3 ms·

I'm not a big fan of patent trolling but I do like to see apple get a taste of their own medicine after what happened with samsung.

IBM 11y ago
This isn't patent trolling. Apple and Ericsson had a license agreement and when it ended they couldn't agree on a new price and went to court about it. They've now reached a price they both agree to in this settlement.
- gnarbarian 11y ago
  I think some of these patents are pretty bogus. Take this patent for example: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7660417B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US7660417B2/en Is this a patent for an encryption handshake? I'm pretty sure I can find very similar flowcharts in my security textbook from 2002. http://www.slashroot.in/understanding-ssl-handshake-protocol http://www.slashroot.in/understanding-ssl-handshake-protocol
  - throwawaykf05 11y ago
    Yes, it is for one specific handshake, similar to many others. At a quick glance, the claims don't seem to cover any earthshaking innovation, but the introduction claims this makes it resistant to weaknesses in the underlying crypto algorithms that have been shown to be broken.
__jal 11y ago
Schadenfreude may amuse, but what we have here is not even a casino. It is a massive negative-sum (to the non-lawyer participants) game where winning usually turns on procedural points having nothing relevant to do with the actual conflict. (If you disagree, then kindly explain the Eastern District Court of Texas.) The result is this huge coercion machine that pretty much randomly chews up small companies and rewards attorneys and (somewhat randomly) large ones.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- magicalist 11y ago
  > It is a massive negative-sum (to the non-lawyer participants) To be fair, in this case Ericsson is a practicing entity and they probably have a salaried legal staff, so your specific criticisms don't really apply here. More just general patent criticisms: ease of acquisition, non-specificity, valuation on market and legal leverage instead of marginal value, (if any of the above patents are software patents) software patents in general, etc
  - __jal 11y ago
    > Ericsson is a practicing entity and they probably have a salaried legal staff I didn't say anything about NPEs. Ericsson may have a stable of in-house patent litigators; it is one enterprise where that probably makes economic sense (I know Google has their own IP litigators). But most patent litigation that makes it to trial is handled by specialist firms.
TheMagicHorsey 11y ago
It is trolling. Nobody would pay a license for these crap patents for the technology. They have to pay a license for this trivial obvious garbage because the USPTO doesn't know better.

IBM 11y ago

This isn't patent trolling. Apple and Ericsson had a license agreement and when it ended they couldn't agree on a new price and went to court about it. They've now reached a price they both agree to in this settlement.

gnarbarian 11y ago
I think some of these patents are pretty bogus. Take this patent for example: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7660417B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US7660417B2/en Is this a patent for an encryption handshake? I'm pretty sure I can find very similar flowcharts in my security textbook from 2002. http://www.slashroot.in/understanding-ssl-handshake-protocol http://www.slashroot.in/understanding-ssl-handshake-protocol
- throwawaykf05 11y ago
  Yes, it is for one specific handshake, similar to many others. At a quick glance, the claims don't seem to cover any earthshaking innovation, but the introduction claims this makes it resistant to weaknesses in the underlying crypto algorithms that have been shown to be broken.

__jal 11y ago

Schadenfreude may amuse, but what we have here is not even a casino. It is a massive negative-sum (to the non-lawyer participants) game where winning usually turns on procedural points having nothing relevant to do with the actual conflict. (If you disagree, then kindly explain the Eastern District Court of Texas.) The result is this huge coercion machine that pretty much randomly chews up small companies and rewards attorneys and (somewhat randomly) large ones.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
magicalist 11y ago
> It is a massive negative-sum (to the non-lawyer participants) To be fair, in this case Ericsson is a practicing entity and they probably have a salaried legal staff, so your specific criticisms don't really apply here. More just general patent criticisms: ease of acquisition, non-specificity, valuation on market and legal leverage instead of marginal value, (if any of the above patents are software patents) software patents in general, etc
- __jal 11y ago
  > Ericsson is a practicing entity and they probably have a salaried legal staff I didn't say anything about NPEs. Ericsson may have a stable of in-house patent litigators; it is one enterprise where that probably makes economic sense (I know Google has their own IP litigators). But most patent litigation that makes it to trial is handled by specialist firms.

TheMagicHorsey 11y ago

It is trolling. Nobody would pay a license for these crap patents for the technology. They have to pay a license for this trivial obvious garbage because the USPTO doesn't know better.