FlightPrep online planning patent

CJones said:
Question: Can a patent be revoked? If a group made valid arguments that a patent doesn't apply to any 'proprietary' type of technology, could the patent be revoked?
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Yes, patents can be found to be invalid. As for how easy or likely that is in this case or any other - I think there are people on this board who actually know what they're talking about, so maybe they can comment.
 
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Everskyward said:
Does this mean that the sectionals on Foreflight are gone? Didn't they come from RunwayFinder? Seems like I just was looking at someone's Foreflight app on an iPad and the watermark on the charts said RunwayFinder.
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Good question. Foreflight can probably afford a legal fight with FlightPrep or perhaps they have some type of agreement. RunwayFinder can't afford a protracted legal battle even if it is likely they would win. Patent cases can be very complicated. Imagine the fees for all of the expert witnesses let alone the specialty lawyers. I hope that nothing happens to ForeFlight. If FlightPrep is not careful they will anger a lot of the aviation community, not good for business.
 
CJones said:
Question: Can a patent be revoked? If a group made valid arguments that a patent doesn't apply to any 'proprietary' type of technology, could the patent be revoked?
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Yes it can be revoked. One would need to counter each of the claims and submit the evidence to the USPTO. It has happened recently and in the past. It is not all that uncommon. A famous one that was revoked was Amazon.com's one click purchase patent.
 
Hmmmm, you want the end around for the patent? The patent claimes it draws LINES on a map, correct? Well runwayfinder doesn't draw LINES on a map. It draws SEGMENTS, since the definition of a line is that it extends in either direction to infinity.
 
ScottM said:
Yes it can be revoked. One would need to counter each of the claims and submit the evidence to the USPTO. It has happened recently and in the past. It is not all that uncommon. A famous one that was revoked was Amazon.com's one click purchase patent.
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Can't a court also invalidate a patent?
 
EdFred said:
Hmmmm, you want the end around for the patent? The patent claimes it draws LINES on a map, correct? Well runwayfinder doesn't draw LINES on a map. It draws SEGMENTS, since the definition of a line is that it extends in either direction to infinity.
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Good idea. I would not be surprised if cases were won on less than that.
 
EdFred said:
Hmmmm, you want the end around for the patent? The patent claimes it draws LINES on a map, correct? Well runwayfinder doesn't draw LINES on a map. It draws SEGMENTS, since the definition of a line is that it extends in either direction to infinity.
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There you go...so I presume you'll be funding RF's challenge of this patent based on that theory?
 
Nowadays you do not to be Einstein to work in a patent office. If the applicant can sell the idea to a bureaucrat, they get a patent. It is up to somebody else to file a challenge if they believe that it is invalid.
 
Gary F said:
Nowadays you do not to be Einstein to work in a patent office. If the applicant can sell the idea to a bureaucrat, they get a patent. It is up to somebody else to file a challenge if they believe that it is invalid.
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Funny that you mention Einstein because even when he was a patent clerk he was no "Einstein". A lot of clerks are low level engineers or specialists who dream of getting a better job. They are over worked, undervalued and under-trained. The system lets all kinds of these things through. The biggest culrpit are the gold rushers. Those are the companies who bet on investments in IP for the future. Sometimes it pays off big and many times it does not.
 
ScottM said:
Funny that you mention Einstein because even when he was a patent clerk he was no "Einstein". A lot of clerks are low level engineers or specialists who dream of getting a better job. They are over worked, undervalued and under-trained. The system lets all kinds of these things through. The biggest culrpit are the gold rushers. Those are the companies who bet on investments in IP for the future. Sometimes it pays off big and many times it does not.
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He was still a bright guy. You can't expect everybody working in a patent office to fully understand everything they approve. Patent trolls take advantage of this fact.
 
Gary F said:
He was still a bright guy. You can't expect everybody working in a patent office to fully understand everything they approve. Patent trolls take advantage of this fact.
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agreed.

I have to look it up but I think IBM is still the largest submitter of patent applications in the US. One can almost not sneeze without running into their IPR.
 
