FlightPrep online planning patent

weilke said:
To me this looks like a case of 'patent lawyer gone wild' meets 'stubborn techie who doesn't understand patent law'.
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Except for their open letter is signed by "Roger Stenbock, JD, CFII." The dude is a lawyer himself, not a techie - So I'm sure he knew EXACTLY what he was getting into.
 
CJones said:
*I* know that, but it sounded like Neher was trying to present it as "I have no choice but to enforce my patent".
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That is his spin right now, I would not expect him to do anything but that not that he has decided to try and exercise his rights. So you take that stuff with a grain of salt and then focus on the real issue. Which is to challenge his rights by counter the claims. The rest is all just bluster, but I think you know that.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Except for their open letter is signed by "Roger Stenbock, JD, CFII." The dude is a lawyer himself, not a techie - So I'm sure he knew EXACTLY what he was getting into.
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I agree he knew what he was doing. I am not so sure we all do.

It is obvious he wanted to enforce this to increase value in his company. But to what end? To run competition away? I doubt that, those little guys were really not sucking on the teat of his revenue stream to any measurable level. Was it to get some of the business that Jepp has? I doubt that as it is too far fetched. That really only leaves to increase the worth of a company he wants to sell. I openly admit I could be completely wrong on his motivations and he did have delusional aspirations of being the one true flight planner.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Except for their open letter is signed by "Roger Stenbock, JD, CFII." The dude is a lawyer himself, not a techie - So I'm sure he knew EXACTLY what he was getting into.
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With 'subborn techie' I referred to the runwayfinder guy who seems to think that the patent is invalid simply because he disagrees with it and wouldn't give flightprep the time of day when they sent him their initial 'you may be infringing on our patent' letter.
 
ScottM said:
It is obvious he wanted to enforce this to increase value in his company. But to what end? To run competition away? I doubt that, those little guys were really not sucking on the teat of his revenue stream to any measurable level. Was it to get some of the business that Jepp has? I doubt that as it is too far fetched. That really only leaves to increase the worth of a company he wants to sell.
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What exactly would be wrong with that ?

He has gone through the trouble of building a company and he wishes to make a profit, either by licensing his technology or by selling the company. I think that's called being an enterpreneur.
 
weilke said:
With 'subborn techie' I referred to the runwayfinder guy who seems to think that the patent is invalid simply because he disagrees with it and wouldn't give flightprep the time of day when they sent him their initial 'you may be infringing on our patent' letter.
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It wasn't a "you may be infringing" it was a NDA. There is no way in hell I'd sign a NDA with them either. The big boys also declined their NDA and more or less told them to go to hell. Several of them now stating their opinion in public.

As far as being a 'stubborn techie' this guy hardly qualifies. There are a LOT of very stubborn techies out there that put up much more aggressive fights to these sort of BS claims.
 
jesse said:
It wasn't a "you may be infringing" it was a NDA. There is no way in hell I'd sign a NDA with them either. The big boys also declined their NDA and more or less told them to go to hell. Several of them now stating their opinion in public.
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They told them to go to hell because in their analysis their technology is sufficiently different from the very narrowly worded patent that they dont have to worry about loosing in court.

I guess skyvector looked at the patent, looked at their technology and decided that it was cheaper to find an agreeement with flightprep rather than fighting about the merits of the patent itself.

Result:
Skyvector: in business
Runwayfinder: not in business

As far as being a 'stubborn techie' this guy hardly qualifies. There are a LOT of very stubborn techies out there that put up much more aggressive fights to these sort of BS claims.
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'BS claim' ?

The only questions that count at this point are:
- does flightprep have a valid patent
- does runwayfinders system infringe on that patent

The answer to both questions seems to be yes.
 
Lots of butthurt in here by the flightprep pep squad.
The only question that has been answered in regards to runwayfinder:

Does Dave have the time or money to deal with the lawsuit? It does not seem so. Taking down the site does not mean FlightPrep is being infringed upon.
 
weilke said:
They told them to go to hell because in their analysis their technology is sufficiently different from the very narrowly worded patent that they dont have to worry about loosing in court.
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Wasn't that FlightAware not RunwayFinder?
 
jesse said:
It wasn't a "you may be infringing" it was a NDA. There is no way in hell I'd sign a NDA with them either. The big boys also declined their NDA and more or less told them to go to hell. Several of them now stating their opinion in public.

