FlightPrep online planning patent

I'd post a link to my thoughts but for some dumb rule about needing 10 posts before that's allowed here. Whatever. It's the web.

Here... I'll cut and paste my copyrighted material from our podcast website. Sheesh.

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FlightPrep -- the people who make ChartCase Pro and other aviation products, have continued their patent infringement claims this week and the owners of NavMonster.com threw in the towel today. Many people already knew that the free RunwayFinder.com service already shut down last week with the owner vowing to fight in court and represent himself if need be.

As someone who earns some unknown percentage of my company's business revenue in my non-aviation personal life from some of the videoconferencing technology patents my employer holds, I tried to be understanding of FlightPrep's tactics last week. Maybe they have a real claim, maybe they don't. That's not my call to make. We'll let a Judge work that out.

But they're going after the little-guys first, which shows their disdain for the rather small aviation community over their need to defend their patent. And yes, I understand that patents can't be selectively defended. If you do that, you lose them.

Nevertheless, with RunwayFinder and NavMonster now both dead, and probably more coming, I don't think I can stomach sending these FlightPrep folks any more of my money. The collateral damage to the aviation ecosystem by their bad behavior is too high.

Perhaps they'll explain themselves, but with serious damage already done in the community, I don't think I will care.

Too many students and low-budget pilots relied on these free resources to get into aviation on a budget, with their outstanding pre-flight weather data, and online navigation tools, available for free online. This helped countless pilots out until they could afford their own gizmos, gadgets, and annual software and chart updates. Or even guys like me who wanted to check the weather from any online computer to see if I could get a flight in later that day.

The other guys that compete with ChartCase Pro -- like Foreflight on the iPad -- don't have XM Weather yet, and a number of other ChartCase features, so I had been "picking on them" good-naturedly online and via the podcast to play catch-up, indirectly being a "champion" or fan of ChartCase Pro, but while still purchasing Foreflight and other emerging aviation software packages for my iPad. Healthy competition is good, and I'm a techo-gadget design and implementation watcher and early-adoptee.

But now, this patent defense by Flightprep has turned decidedly unhealthy for the aviation community.

Instead of Flightprep innovating and re-building their technology into new code that would run to meet the changing hardware platforms like the iPad head-on, they instead decided to push numerous small businesses into an expensive and potentially deadly patent battle, effectively suing everyone who's ever drawn a magenta line on a map.

Sure, they tossed together a quick iPad App to display charts, that had very few of the full featured ChartCase Pro features. But I get the distinct feeling that they were falling way behind on this excellent new hardware platform and knew it.

Flightprep was answering public questions via social media online about all of this, up until last week when they deleted all negative comments from Facebook about their behavior and clammed up. I suspect this was at the advice of Counsel, and not all that surprising. But I personally take it as a sign that they're no longer interested in engaging with the online aviation community or potential customers in an honest and forthright manner.

As for Foreflight, I'm hoping that they get/have Apple aporoval to connect the XM Weather receivers to iPad via Bluetooth soon and can write their weather-overlay code quickly -- if their goal is to match ChartCase's feature-set, but frankly...

I might even go buy a Garmin at five times the price, just to watch Garmin's lawyers eat the FlightPrep guys alive, if they enjoin Garmin in their battle.

Now that FlightPrep has chosen to attack every free online service for aviation on the Web, I'm done with them.

ChartCase Pro cost me roughly $350 plus whatever chart updates I've purchased over the last couple of years, and the hardware to run it on. I built the machine myself, out of a Panasonic ToughBook from eBay.

My iPad is brighter, the battery lasts hours longer than my fuel tanks will hold on the aircraft, and all that's missing is more software features. Those are coming. Even if they cost more than I'm paying today, I'm a long-term buyer of aviation software on the Apple iPad platform.

When I asked at the table at Oshkosh this year how much for the new ChartBook customized netbook and got a wildly different answer than I received only a month prior in e-mail, and when the person at the booth dodged my technical questions about what exactly they were doing to a $350 netbook that would justify the $1500 price tag they put on it, I knew something was wrong and didn't purchase the hardware at the show.

