Where granted (very broad with prior-art) “Location-based services” patent

If you read my blog, you know that the USPTO granting patents that affect (mobile) innovation when they should not, is a pet peeve of mine.

Today I read about a new patent around location-based services. Good for Where. Not as good for the mobile community and innovators. To all mobile developers working on location-based apps, take note. Another example of USPTO granting broad and with prior-art patents.

Patent 7,848,765, filed on May 2005 has been granted to company Where. This patent:

• Seems way broad. It seems to cover almost everything under the sky related to geofencing;
• There already was prior-art when it comes to geofencing and a number of their claims.

Way too broad means new ideas and innovation related to the affected areas (in this case, such as geofencing) will or may experience obstacles and restrictions when brought to market by others. The issue is that there are many ways to accomplish the same thing; so Where’s specific method, not a super broad one, is what needed to be protected and defended. Broad patents hurt everyone and hurts innovation. And in addition, many of the their claims have prior art. Period.

[Geofencing using a browser, that allows a person to draw the perimeter, that transmitted information to a server, etc) was being done before 2005. Just do a search for geofencing on Google (or your favorite search engine). For example, some of the same claims were done back in 2003-4, on a product that I managed called Worktrack (Aligo, San Francisco) where we had location-based services that included the use of geofencing. Just do a quick search on Google for “geofencing + Aligo”; you will see references on from May 31, 04. And, there were (and still are) other companies as well working on geofencing, and marketing; not many in 2005, but some.]

From my perspective, this is just another example of the USPTO not doing proper research about what was *already* out in the wild.

ceo

Related to this:

• Where Is Awarded The “Mother Of All Geofencing Patents” (Techcrunch)
• Guidelines for LBS and Sensitive Data (Originally written on Dec 2004)