As far as being a 'stubborn techie' this guy hardly qualifies. There are a LOT of very stubborn techies out there that put up much more aggressive fights to these sort of BS claims.
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The NDA was to cover runwayfinder's technology as well, during discussions only.


Stenbock & Evorson Inc. 22781 Airport Rd. N.E. Dl, Aurora, Oregon 97002
ph: 503,678.4360 far 866.218.3763 www.flightprep.com​


September 10,2010

Chief Executive Officer and/or
David Parsons d/b/a Runwayflader
6229 84th Ave SE
Matter Island, WA 98040

Re: United States patent no. 7,640,098

Dear Sir or Madam,

Recently we notified you by U.S. mail that we own United States patent no. 7,640,098 (the ‘098 patent). The ‘098 patent covers the process of generating flight plans on the Internet. Our company utilizes this patent allowing pilots to plan flights on the Internet. We understand that your company also provides a service allowing pilots to plan flights on the Internet.

In this notification we offered to discuss with you both the ‘098 patent and any technology that you own relating to flight planning. Again, we are wining to enter into a confidentiality agreement under which confidential information exchanged between the parties will be used solely for the purposes of discussion.

While we’ve received enthusiastic responses to our ‘098 patent from others in the industry, we have not received a reply from you. We also understand that at times, some matters may be delayed or overlooked. Nonetheless, this matter is important and time is of the essence. A response of your intention regarding the ‘098 patent, will be much appreciated.

If you need additional information, please feel free to contact me.

Very truly,

Kyle B. Everson
President


CC: Roger M. Stenbock, CR1, J.D.
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The NDA was to try and stop RunwayFinder from publicly saying how big of jackasses FlightPrep were being.
 
The latest on Runway Finder's site is Dave is preparing to fight; has a plan; and will be working the weekend to decide how. Good luck Dave. We're rooting for you.
One of the tweets on pdfplates referenced Flightprep and ASA together:
"We've lost a great free aviation resource, RunwayFinder.com. I recommend you cancel any @FlightPrep subscriptions and not buy ASA products."
Anyone know what the association is?
 
FlightPrep ... ASA ... Anyone know what the association is?

I spoke with ASA:

Stenbock is not an employee or manager at ASA. Nor does Stenbock have any ownership share of ASA.
 
Implicating ASA in this seems a bit of a stretch. If I boycotted every publisher who published an author I didn't like, I'd have a lot more time for video games.
 
chucky said:
Implicating ASA in this seems a bit of a stretch. If I boycotted every publisher who published an author I didn't like, I'd have a lot more time for video games.
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If you boycotted every company that enforced a bad patent you would not be able to buy anything, including all those video games.
 
ScottM said:
If you boycotted every company that enforced a bad patent you would not be able to buy anything, including all those video games.
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It's generally not patents, it's DMCA claims that bug me with them.
 
I was wondering what the ASA association was. I agree, boycotting ASA because of FlightPrep is a bit of a stretch - I would say that boycotting his products that ASA sells as linked above is plenty. ASA makes a lot of good stuff.
 
silver-eagle said:
Thanks. Seems like a stretch to me. Kind of like not buying a magazine because you don't like the advertiser.
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What's wrong with that?

I agree that in the ASA situation it might be a bit of a stretch but it's one of a number of tools that has been effective in the past.

Some discussion about the tactic here:
http://adage.com/article?article_id=86747
 
ScottM said:
If you boycotted every company that enforced a bad patent you would not be able to buy anything, including all those video games.
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The big companies don't usually crush the little guy with their patent crap. Generally they just build up an arsenal of them so that no one dare sue them.

