On Tuesday, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued a patent on a "mobile entertainment and communication device." The description of the device:a mobile entertainment and communication device in a palm-held size housing has a cellular or satellite telephone capable of wireless communication with the Internet and one or more replaceable memory card sockets for receiving a blank memory card for recording data directly from the Internet (more) ...Sounds like a smartphone, doesn't it?
The thing is, what's been done here is combining previously patented elements into a new element, and in the case of Teleflex vs. KSR, the Supreme Court has already ruled that the new element is not necessarily patentable. In fact, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the opinion of the court, "The results of ordinary innovation are not the subject of exclusive rights under the patent laws."
What they're saying is that if you take known elements "in the art" and simply combine them and get an expected result, then you haven't invented anything.
Nevertheless, Minerva Industries, Inc., the patent holding company wasted no time and at 12:01am Tuesday morning, it lawsuits against just about everyone you could think of, including Apple, Nokia, RIM, Sprint, AT&T, HP, Motorola, Helio, HTC, Sony Ericsson, Samsung ... and more.
Hopefully the obviousness test as in Teleflex vs. KSR will be used in this case as well, but we'll see. It should be "obvious" that otherwise we'll be in a heap of trouble, cell phone-wise. Can you imagine injunctions preventing all those manufacturers from shipping devices?
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