[Enlightened1]

You can’t put a patent on a security process.

That’s like someone putting a patent on putting up a fence around your house.

Then turning around and taking to court anyone else that puts up fence around their home.

This is absolute nonsense.

My guess though is that this is the feds (NSA, etc..) , via a private company, trying to get Apple to loosen their security process?

[Dr. Sivana]

Amazon’s One-Click orderimg suit (if I recall) was successful. What could be more “patently” obvious than ordering products when logged in with proper credentials by clicking a button next to the product?

[Crazy Jim]

I will not argue whether a specific security process can be patented or not (as that gets decided by the inventor, those expensive lawyers and in the end the Patent Office), but the many hundreds if not thousands patents on locks would suggest otherwise.

Would I sue you for putting up a fence, maybe not the fence but surely the wire! Putting up a fence is not what I'd take you to court for, it would be for using my Intellectual Property (IP) without compensating me. Build your fence but don't use my patented wire.

The 1882 barbed wire patent and a dispute about it still is used today to define first to file and novelty. "This case largely established precedent for future patent law, specifically in questions of first-to-file, or scope of novelty." See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Barbed_Wire_Patent

As to if they are trolls or not I cannot say, but they may have already negotiated with other infringers or are using Apple as the first case.

Double authentication would make no difference to NSA or other security agency as they would have the data stream. Actually it would confirm who was sending the message. And as an analyst I may only care who sent the message.

"Glidden held sole rights to sell the product and thus established the Barb Fence Company, in Dekalb, Illinois. The invention made him extremely wealthy and by the time of his death he was one of the richest men in the United States." op.sit.

We have decided that software innovations are patentable as defined in the laws. "Section 101 of Title 35 U.S.C. sets out the subject matter that can be patented:

Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title." From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patentable_subject_matter

Since we are a country of laws and we respect property rights it is important for people to defend their ownership and let the court decide who is right or wronged.

So you have to ask yourself "Do I really want to build this fence with someone else's property?"