Immediately after Oshkosh, Flightprep pulled down the FAQ question that detailed which netbook model was being used for the new Chartbook hardware that was on their website. Call it a gut feeling that something was terribly wrong at Flightprep, after they saw what was flying off the shelves at Oshkosh. Flightprep suddenly wanted to make that information harder for the average Joe to figure that out.

I knew I could assemble the same hardware upgrade for myself with a weekend day's worth of my time, an "Add to Cart" at Amazon or NewEgg for the netbook, and a glare-reducing appliqué for the screen for less than $400 and move my licensed copy of their software to the new machine easily.

So... I won't be spending any more of my money on ChartCase Pro or updates for it. Some are calling it a boycott, which it is. I prefer to think of it as voting out bad software patent practices with my dollars. I wish them a short life until bankruptcy or a significant change in leadership and attitude. Their patent-trolling is causing more harm to General Aviation than good.

I don't have any problem with Flightprep doing business as they see fit. I simply won't be doing any more business with them myself, nor recommending their products to any of my friends.

These are my personal opinions and not necessarily those of the other hosts of the Mile High Flyers podcast. I assume we will discuss this news on the podcast soon to get everyone else's opinions. And as an unsponsored, non-software producing entity within the Aviation community made up of roughly 200 podcast listeners, I believe we are in a position to be able to speak our minds freely without fear of losing sponsors, or having to hold our opinion quiet until the lawsuit dust has settled, since many of the large aviation organizations have software online that could be targeted by Flightprep's legal advisors. We have a duty to the aviation community to speak up while they must remain silent for now.
 
denverpilot said:
FlightPrep -- the people who make ChartCase Pro and other aviation products, have continued their patent infringement claims this week and the owners of NavMonster.com threw in the towel today.
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Actually NavMonster is back up this week after coming to a license agreement with FP.

denverpilot said:
As someone who earns some unknown percentage of my company's business revenue in my non-aviation personal life from some of the videoconferencing technology patents my employer holds, I tried to be understanding of FlightPrep's tactics last week. Maybe they have a real claim, maybe they don't. That's not my call to make. We'll let a Judge work that out.
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Yep. Or the USPTO if a honest to goodness request for revocation is submitted. For the time being there is a valid patent. Until such time that is revoked we have to honor that status of the IP. The fight is to either show it to be invalid by more than screeching about it in a public forum and having it revoked.

denverpilot said:
But they're going after the little-guys first, which shows their disdain for the rather small aviation community over their need to defend their patent. And yes, I understand that patents can't be selectively defended. If you do that, you lose them.
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FP is like 4 guys, not exactly a behemoth either. The big vs. little guy drama really does not hold any water upon actual investigation. This is for all intents and purposes a little guy vs. little guy. I also cannot help but wonder if Jepp/Boeing were to get involved would there be a similar outcry of big guy (Jepp) hurting little guy (FP). Somehow I doubt it, so be careful least ye be labeled a hypocrite. The last time I checked justice and the law apply to all in this country equally, you do not get a break based on the number of people in your company.

denverpilot said:
Perhaps they'll explain themselves, but with serious damage already done in the community, I don't think I will care.
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What serious damage? A couple of small time websites are shut down, the information to do flight planning is still available from a multitude of other sources and most of it still for free. Let us not forget DUATS and DUAT. FP supplied the DUATS flightplanner and now Seattle Avionics is doing the same for DUAT. We got a really nice 2nd software package to play with now thanks to the actions of FP.

denverpilot said:
Too many students and low-budget pilots relied on these free resources to get into aviation on a budget, with their outstanding pre-flight weather data, and online navigation tools, available for free online. This helped countless pilots out until they could afford their own gizmos, gadgets, and annual software and chart updates. Or even guys like me who wanted to check the weather from any online computer to see if I could get a flight in later that day.
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So let me see if I understand. Pilots who can afford several hundred dollars for a headset and hundred dollars/hr of flight instruction cannot afford an E6B, AOPA membership, etc. to do paper flight planning or cannot figure out how to use the other free online sources is a reason that we cannot allow FP to exercise their intellectual property rights?

