentional conduct would cause harmThe other key case that Fordham found was Calder v. Jones. IT Law Wiki writes  that this case resulted in the “effects test.” The article asserts, “… virtually every jurisdiction has held that the Calder effects test requires intentional conduct expressly aimed at or targeting the forum state in addition to the defendant’s knowledge that his intentional conduct would cause harm in the forum.

The article concludes that the Zippo and Calder tests remain the dominant ones applied, but that these tests are not mutually exclusive. Although Zippo is most often applied in matters of specific jurisdiction, there exists a varied and, at times, a blurred framework that incorporates the Zippo sliding scale and Calder’s effects test, as well as traditional standards for personal jurisdiction. Therefore, although the landscape for Internet jurisdiction matters has clear, predominant legal standards and tests, on the whole, when and how these are applied by U.S. courts lacks uniformity.

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I am not a lawyer, and of course, you should seek the advice of an attorney.

While I am not a lawyer, I do have common sense and how is it possible for different courts to rule in different ways on the same topic when they have InnerTubes to rule consistently?

conservative nature of the legal professionI believe this shows how out of touch the law is from technology.

Some of this could be due to the basic conservative nature of the legal profession.

I also believe that there is money in it for the politicians to make laws that are so confusing that lawyers are needed to understand the law. After all most Senators are lawyers.

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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