3/22/13

Post #15: Android’s tethering feature already existed back in 1995


Florian Mueller posted on his blog, Foss Patents today about “Android likely infringes Nokia patent on tethering as Google and HTC lose out on claim construction.” Apparently Android’s tethering feature already existed back in 1995, patented by Nokia (Patent No 5,884,190). The patent is about “a method for making a data transmission connection from a computer to a mobile communication network for transmission of analog and/or digital signals”. Android’s tethering feature “enables mobile phones to act as network routers in order to share their internet connections with portable computers.” To me, the Nokia patent and Android’s tethering feature is equivalent from a broad scope. It is interesting what Mueller stated in his blog on most defendants “seek to narrow the scope of a patent through their proposed claim” to deny infringement. However, Google failed in this case. What is really funny is that apparently Nokia did not know back when they filed the patent the value of this patent will become. I wonder if Nokia spent some time going through their old technology, and made improvements from those, or even applying those features in smartphones today, Nokia might climb its way up to the top again.


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