denverpilot said:
But now, this patent defense by Flightprep has turned decidedly unhealthy for the aviation community.
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An opinion. With the return of NavMonster and other things I am hearing about it, this may have gotten a few people to innovate around the FP patent specifically to annoy FP. That would be good, would it not?

denverpilot said:
Instead of Flightprep innovating and re-building their technology into new code that would run to meet the changing hardware platforms like the iPad head-on, they instead decided to push numerous small businesses into an expensive and potentially deadly patent battle, effectively suing everyone who's ever drawn a magenta line on a map.
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And this is different than any other patent dispute how?

denverpilot said:
Flightprep was answering public questions via social media online about all of this, up until last week when they deleted all negative comments from Facebook about their behavior and clammed up. I suspect this was at the advice of Counsel, and not all that surprising. But I personally take it as a sign that they're no longer interested in engaging with the online aviation community or potential customers in an honest and forthright manner.
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I think the mob mentality of the online community about this issue was also a contributing factor. FP needed and wanted a way to get their view out. There were more than a few people who wanted them to have no such platform, having already pronounced them guilty. Any company wants to control the messages on their own website. FP did not try to stifle discussion on any of the news board, they just wanted their message on their FB page to reflect their view point. A perfectly normal thing to do. That is why you should not ever just use a single source to gauge an opinion.

denverpilot said:
Now that FlightPrep has chosen to attack every free online service for aviation on the Web, I'm done with them.
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Exercising rights written in the US Constitution is now an attack. REALLY?

FP is doing what countless other companies do on a daily basis. Seems to me that there are a lot of pilots hung up on the loosing the 'free' flight planners.
 
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Yep forgot to clip the posting date along with the article. Less information was known when I wrote that. Again, couldn't post the link. On the web. On a web forum. Cute rule I didn't know about until I hit send.

Anyway...

As far as the standard Internet-style clipping of every sentence or two and refuting it out of context of the content of the whole article, goes... did you really want answers to all of those questions?

You can chop up what I said into little phrases to give each one the wrong emphasis outside of the context of the larger article, and make it say things I never said.

(Example: Claiming I said Flightprep was a big company. I never said that. Re-read those sentences. It's not there. I said they attacked little guys. I did not comment on their size, or lack thereof. Because the POINT was that they went after the little guys with zero money, which in most normal human behavior textbooks is called "bullying".)

So before we go further, are you interested in a discussion of their behavior, or are you simply employing a very old, tired, Internet/Online debate tactic? I've seen this argument tactic before, all the way back to acoustic couplers and BBS's. The oldest online argument tactic in the book. And unless you really needed multiple questions answered, I'm going to start yawning. Were you serious about any of those questions? How do they relate to your opinion about FlightPrep?

I'm not playing you're doing that tactic just for argumentativeness. Drawing and quartering every post at every other sentence isn't discourse, it's just boring.

Back to FlightPrep. The point that most folks seem to "get" when they read my little post there, is that for me, It all comes down to judging their character and voting with my dollars. FlightPrep's product may actually be better feature-wise than their competition, but their customers also have a say in how they treat the other members of the brotherhood/fraternity of small aviation businesses. My judgement with my dollars is final.

Bottom line: Are *you* going to spend your dollars on FlightPrep's products after their behavior the last few weeks, or not? The rest is just Internet discussion dander, and reading the previous posts, I thought most here were avoiding that kind of silliness. So I shared my thoughts as to why I dropped FlightPrep from my personal "Approved Vendors List".

So...

Are you buying what they're sellin' or no? Easy question. None of the above matters beyond that, for it will ultimately determine the fate of the company.

