Patent troll sues just about the whole tech biz over 4 years

The Register ^ | 8th November 2012 15:28 GMT | Brid-Aine Parnell

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

A patent holding firm has made it its business to sue just about every tech firm anyone has heard of in its quest to make money from an encryption patent, it has emerged.

In the last four years, TQP Development has kept its lawyers busy with complaints against hundreds of companies, including big boys of tech like Google, Intel, Samsung and Apple.

The prodigious litigator, spotted by the CipherLaw Blog, has made Intel, Wind River and Hertz its latest opponents citing its patent for using a shared seed value to generate pseudo-random key values at transmitter and receiver.

TQP has specifically referenced Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TSL) protocols combined with the RC4 encryption algorithm in some of the cases, all filed in East Texas.

So far, none of the cases have gone to trial, a situation TQP is probably quite happy with...

[OneWingedShark]

The prodigious litigator, spotted by the CipherLaw Blog, has made Intel, Wind River and Hertz its latest opponents citing its patent for using a shared seed value to generate pseudo-random key values at transmitter and receiver.

WTF!? Seriously. -- That technique's been in use since the beginning of digital computing, probably before if you consider the history of cyphering.
These people need to be tarred and feathered, laughed out of town, and if they return, shot.

[HiTech RedNeck]

The subtleties of what can be patented will ensure for much intrigue, as there are competing philosophies. But in general, in order to have something patentable, one has to have an apparatus doing it. If apparatus has already been doing this prior to the alleged patent, then that ought to invalidate the patent. It would also sound like something our libertarian friends, the Electronic Freedom Foundation, would want to attack head on given sufficient resources.

[HiTech RedNeck]

That is, prior to the alleged invention being patented...

[ConservativeMind]

Ars Technica does not allow any posting.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Google found this:

http://www.google.com/patents/US5412730

*************************************EXCERPT*************************************

A modem suitable for transmitting encrypted data over voice-grade telephone line. The modem is implemented by the combination of integrated circuit components including a microprocessor, a serial communications controller which communicates with connected data terminal equipment, and a modulator/demodulator for translating between voice band tone signals and digital data. Pseudo random number generators are employed at both the transmitting and receiving stations to supply identical sequences of encryption keys to a transmitting encoder and a receiving decoder. An initial random number seed value is made available to both stations. The random number generators are advanced at times determined by predetermined characteristics of the data being transmitted so that, after transmission has taken place, the common encryption key can be known only to the transmitting and receiving stations.

Inventor: Michael F. Jones
Original Assignee: Telequip Corporation
Current U.S. Classification: 380/46; 380/29; 380/262; 380/266
International Classification: H04L 900

View patent at USPTO
Search USPTO Assignment Database

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

ok

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

See #7....

[uncommonsense]

This is an innovator's worst nightmare - having products in the market, then being slapped, out of the blue, with a frivolous lawsuit. When the judicial system is technology illiterate and a troll finds a friendly judge who essentially nails a shingle to his courtroom door that says "open for funny business", then the outcome of these suits become precedents, or they're a very high risk endeavor to defend.

I've been working with computing since 1979 (deep across and into the entire computing stack, including the logic circuit level). Encryption has always been available, borrowing from technologies dating back before the Enigma machine.