InterDigital Inc (IDCC)

[GoodRAM]

Red Herring


Will the base station issue be decided at the Markman hearing or by the jury? If by a jury, the red herring story could be quite useful. I have often used the red herring story before juries with striking success - but you can only use it in the right case.

We often use the term "red herring". We know what it means, but the reason we use these words has been forgotten. In old England, the serfs had to work the land to supply the lord of the castle with enough crops to meet their yearly quota. If the crops were thin, it may be a hungry or worse winter for the serfs, because the lord of the manor got first dibbs.

When the lord went on a fox hunt, an unfortunate result could be that the fox might run accross your land, followed by the dogs and the horses, which would trample your crops. To prevent this, the serfs would put herring around the outside of their field to throw the dogs off the scent of the fox. The herring would lay out in the summer sun and when they rotted, they would stink terribly and turn a reddish color.

Erricson's one base station issue is nothing but a red herring. Look at the Abstract for patent 4,817,089. It says, "transmitter and receiver means both at said base stations and at said subscriber for providing direct communication between said base stations." Yet Ericsson wants you to believe that this patent applies only to one base station! This is nothing but a red herring.

Best,
RAM