Take a position on where your dollars go. Let's not play semantics on the wording of my couple week old post, reprinted here.

As for me and my money... No more to FlightPrep. It's hard(er) to continue or start new legal battles from bankruptcy.
 
I broke apart my issues with what you said to make it easy for you to respond and not spend time with Internet rumor, supposition, incorrect facts, and irrelevant crying about losing free resources that are easily replaceable.

denverpilot said:
Yep forgot to clip the posting date along with the article. Less information was known when I wrote that. Again, couldn't post the link. On the web. On a web forum. Cute rule I didn't know about until I hit send.
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You can post links here. It is simple to do. You can either spell it out like: http://cnn.com or embed it as in LINK. Look at the tool bar on the top of the edit window. See the Earth with chainlink icon under the smilley face? That is the embed link tool.


denverpilot said:
As far as the standard Internet-style clipping of every sentence or two and refuting it out of context of the content of the whole article, goes... did you really want answers to all of those questions?
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Up to you.
denverpilot said:
(Example: Claiming I said Flightprep was a big company. I never said that. Re-read those sentences. It's not there. I said they attacked little guys. I did not comment on their size, or lack thereof. Because the POINT was that they went after the little guys with zero money, which in most normal human behavior textbooks is called "bullying".)
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If you are claiming that they are picking on "little guys" then they must be big bad guys. I merely pointed out that after hearing this argument ad nauseum that it is first not true and secondly a non-sequitur. The point is that FP has at this time a valid patent and the right to assert their rights via licensing agreements and if need be lawsuits. The single lawsuit they filed was a result of a company that refused to discus with them licensing issues and has publicly acknowledged that they ignored the initial requests for discussion from FP. I cannot help but also hold them responsible for the predicament they are in. The other two companies I know of that are involved in this mess were able to discuss the issue with FP and come to an agreement that seems to be serving them both.

denverpilot said:
So before we go further, are you interested in a discussion of their behavior, or are you simply employing a very old, tired, Internet/Online debate tactic? I've seen this argument tactic before, all the way back to acoustic couplers and BBS's. The oldest online argument tactic in the book. And unless you really needed multiple questions answered, I'm going to start yawning. Were you serious about any of those questions? How do they relate to your opinion about FlightPrep?
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Always interested. But you do not seem to be. You took the time to completely dismiss every point I made with a bunch of bluster that served no purpose other than to show, one you do not know how to use the editor in vBuliten, two that you care not for they way in which I formatted my response to your initial out of date thesis and three to try and intimidate a person who raised perfectly reasonable questions and observations about the situation that ran counter to your opinions.

denverpilot said:
I'm not playing you're doing that tactic just for argumentativeness. Drawing and quartering every post at every other sentence isn't discourse, it's just boring.
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Then be bored away.

I for one am bored by posts that use misinformation and a failure to understand IP law as a call to arms to put a company out of business for doing doing nothing that any other company does on a daily basis.

denverpilot said:
Back to FlightPrep. The point that most folks seem to "get" when they read my little post there, is that for me, It all comes down to judging their character and voting with my dollars. FlightPrep's product may actually be better feature-wise than their competition, but their customers also have a say in how they treat the other members of the brotherhood/fraternity of small aviation businesses. My judgement with my dollars is final.
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So be it. But I am pointing out that FP is justified in doing what they are doing and that it is a very common thing to do in any business. The online aviation community seems to be getting their panties in a collective wad over the idea of losing something that was free and *GASP* maybe having to break out the crowbar to get into their wallets. I for one will wait for this to play out. In the end we will know if someone is able to invalidate the patent. But so far no one has really stepped to the plate. We have two companies that have now agreed to a licensing a arrangement. A third that is being sued and is putting it case together. IOW it is too early to judge.

