Rick Nelson

Prior art for wireless e-mail
April 17, 2006

In a new twist on patent trolls and in particular with respect to RIM and NTP, The New York Times credits Silicon Valley entrepreneur  Geoff Goodfellow as the originator of the wireless e-mail concept on which NTP holds the patents at the heart of the RIM vs. NTP dispute. Goodfellow, the paper reports, came up with the idea of sending electronic mail messages wirelessly to a portable device in 1982. Goodfellow never attempted to patent the concept, but his efforts could constitute prior art that NTP should have disclosed. That NTP was aware of Goodfellow's efforts is attested to by the fact that a lawyer working for NTP tracked Goodfellow to Prague, where Goodfellow moved in 1998, to interview him about his e-mail scheme.

Why didn't Goodfellow pursue his own patent? Reports the Times: "Mr. Goodfellow, an early participant in Silicon Valley's grass-roots computer culture, disdained the notion of protecting his ideas with patents. And Thomas J. Campana Jr., a Chicago inventor with no such qualms, patented the idea of wireless electronic mail almost a decade after Mr. Goodfellow's original work." The article quotes Goodfellow saying, ""You don't patent the obvious. The way you compete is to build something that is faster, better, cheaper. You don't lock your ideas up in a patent and rest on your laurels."

Posted by Rick Nelson on April 17, 2006 | Comments (0)