JeffDG said:
There you go...so I presume you'll be funding RF's challenge of this patent based on that theory?
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No, but if it were a lawsuit filed against me, that's the stance I would take and let them keep paying their lawyers while my site stayed up. And I would immediately file for a patent with the exact same language changing "line" to "segment."
 
A bit of an update: FlightPrep apparently went after Jeppesen and AOPA over this patent, as well. Jeppesen has said they are not infringing, and both AOPA and Jeppesen are not even deigning to meet with FlightPrep. I'm glad to see someone has the means to stand up to FlightPrep's legal bullying. I'm really sad over RunwayFinder shutting down, what a shame.

I'm not a lawyer but I am a software engineer, and it seems pretty clear to me FlightPrep's patent has prior art, is not non-obvious, and is so specific as to not cover any flight planning software someone would design today. I wrote up some of the details on my blog, if the analysis is helpful to anyone.
 
RunwayFinder shuts down

"And without further information from you, our only means to assess the potential damages is the observation that your website had 22,256 unique visitors in July 2010. Each visit represents a potential lost sale of our client’s patented invention at $149 per sale."

I was one of those unique visitors in July 2010. But I can state that there was absolutely no potential loss of a $149 sale. No way - No how. Never in a million years. Take me out of the total.
 
NelsonMinar said:
A bit of an update: FlightPrep apparently went after Jeppesen and AOPA over this patent, as well. Jeppesen has said they are not infringing, and both AOPA and Jeppesen are not even deigning to meet with FlightPrep. I'm glad to see someone has the means to stand up to FlightPrep's legal bullying. I'm really sad over RunwayFinder shutting down, what a shame.
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Agreed -- this stinks of a shakedown by a bully.

FlightPrep will never, ever receive a single cent from me. I still know how to plan with pencil and paper and don't need no steenkin' Golden Turkey.
 
Regardless of whether or not FlightPrep has any legal basis for their suit against RunwayFinder, it is a bad political move to make. As someone who used to use RunwayFinder a lot (and found it to be a much, much better option to SkyVector or anything else I used), I am unhappy about this.

Even though SkyVector may license parts of their software from FlightPrep, I'll start using it because it's free.

Here's the biggest thing I'm wondering about: a lot of times when going to an area I haven't visited before ("Hey Ted, can you bring some dogs to Roscoe, NY?") I liked the RunwayFinder feature of being able to type in a town name and then have it put me at that town on the sectional. Does anyone know if SkyVector (or any other flight planning tool) does the same thing?
 
dmccormack said:
Agreed -- this stinks of a shakedown by a bully.
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I disagree.

Flightprep sent Runwayfinder a letter informing them that they wanted to discuss a possible infringement.

Runwayfinder ignored the letter.

Is Flightprep to simply forget about it? I don't think so. They took the next logical step and sued.

I don't know if runwayfinder did anything but put a notice up on their website that they were going dark because they were being sued.

Flightprep offered them a pass to continue operating while a resolution was being worked out.

Runwayfinder ignored this too, and simply went dark, claiming to be the victim.

I have no opinion as to the validity of Flightprep's patent, nor the merits of the case. I do find runwayfinder's reaction (or complete lack of action) childish.
 
NelsonMinar said:
A bit of an update: FlightPrep apparently went after Jeppesen and AOPA over this patent, as well. Jeppesen has said they are not infringing, and both AOPA and Jeppesen are not even deigning to meet with FlightPrep. I'm glad to see someone has the means to stand up to FlightPrep's legal bullying. I'm really sad over RunwayFinder shutting down, what a shame.

I'm not a lawyer but I am a software engineer, and it seems pretty clear to me FlightPrep's patent has prior art, is not non-obvious, and is so specific as to not cover any flight planning software someone would design today. I wrote up some of the details on my blog, if the analysis is helpful to anyone.
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Interesting write-up.

You make note of the specifics of using 'frames' in their patent. I'm just thinking aloud here - what if someone designed a non-frames 'online flight planner', put it on something like SourceForge and put it under an open-source license. Would that potentially protect FlightPrep, or some other company that fails to innovate, from grabbing up that 'technology' as a patent? Once it is declared open source, can it be patented?
 
CJones said:
Interesting write-up.