There are some that hate software patents on principal. Meh, those patents are here to stay and only a major overhaul of the patent process will change that. There are far too many players in the patent game that know how to use those patents for their own gain and to defend against the others to make it go away. IOW it is tilting at windmills to think that anything is going to change.

denverpilot said:
Bottom line: Are *you* going to spend your dollars on FlightPrep's products after their behavior the last few weeks, or not? The rest is just Internet discussion dander, and reading the previous posts, I thought most here were avoiding that kind of silliness. So I shared my thoughts as to why I dropped FlightPrep from my personal "Approved Vendors List".
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I don't spend my money with them now. I use their free product and it serves me well. I will continue to use their product as I use others. The only flight-planning package that I have seen that makes me want to spend any money is Foreflight. As soon as the I obtain an iPad2 I will be subscribing to that product.

denverpilot said:
Are you buying what they're sellin' or no?
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I am listening. In all the posts I have made on this subject I have been very careful to not judge or comment on the merits of the FlightPrep case. That is by design as I often am called into patent litigation to offer testimony. While I doubt this would be a case that I could get mired in, I will nonetheless be careful as the company that I work for has some navigation products.


denverpilot said:
As for me and my money... No more to FlightPrep. It's hard(er) to continue or start new legal battles from bankruptcy.
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Tell that to NextWave who, after bankruptcy, were able to successfully sue the FCC to keep a license that they had bid on and then failed to pay for.
 
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ScottM said:
Actually NavMonster is back up this week after coming to a license agreement with FP.
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It was my understanding of the chatter that they didn't actually enter into a license but rather sat down with flightprep, talked about their technology vs. the patent and arrived at an agreement that they are not infringing (different from skyvector, their site doesn't state 'using technology licensed by flightprep' ). If you look at what navmonster does, there is just nothing in there that is covered by the language of the patent, so it is not suprising that they are back up (someone mentioned that the site has changed since it was down, so maybe they did make some changes to stay clear of the patent claims, e.g. they link to skyvector for the maps and I dont see any 'drawing a line on a map' functionality).
 
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weilke said:
It was my understanding of the chatter that they didn't actually enter into a license but rather sat down with flightprep, talked about their technology vs. the patent and arrived at an agreement that they are not infringing (different from skyvector, their site doesn't state 'using technology licensed by flightprep' ). If you look at what navmonster does, there is just nothing in there that is covered by the language of the patent, so it is not suprising that they are back up (someone mentioned that the site has changed since it was down, so maybe they did make some changes to stay clear of the patent claims).
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Good clarification and an excellent example that if one actually were to have talked with FP then they can come to an acceptable agreement.
 
ScottM said:
Good clarification and an excellent example that if one actually were to have talked with FP then they can come to an acceptable agreement.
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I dont know if RF could have come up with an agreement, it may well be that his way of doing things was covered by the patent.
 
weilke said:
I dont know if RF could have come up with an agreement, it may well be that his way of doing things was covered by the patent.
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And we'll never know if they could have...RF decided the bury their head in the sand and ignore the request to talk...could be costly for them.
 
JeffDG said:
And we'll never know if they could have...RF decided the bury their head in the sand and ignore the request to talk...could be costly for them.
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Well, as I understand it, RF is a LLC owned by a single person who states that it doesn't make him any money. So in the end, the only 'cost' could be that it will cost him a hobby (unless he does something foolish and opens himself up to a piercing of the 'corporate shield' and puts his personal assets at risk).
 
weilke said:
Well, as I understand it, RF is a LLC owned by a single person who states that it doesn't make him any money. So in the end, the only 'cost' could be that it will cost him a hobby (unless he does something foolish and opens himself up to a piercing of the 'corporate shield' and puts his personal assets at risk).
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In patent infringement, the shield is pretty easily pierced, particularly for a single-person LLC.

The LLC cannot, by itself, infringe a patent. One of it's officers/directors/employees would actually infringe the patent, and the LLC would be vicariously liable for the actions of their agent. But that doesn't change the fact that the individual person still committed the actual act of infringement, if such act actually occurred.

