Patent Trolling for Cheap Phone Calls

Here is yet another example of software patent abuse. A patent trolling firm called Rates Technology is suing Google alleging patent infringement by its Google Talk program.

I haven’t found a copy of the lawsuit, but according to the Register, one of the two patents at issue is Patent Number 5,519,769, “Method and system for updating a call rating database”:

The advantages and features of the present invention now allows the database that stores billing rate parameters in a rate table for call rating devices to be updated. The call rating device is connected at a predetermined time and date via a data transfer line to a rate provider having billing rate parameters for a plurality of calling stations. Indicia identifying the call rating device and the date and time of the last update of the billing rate parameters is transmitted over the data transfer line to the rate provider. The rate provider verifies that the billing rate parameters should be updated, and it transmits to the call rating device the updated billing rate parameters when the rate provider determines that an update is required.

It goes on in this vein for paragraphs and paragraphs. Skimming the entire patent, I don’t really understand how this could be considered an “invention.” Obviously, if you wanted to find the lowest-cost route for a particular call, you would poll each possible service provider seeking their rates, and then store their answers in a database, which would be updated periodically. If any idea is “obvious,” that surely is.

I’m also bewildered about how Google Talk could be considered to have infringed this patent, unless anyone who routes calls over a switched network is considered to be an infringer. If that’s what’s going on, then this is a pretty good example of why a “no software patents” rule would good policy: whatever the merits of this patent as applied to telecommunications hardware, it’s pretty clearly an impediment to innovation when applied to a software-only product like Google Talk.

Update: Here is the complaint. It doesn’t appear to give any details about how Google Talk infringes the patents.

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