You make note of the specifics of using 'frames' in their patent. I'm just thinking aloud here - what if someone designed a non-frames 'online flight planner', put it on something like SourceForge and put it under an open-source license. Would that potentially protect FlightPrep, or some other company that fails to innovate, from grabbing up that 'technology' as a patent? Once it is declared open source, can it be patented?
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Once something were pushed to Sourceforge, I think that would be conclusive evidence of prior art. That said, remember the patent in question was filed for 9 years ago...there may be more in the hopper yet to be approved, issued, or attempts made to enforce same. With that, such an effort may be an infringement to a yet-to-be-issued patent.
 
Well, that's a disappointing outcome.
 
JeffDG said:
Which seems to be of RF's choosing:
http://blog.flightprep.com/2010/12/regarding-runwayfinder-shutting-down.html
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In the face of a multi-million dollar lawsuit, yes. I think a number of us disagree about where agency really lies in this case.

I'm interested by the claim made on AOPA's website - that Jeppesen don't believe their products infringe on FlightPrep's patent. I can only think of two reasons why they would claim this: either they read the patent in a far more limiting way than I could (but really, who are you going to trust - some random nut on the internet, or specialist attorneys for a big company?) or that they believe the patent claim would not stand up in court. If either are true, runwayfinder and skyvector might have better positions than I thought, but of course they'd need to be able to afford the lawyers to prove it.
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
RunwayFinder shuts down

"And without further information from you, our only means to assess the potential damages is the observation that your website had 22,256 unique visitors in July 2010. Each visit represents a potential lost sale of our client’s patented invention at $149 per sale."

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Whoever came up with that "potential lost sale" thing is an idiot.
 
Bob Noel said:
Whoever came up with that "potential lost sale" thing is an idiot.
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Really an idiot?

It was their lawyer who came up with that number. By doing so he established a top number that they will now negotiate down from. Not genius but a good strategy because they can at least point to a number and describe how they arrived at it. Unlike cases where people sue for a billion dollars because a cleaners lost their pants.
 
ScottM said:
Unlike cases where people sue for a billion dollars because a cleaners lost their pants.
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I got so much amusement out of that story. That probably makes me a bad person.
 
chucky said:
In the face of a multi-million dollar lawsuit, yes. I think a number of us disagree about where agency really lies in this case.

I'm interested by the claim made on AOPA's website - that Jeppesen don't believe their products infringe on FlightPrep's patent. I can only think of two reasons why they would claim this: either they read the patent in a far more limiting way than I could (but really, who are you going to trust - some random nut on the internet, or specialist attorneys for a big company?) or that they believe the patent claim would not stand up in court. If either are true, runwayfinder and skyvector might have better positions than I thought, but of course they'd need to be able to afford the lawyers to prove it.
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I ain't no patent expert, and I ain't no expert on how Jeppsen does their software. But my experience in other fields has been that one can often find a way around the literal wording of the claims and provide similar function without infringing. :dunno: That's just the way it is.

But it helps if you are part of a big company that is willing (and has the resources) to do that sort of thing and battle it out in court if necessary.
 
Bob Noel said:
Whoever came up with that "potential lost sale" thing is an idiot.
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Well, it seemed to make quite an impression on the target of the lawsuit, which was presumably the whole point. If by 'idiot' you mean 'stupid person' or 'person who does not know what they are doing', I don't think I agree.
 
JeffDG said:
Which seems to be of RF's choosing:
http://blog.flightprep.com/2010/12/regarding-runwayfinder-shutting-down.html
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I am not so ready to concede that point - I'd be interested in knowing what conditions and admissions RF's owner had to agree to as part of the "keep it open" offer...

Bob Noel said:
Whoever came up with that "potential lost sale" thing is an idiot.
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Sort of like RIAA contending that every download of a song equaled a lost sale at full retail?

This is the threat stick; hey negotiate down from there, based (most often) upon the alleged infringer's ability to pay and ability to fight. Not enough of the former, or too much of the latter, and the Plaintiff's team loses interest fast.

As for Jeppesen, I imagine Boeing can afford to join this battle at their convenience.
 