It's like a single owner-LLC for a plane. If you crash your 182 into a bus full of investment bankers (I use them instead of kids because they have far higher earning potential), both you the pilot and the LLC are liable for the damages, so the LLC shield is essentially worthless. Now, if you have a two-owner LLC, that second owner is potentially fully protected by the LLC, but the pilot is still hung out to dry.
 
weilke said:
It was my understanding of the chatter that they didn't actually enter into a license but rather sat down with flightprep, talked about their technology vs. the patent and arrived at an agreement that they are not infringing (different from skyvector, their site doesn't state 'using technology licensed by flightprep' ). If you look at what navmonster does, there is just nothing in there that is covered by the language of the patent, so it is not suprising that they are back up (someone mentioned that the site has changed since it was down, so maybe they did make some changes to stay clear of the patent claims, e.g. they link to skyvector for the maps and I dont see any 'drawing a line on a map' functionality).
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It there on the MAP TAB
 
Scott, are you aware of the new user 10 post rule that requires new users make 10 posts prior to the software allowing them to post URL links here?

You're chastising/condescending tone about "how to properly use" vBulletin is making this old vBulletin user and admin laugh pretty hard. I'm glad I'm an old-hand at it, and you're not berating some real newbie. Lovely attitude.

Back to FlightPrep...

You're not even a customer?! Bwahaha...

I got sucked into an online debate about whether or not I'm allowed to have an opinion on where I send my money by someone who's got no dog in that fight.

Then that same person continues and tells me that they're regularly paid to be an "expert witness" in such things?

Only on the Internet. Wow.

I should have asked where you sit, before asking where you stand.

As far as your semantics discussion about whether or not a lawsuit is an "attack"... well...

"We ain't never had no flowers and chocolate delivered with a subpoena here."
 
denverpilot said:
Scott, are you aware of the new user 10 post rule that requires new users make 10 posts prior to the software allowing them to post URL links here?

You're chastising/condescending tone about "how to properly use" vBulletin is making this old vBulletin user and admin laugh pretty hard. I'm glad I'm an old-hand at it, and you're not berating some real newbie. Lovely attitude.
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Whatever, I tried to be nice to a newbie here at PoA and offer some suggestions. If you want to throw it in my face that says more about you than I. We try to be a pretty nice group of guys and gals here who are also friends off the board, if you want to go a different route that is your choice. You are such an expert at vBulletin I am surprised you could not have know to just enter the text where to look for your outdated and flawed diatribe.

denverpilot said:
Back to FlightPrep...

You're not even a customer?! Bwahaha...

I got sucked into an online debate about whether or not I'm allowed to have an opinion on where I send my money by someone who's got no dog in that fight.
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I fail to see the point you are making.
I use a FP product, the free one. I failed to see how their subscription product was worth my business. You obviously felt that dropping a couple of hundred bucks on it was worth it to you. C'est la guerre. I am still allowed to have an opinion on FP what they are doing in regards to defending their Constitutionally protected intellectual property.

denverpilot said:
Then that same person continues and tells me that they're regularly paid to be an "expert witness" in such things?
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I never claimed to be a paid excerpt witness, those are your words. An expert witness is a specific type of witness. My business has me working with a lot of IP most all of it generated and owned by the company. I spend time doing claim charts of certain standards and working with the legal team. This a big part of my job. That you may not be familiar with how IP is inserted into industry standards and how common lawsuits are as they exists around these things does not surprise me. It is not exactly interesting or exciting enough to get on the radar of most people's interests. I am happy when I am not under subpoena for a few months out the year. Having to constantly archive emails, phone logs, contributions to SDOs and industry forums is boring. Getting deposed to answer the same questions over and over is also mind numbing. But it is part of the game. Some of these suits can last years. One that is now over went on for ever with me having to answer far too many questions about a single email and phone conference. A few weeks ago I was told to expect another long drawn out case, SIGH! it never ends.

denverpilot said:
I should have asked where you sit, before asking where you stand.
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As I said I have not picked sides in the FP v RF case. I have merely pointed out incorrect or missing information about patent litigation in the technology industries.

denverpilot said:
As far as your semantics discussion about whether or not a lawsuit is an "attack"... well...
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Not a semantic issue at all, I am surprised that you would chose such a description. To paraphrase Clausewitz the lawsuit is continuation of negotiations by a different means.