Care to site an example where a big company crushed a small video game company with a totally generic bogus patent?
 
jesse said:
The big companies don't usually crush the little guy with their patent crap. Generally they just build up an arsenal of them so that no one dare sue them.
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"Generally", "usually", lots of wiggle room there in your statement. I am not saying that big companies often do this, but they are not avoiding it. There are plenty of cases were patents and copyright are used to competitive advantage, refusal to license is a way that big companies will cause other companies, including smaller ones to have to use more expensive tech or to redesign their product. Read up in the Microsoft I4I lawsuit, that one is scarring the bejesus out of big software companies right now and is more germane to the little guy vs. big guy lawsuit. This is more interesting as it pertains to this FlightPrep case, if FP proceeds to go after Jep because it could give FP a chance to use their patent to actually get some money. I4I's patent is scary as it is being upheld and it's claims basically are that if you use XML in a document you infringe upon their patent.

jesse said:
Care to site an example where a big company crushed a small video game company with a totally generic bogus patent?
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Couldn't you find one on Wiki?
 
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Sounds like a disagreement that could have been settled between gentlemen, sans lawyers. See "Kelleher v. Stevens Aviation" for an example.

I, too, wish FlightPrep would spend less time on lawsuits, and more time improving their product. It's a very good representative of software circa 1998. They should look to FltPlan.com for some ideas, without, of course, infringing on any patents.

I have to chuckle at Jepp's response. Or lack thereof. "Bring it on, kid, bring it on. Do you know how many Senators and Congressmen we own???"
 
ScottM said:
I4I's patent is scary as it is being upheld and it's claims basically are that if you use XML in a document you infringe upon their patent.
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From what I've been reading about the suit (and it's been going on for a couple years now) it's not the generic use of XML, it's the way I4I has implemented methods to manage documents using XML.

For example, I can put all the XML tags I want into a document. When that file is displayed using any software that recognizes XML tags, I see a formatted displayed. This in no way violates the I4I patent.

If I understand correctly, what I4I has done (very successfully) is to separate the content & formatting information. I4I's products puts an XML "wrapper" around the document, so there's no need for XML tags in the document itself. This is sufficiently similar to I4I's approach to initiate the dispute.

And if you're interested, I4I has won all the battles in the war (so far). It's now at the SCOTUS. Here's an interesting take on the issue from an IP lawyer.

http://ipwatchdog.com/2010/11/29/us-supreme-court-accepts-microsoft-appeal-in-i4i-case/id=13578/

And here's his take on "patent trolls". He prefers the term "innovation vampires"

http://ipwatchdog.com/2010/12/14/pa...n-vampires-suck-life-out-of-economy/id=13797/
 
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I'm fairly convinced there is plenty of prior art out there. Would just have to do some looking. Several examples were cited on Hacker News when this was discussed on there.
 
Here is a scenario to think about...

FlightPrep obtain patent for 'technology' that they are obviously not capable of implementing to a competetive standard, and manage to obtain licensing agreements with those companies who are capable of doing so. FlightPrep owners sit back and get rich off of the abilities of these more professional companies and wind down/stop their own software production (which isn't that great).

Good work if you can get it. :rolleyes2:
 
I've started a new thread (http://www.pilotsofamerica.com/forum/showthread.php?t=39430) in the hope of getting Google to offer some or all of the features right on gMaps. Seems to me their legal team could fend off patent trolls without breaking a sweat, and then maybe Small Innovators & Associates could get back to doing what the patent system was initially created to foster.
 
midlifeflyer said:
silver-eagle said:
Thanks. Seems like a stretch to me. Kind of like not buying a magazine because you don't like the advertiser.
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What's wrong with that?

I agree that in the ASA situation it might be a bit of a stretch but it's one of a number of tools that has been effective in the past.

Some discussion about the tactic here:
http://adage.com/article?article_id=86747http://adage.com/article?article_id=86747
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With all the talk of boycott, one might want to revisit this concept.

Anyone have a list of who does business with FlightPrep? For example, their free software is available from CSC DUATS. Are you willing to cancel your DUATS?
 
I think I am about ready to call CSC duats at [SIZE=-1]1-800-345-3828 and tell them to cancel my account..

I already have the other free account with DTC duat that I can continue to use. [/SIZE]


midlifeflyer said:
With all the talk of boycott, one might want to revisit this concept.

Anyone have a list of who does business with FlightPrep? For example, their free software is available from CSC DUATS. Are you willing to cancel your DUATS?
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I think this has the potential to turn into a lose-lose-lose situation. I don't see any winner here (except for the lawyers).
 
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