SCCutler said:
As for Jeppesen, I imagine Boeing can afford to join this battle at their convenience.
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The word on the street is that Jep was approached, refused to sign an NDA to start negotiations. With their resources this is what I fully expected them to do. They can play the lawsuit game much longer than FlightPrep. They also stand the best chance of winning if there were to ever actually make it to court. But my guess is that they let FlightPrep bleed, petition the USPTO to revoke the patent and in the end win that way. That is why, unlike a lot of people, I did not let the RF case get my undies all knotted up. RF was just a little nothing.
 
ScottM said:
The word on the street is that Jep was approached, refused to sign an NDA to start negotiations. With their resources this is what I fully expected them to do. They can play the lawsuit game much longer than FlightPrep. They also stand the best chance of winning if there were to ever actually make it to court. But my guess is that they let FlightPrep bleed, petition the USPTO to revoke the patent and in the end win that way. That is why, unlike a lot of people, I did not let the RF case get my undies all knotted up.
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I wonder if a few of the top guys/gals over at FlightPrep are saying "Who came up with the idea of patenting this again!?". Or better yet - "Who thought it was a good idea to enforce the patent!?"

To be perfectly honest, I had never heard of FlightPrep before this whole ordeal. I had heard of (and used) SkyVector and RunwayFinder, though. I'm wondering if FlightPrep was hoping to slide in under the radar and get a free slice of the pie from RunwayFinder and SkyVector without any fight. Now that that has backfired, they gotta pay for the patent lawyers somehow, so they figure they'll try a big dog. Big dog says "huh, yeah right".

Where FP goes with the AOPA/Jepp situation will be really interesting. How far do they REALLY want to play this game. OR, are they hoping that Jepp will decide it's easier (maybe cheaper?) just to buy FlightPrep outright and have the patent themselves.
 
CJones said:
OR, are they hoping that Jepp will decide it's easier (maybe cheaper?) just to buy FlightPrep outright and have the patent themselves.
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I wondered that myself. In one of my earlier posts on this topic I raised that theory. I can't remember if it was here or over on the red board, but I still think it is a possibility.
 
ScottM said:
I wondered that myself. In one of my earlier posts on this topic I raised that theory. I can't remember if it was here or over on the red board, but I still think it is a possibility.
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The more I think about it, that's the only good 'business case' I can think of for pushing such a technically weak patent. FP has possibly decided that they are at the end of their 'innovation potential'. Online flight planners are a dime a dozen (or simply free). Even in-cockpit charting is going open-source via Kindle, iPad, etc. If they don't do something to cash in, they stand to wither away into nothing with nothing to show for it. If they could stir up some stink with the small guys and set some precedent that 'other companies (RF, SV) are paying us for a license' (RF failed obviously), then Jepp or the alike would potentially rather buy them out than fight a wasteful patent case. FP gets a nice going-away present from Jepp and they move on to something more profitable. IIRC, FP started out as a mom-and-pop software dev company, so they could find another niche market to move into for a few years.
 
taters said:
This wont mess with fltplan.com right? that would cause a major scene.
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Looking at the description of the patent on FlightPrep's website, it looks like they only patented the idea of flight planning based on interactive charts/mapping. So it would appear that Fltplan.com is in the clear. There is no interactive charting with Fltplan - it only shows charts after you plug in the route through a separate interface and you can't adjust your route in the map itself.

I think we're good to go!
 
ScottM said:
*snip* That is why, unlike a lot of people, I did not let the RF case get my undies all knotted up. RF was just a little nothing.
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Well, not nothing from the perspective of anyone who finds runwayfinder a useful resource.
 
ChrisS said:
Well I for one thinks that the quality of the Stenbock & Everson software sucks. I use their Golden Eagle software (only the free version) and it just doesn't feel like a quality application. The user interface does not adhere to industry standards,
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What industry standards? ANSI or ISO citation, please.

There are defacto guidelines published by just about every major software house, (and they all read pretty much the same, the first I read was X11, then Apple's in 1985. SUN's was pretty much the entire package with global change Apple -> SUN. Mircrosoft's reads pretty much the same too, but certain widgets are in different places).
 
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