We know a few things about what was sent to RF by FP because the letters are public. We know the RF claims that he tried to contact FP via email and phone calls. But other than his word we have no proof that said attempts were real. I do not say they weren't, but right now we don't know. One thing is for sure. The claim from Dave at RF that he had no idea what the NDA was about is not true. The letters from FP clearly state what the NDA was to cover and the topic to be discussed. I think Dave was in over his head, got some bad advise and made several bad choices. He clearly needed competent counsel for this matter. I see FP offering him the free license to start discussions as a peace offering, but RF decided to go a different route with a unique strategy. Can you honestly say that RF, which is the only company currently in litigation with FP about this issue, wholly without fault from bringing this lawsuit upon themselves?

Other companies have signed the NDA, had the discussion and either agreed to licensing or have shown they are not infringing. Seems to me to have been a pretty straight forward issue for most.
 
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It looks like somebody is playing hardball. I have the feeling that the attorneys took an agressive approach early when something less adversarial may have gotten better results. If Runwayfinder had received a non threatening letter offering a two year license for a nominal fee FlightPrep might not have received as much negative publicity. I suspect that some lawyers don't know how to play nice.

http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?contentBlockId=9895d80b-2471-4710-bac5-a87c37210ce7
 
No, one can't just type in links into the text box. vBulletin scans the text for strings that I can't even type here because it triggers on this post also, but they're the first five characters up there in your browser's address bar. If it sees that string, or a number of others, it blocks the posting.

You might be able to get around it with turning off "automatically parse links in text" but I doubt it. (If you can, that's hilarious... because it completely negates the feature's purpose. I can't remember, but I don't think the vBulletin developers are that loose with their code.)

So if you're truly trying to help with the software, please stop. I don't need it. I just need 4 more posts. LOL!

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I really don't care about RF's response to FlightPrep's bad behavior. I only care about whether or not I continue to send money to the people who started the fight. Does that make sense?

Caring about RF's response is kinda like asking the guy with a bullet hole in him, if he tried to duck when the other guy pulled out the gun and fired.

Lawsuits have grown to being such expensive and time-consuming things, that they're virtually the "nuclear option" in small business. I'm sure the owner of RF was (rightly) scared when he received the comminque' in the mail that FlightPrep was about to draw their weapon and aim. People get rattled, and do silly things when threatened if they haven't been through it before.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch... FlightPrep didn't have to go cowboy and draw their six-shooter in the first place.

I'm not an "RF supporter" which I have a vague feeling you think I am? I'm more of a "not going to send money to a company willing to pursue questionable patents and hire lawyers to fling feces, like monkeys, around the aviation community", on this whole thing.

Root-cause analysis.... FlightPrep didn't *have* to sue or contact RF at all, but they probably had already set their fate many years ago when they decided to pay a lawyer to fight for EIGHT YEARS and two application failures, to garner a pretty weak patent.

The fact that they've focused significant time and energy on this for eight years, explains the current status of their software and platform choice, and the crisis they find themselves in.

Their software hasn't gotten significant UI or any truly hard or difficult upgrades in years. Now we know what they were doing with their time. And if you don't keep moving in software, you die.

Lincoln said, "The Patent System added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius." and he was right.

Nothing in this patent was "genius", and the "fire" after eight years of chasing one patent, instead of technology and innovation, is apparently long gone from FlightPrep for software.

They've taught themselves to value something else, apparently. Perhaps they always did, if the top guy holds a JD.

I assert that their focus is on lawsuits instead of what their customers want in their software products, and that's ultimately... not good for Aviation, and not where I'll be spending my dollars.

Fair 'nuff?

