I'm of the opinion that most software patents are kind of stupid. I'm not a lawyer, but the "non-obvious" part of the patent application has always seemed too low of a bar.
I also haven't seen the patents, so I don't know if the patent was for a particular mechanism for delivering email to wireless devices, or just for the idea of delivering email to wireless devices. I don't think the latter is all that non-obvious, but it might have been in 1982...
I should be able to say something intelligent sounding in response to this, but I've been drinking.
You can't even say something that sounds intelligent?
I would hope that the patent revolves around having a dedicated device for the purpose. Software patents are, however, an absurdly slippery slope, in that they're not so much a slope as a cliff, and the cliff is made of vaseline. Or something. Imagine if software patents had been all the rage twenty years ago: we would have one word processor, one spreadsheet, etc., etc. Bleah.
I looked at several of the patents. They are pretty general, but they are much more specific than the mere idea of sending e-mail to wireless devices. Nor would I characterize them as software patents. The ones I looked at are methods of transmitting messages, apparently for increased reliability.
That said, they seem pretty broad. That is a problem with many patents. The inventor invents a specific thing; the patent attorney tries to write the patent to be as general as possible and still get accepted by the PTO, and then, down the road, the patent gets applied to an invention the original inventor had not conceived of.
we would have one word processor, one spreadsheet
...isn't this roughly congruent to the current state of affairs?
No, it's not. And the existence of other platforms and programs, plus the fact that the principle alternative programs--WordPerfect/Corel and Open Office--save to and read from Word/Excel make them usable. This despite living in a world where commercial standard hegemony does in fact exist, but doesn't complete smother innovation, nor prevent migration to alternative forms: pdf, xml html versions of documents, for example.
Patents on word processing and spreadsheet features would be much more difficult to work around, assuming MS held them. If it wasn't them it'd be somebody else. Apple is just as ruthless, they've just lost market share despite consistently more advanced user experience. I think of them as the Northern Alliance of Softwareistan.
I remember reading a case where the question was whether spreadsheets were patentable. I remember the answer was no, and that the case went through the paper history of the spreadsheet concept and also the history of Visicalc.
One of the basic premises in granting (or not granting) a patent is the question of whether the invention is an obvious one, within the field. Sending email over wireless is a completely obvious idea, and as such would disqualify it for being patentable.
The problem comes in when the patent agents reviewing the application are not conversant in the field (the standard is whether it's obvious to someone *in* the field) they may incorrectly approve the application. This can happen especially in nascent fields where you don't have enough knowledgeable people to review these things.
There's a lot of problems with patent/copyright law and new technology -- issues we have now that no one dreamed of 200 years ago. Given the pace of change these days, having the times alloted to patents is absurd. The original idea was that the patent protection would allow the originator of the idea to make a bit of profit off it before others started using it. That makes sense when a new idea's shelf life is measured in decades. When it's measured in months as is practically the case these days, a patent can now ensure monopolies -- this is one of thereasons Microsoft is so aggressive about pursuing patents.
Apple is just as ruthless...they've just lost their copyright suit claiming that the versions of Windows (and any future GUI using a desktop concept) which hadn't been included in a past licensing agreement were infringements of Apple copyrights.
Essentially, it's a patent for a transport protocol like: HTTP (web), FTP, SMTP (email), and NNTP (news) (notice the TP at the end of them all – transport protocol) and a variety of other services. Specifically, the patent details how the device (cell phone or whatever) needs to handle messages coming over a specific port (it says which port in the article). As far as generality goes, these patents could be applied to not just email but any text, pdf files, photos, or any data that is sent over the protocol's port using that protocol. It's misleading when they say "email" because it's not really email. Email is messaging using the SMTP protocol, which of course is sent over the SMTP port, whereas this messaging (the mobile phone variety) uses a different port, so in fact, isn't email per se, but something that looks a lot like it from an end-user perspective.
So, should it be a patentable idea? If you think FTP, SMTP, and the like are engineering ideas worthy of patents, then ya, it is.
I have to agree with the general assessment that patents are a very bad fit for software development, and that the patent process is often abused.
I write a lot of software patents. As a matter of policy, there probably shouldn't be software patents. They aren't really needed to produce innovation in this area. For something like pharmaceuticals, companies wouldn't invest R&D money without the ability to get a patent. In the software area, copyright is usually enough.
However, since software patents are permitted, it can usually make sense for companies to get them even if they don't intend to assert them. Patents can be used defensively to counterclaim against competitors.
It often isn't that easy to find prior art to invalidate a patent. Even in cases where you would think that it wouldn't be that hard.