Firstly the Patent Trolls at NTP are at it again. Secondly a small company from Queensland is trying to set a precedent in shutting up critism of a product.
1. Die Patent Trolls!
now the patent system is broken in a very bad way. the system that was designed to promote innovation and protect inventors is instead doing the exact opposite. It thwarts innovation and has turned the Tech sector into a Casino of frivolous lawsuits. Companies are set up that don't create new research, don't produce anything, they just buy up patents on the cheap, usually from failed companies/inventors and then try to extort others when they successfully commercialise a product with a loosely matching description.
You can get just about anything patented, regardless of quality of your claim. Some things are just plain obvious and others just plain stupid. Example, the famous patent for the bald dude comb-over. The reason being a lack of resources at the patent department and political pressure leading to the default position being to approve new patents without full investigation by qualified experts.
NTP after successfully extorting Blackberry for patent infringement is at it again. this time they may have bitten off more than they can chew (well one lives in hope). NTP are taking on AT&T and Verizon and anyone that delivers email wirelessly.
Now a wireless network is really just a regular IP network delivered through a different medium (okay give or take a few extra protocols but essentially the same). So isn't it obvious that any application that is deliverable via a wired network will be eventually delivered in wireless? So NTP's patent is rubbish because it is too obvious and should be scrapped.
hopefully the lobbyists at the big Telcos will be able to push for some long needed patent reform.
2. My 2Cents on 2Clix
Little known (until now) Australian accounting software company 2Clix is suing popular Australian tech forum whirlpool for 'injurious falsehood' for user comments posted on 2 forum threads. if 2Clix wins it will set a dangerous new precedent on web use. we all will have to think twice about criticising products online. which is a shame because I personally find frank first person reviews from the online community valuable in making purchase decisions.
Having read the threads out of curiosity, I find it difficult to see how 2Clix has a case. The users were either expressing an opinion or telling their personal experiences of the 2Clix product. sometimes with additional colourful language but hey they felt strongly negative about their experience. I can't see how they could prove that the statements constituted 'injurious falsehoods'. take one of the offending statements in 2Clix claims
"I was put onto this forum recently after discussion with peers, about how frustrated, dissatisfied and ultimately ripped off I feel after purchasing 2clix earlier this year"
thats a statement of their opinion and its most likely fact the individual who posted it is frustrated, dissatisfied and feel ripped off. Now if they claimed your product turned their workstations into a botnet propagating kiddie porn, then that's 'injurious falsehood'. you'd think that the prerequisite for an injurious falsehood is that the statement is indeed false! but hey I'm not a lawyer.
You can't build a bad product and expect unhappy customers not to complain. The old saying in marketing goes 'A happy customer tells 5 friends, an unhappy customer tells 20'. Sooner of later feedback from unhappy customers will catch up with you. Whirlpool just provided a more efficient medium for those unhappy customers to warn the public. You can't blame whirlpool for accelerating what was going to happen through word of mouth anyway. Now if you have evidence that the postings on whirlpool were a smear campaign initiated by a competitor then I take my words back. If not then 2Clix should fix its software and stop blaming others for its problems.
The greater danger is that if 2Clix succeeds, this will only encourage the big bully boys to exploit it to shut up critics. Imagine Microsoft closing down every 'My Vista won't work and it sucks' thread. yes folks you can bet on it!
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