Now for your claims:

I never said they can't defend their patent. I said I'm not going to pay them to do it.

I did insinuate that I don't hold your opinion (as a non-customer) as high as I would another customer -- who's either decided to continue to pay them, or not -- but you can certainly continue to have an opinion. Never said you couldn't.

Sounds like your day job sucketh mightily. Having to deal with the fecal matter that large companies and lawyers produce in court, isn't fun, but it pays the bills. Tech patents are the worst. And yes, I have been there, done that. The whole "industry standards" thing too... my employer deals with ITU in that regard.

I deal with the fecal matter the software developers shove out the door partially working at a large company... so I guess we're the same, there.

Hope you find some work that's more rewarding, someday. I'm certainly not interested in holding down this desk and helping people who can barely figure out a mouse, how to run a $500K worth of conferencing gear for the rest of my life.

It just pays the bills for the airplane and the hangar, and fuel (so far) to fly it.

Going flying... not going to worry about who cares if I send FlightPrep any money... and will be using the iPad and Foreflight, or whatever else comes along on it...

Anyone need a beat up old Panasonic Toughbook, cheap? :-)
 
RMCN172RG said:
It there on the MAP TAB
Click to expand...

Doh!, I was looking under the 'charts' tab.

Whatever they are doing, they are evidently not 'selecting a travel navigation chart selected from plural composite travel navigation charts stored at a server computer' use a 'housekeeping frame' or any of the other goofy definitions written into the patent.
 
weilke said:
Whatever they are doing, they are evidently not 'selecting a travel navigation chart selected from plural composite travel navigation charts stored at a server computer' use a 'housekeeping frame' or any of the other goofy definitions written into the patent.
Click to expand...

It looks to me that NavMonster displays maps from Google Maps not navigational charts. That's probably enough to keep the lawyers off their back, but I'm glad they check and are sure of that.
 
Gary F said:
It looks like somebody is playing hardball. I have the feeling that the attorneys took an agressive approach early when something less adversarial may have gotten better results. If Runwayfinder had received a non threatening letter offering a two year license for a nominal fee FlightPrep might not have received as much negative publicity. I suspect that some lawyers don't know how to play nice.

http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?contentBlockId=9895d80b-2471-4710-bac5-a87c37210ce7
Click to expand...
Here is the letter.

http://images.flightprep.com/MythVsFact/NotificationLetter.pdf

Looks pretty non-threatening to me. But if you think it was threatening I would be curious as to what and why?
 
Gary F said:
I might be a little nervous about the confidentially agreement, seems fairly broad. Why is it so important to FlightPrep? Would it not be possible to limit the scope of the agreement?
Click to expand...
Anything is possible but the NDA is there to also protect RF. It is very likely that if RF were to say 'I do not infringe and here is why' that they may show proprietary code. The NDA would protect RF by limiting what FP could do with that information and who they could share it with. Which should be they can do nothing with it nor share it. The other side is that it protects FP by stating that any deal between the parties is a private deal.

Before signing the NDA one would completely expect RF to look it over with their attorney and to raise any concerns. From what RF wrote they did nto do that at all. In fact what they say they were told, to ignore the letters as it is a fishing expedition, sounds more like something Dave heard on an Internet forum or bar.

I always say free legal advise is worth every penny that you paid for it.
 
Gary F said:
I might be a little nervous about the confidentially agreement, seems fairly broad. Why is it so important to FlightPrep? Would it not be possible to limit the scope of the agreement?
Click to expand...

Seems like a pretty innocuous NDA to me:
Again, we are willing to enter into a confidentiality agreement under which confidential information exchanged between the parties will be used solely for the purposes of discussion.
Click to expand...
 
I'm not sure how all of this is playing out, but given the backlash from pilots I thought this was a fitting quote from the AOPA update today.

If there's anything I've learned from my years in the tech world, it's that companies don't get killed by competition. They usually find creative ways to commit suicide."
--Sridhar Vembu,
CEO of Zoho
 
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