12 ms·

Patent troll asks judge to turn off FaceTime and iMessages

157 points by doctorshady 10y ago

dctoedt 10y ago
> 'Apple "argued that VirnetX is improperly trying to secure an overly broad injunction so that it can be used to extract a massive licensing fee," Law360 reported.' That's the usual dance. Normally, a non-practicing patent owner such as VirnetX would FAR prefer to have the infringement continue, and thus get a bigger payday, than to have the court order the defendant (Apple) to stop the infringement. So, the patent owner pushes hard for just such a shut-down order, to try to bulldoze the defendant into settling. Outside observers would be forgiven for thinking that there's a certain element of "playing chicken" involved. To a first approximation, this seems to be pretty much what happened in the NTP v. Blackberry case ten years ago. [0] [1] [0] http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/24/technology/blackberry/ http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/24/technology/blackberry/ [1] http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/03/technology/rimm_ntp/ http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/03/technology/rimm_ntp/
- oddevan 10y ago
  And now I'm wondering what the repercussions of Apple actually shutting down FaceTime and iMessage with a notice saying "This feature is unavailable due to a lawsuit filed by VirnetX, Inc." I don't think they'd actually do it. It would probably be kinda stupid to do. But it's fun to imagine.
  - cordite 10y ago
    Could VirnetX sue for defamation if Apple specifically said that?
    - thomasmeeks 10y ago
      You can sue for anything, so yes, but in this thought experiment they would lose the lawsuit. In order for a defamation/libel lawsuit to be successful, the statement must be untrue.
      - dnautics 10y ago
        Further, if it was found that they were executing this suit vexactiously, they might be liable for anti-SLAPP damages.
    - dctoedt 10y ago
      > Could VirnetX sue for defamation if Apple specifically said that? Probably not with any reasonable chance of success. At least in the U.S. legal system, if you can convince the jury that your allegation was in fact true, then that's an absolute defense to a defamation action. (There would also be other obstacles, which I won't address here.)
    - notduncansmith 10y ago
      It'd be factually accurate so I don't think so (IANAL).
    - DasIch 10y ago
      You can always sue but by my understanding they would have to show that statement to be false. I think that would prove to be rather difficult.
    - yompers888 10y ago
      There are four responses here correctly agreeing that the lawsuit would fail, but they disagree on the reason. Do you have to prove that the statement is untrue for it to be possible libel, or do you have to prove it's true to defend yourself from the accusation? Who wins in the middle?
      - dctoedt 10y ago
        In the U.S. the burden is on the plaintiff (the person allegedly defamed) to prove that the defamatory statement was false IF the plaintiff is a public figure OR if the statement involved a matter of public concern; otherwise the burden is on the defendant to prove the truth of the defamatory statement. [0] [0] http://www.rcfp.org/first-amendment-handbook/introduction-defamatory-communication-publication-falsity http://www.rcfp.org/first-amendment-handbook/introduction-de... (scroll down to "Falsity")
    - the_watcher 10y ago
      "This feature is unavailable due to a lawsuit filed by VirnetX, Inc." A necessary element for a defamation claim is that the statement be false. As this statement is 100% provably true, it is not defamation. They'd be thrown out in an instant.
      - Someone 10y ago
        VirnetX would claim it isn't because of the lawsuit they filed, but because Apple infringed on their patents. I think I would side with that. Do you get sent to jail because someone saw you, or because you were stealing stuff?
        the_watcher 10y ago
        > Do you get sent to jail because someone saw you, or because you were stealing stuff? You're sent to jail because you were caught, tried, and convicted of stealing things. The act of stealing alone does not send you to jail. Same with patent infringement. The act of infringement alone does not force Apple to shut down iMessage. VirnetX is required to actually file the lawsuit, and then win, for Apple to be required to shut it down.
  - jbigelow76 10y ago
    If you're hoping to see user rage on such a massive scale that true patent reform was pushed through, I think you would be disappointed. Most users would probably blame Apple for being so careless with how they implemented their feature set... and then they would install Google Duo[1] [1]http://www.androidcentral.com/duo-googles-attempt-most-human-video-chat-service-ever http://www.androidcentral.com/duo-googles-attempt-most-human...
    - oddevan 10y ago
      Yes, I would be hoping to see such rage, much scale, very reform; and I know I would be disappointed.
    - madaxe_again 10y ago
      You're correct. Users would direct the rage at Apple, and any technical friends they have because they can't fix it. Honestly, expecting humans to respond rationally. Whatever next?
  - noonespecial 10y ago
    Or just turn it off in East Texas. That would be fun. These juries come from somewhere, I bet many of them have iPhones.
    - dhimes 10y ago
      At least then they could argue for a venue change.
      - noonespecial 10y ago
        I've often wondered if that would work. How big a market could that district be? If you made some documented effort not to sell your product there, would that be enough to argue that the case should be heard in a different venue?
        the_watcher 10y ago
        There are 3.5M people in the Eastern District of Texas. However, the seat of the court is in Tyler, which has a metro area population of about 215K. Tyler will be where the majority of jurors come from, so that would be where the impact was felt most by jurors.
        noonespecial 10y ago
        I wasn't really wondering about the jurors for this question. I was wondering if I received a lawsuit in the notoriously plaintiff friendly Eastern Texas district if having a company policy of just not dealing with any customers in those zipcodes would be enough to automatically (or at least very likely) allow my case to be heard in a different venue. It might actually be worth forgoing those 3.5M potential customers for that.
        dhimes 10y ago
        I wonder too and actually put such language into my TOS. I hope I never forget find out, however.
- cloudjacker 10y ago
  They defendant always says the patent is overly broad. The patent attorney specifically MADE the patent broad. Thats the only way it gets any value anyway.
  - moomin 10y ago
    But broad patents aren't valid. Well, not in theory. In practice you're right.
    - jb613 10y ago
      broad != overly broad It's a balancing act between a patent that is worthwhile to own yet still novel+non-obvious. Overly broad means prior art exists that can be used to invalidate. If none could be found then it means patent is valid.
api 10y ago
What are the actual patents? I never see them explicitly listed anywhere.
- janpieterz 10y ago
  As listed in the article: https://www.google.com/patents/US6502135 https://www.google.com/patents/US6502135 https://www.google.com/patents/US7418504 https://www.google.com/patents/US7418504 https://www.google.com/patents/US7490151 https://www.google.com/patents/US7490151 https://www.google.com/patents/US7921211 https://www.google.com/patents/US7921211
  - bmuon 10y ago
    Could someone who knows about network engineering give a quick summary on whether the claims make any sense? I do mostly front-end and to me they look like "that's just how the Internet works".
    - api 10y ago
      It almost looks like DNSSEC is patented here... :P
      - nickpsecurity 10y ago
        Good call. It's broad enough to catch DNSSEC in a suit. I double up on claim to buy this company given its patents are on Internet foundations. Too risky to leave to trolling.
  - onetwotree 10y ago
    The patents to me seem broad enough to cover DNSSEC, but in intent they discuss a DNS proxy that intercepts non-standard TLDs like '.scom', '.snet', etc. and routes them over a VPN. Interesting idea, but I don't see how iMessage infringes on it.
    - api 10y ago
51Cards 10y ago
Maybe OT but I found this blog post by VirnetX while reading further into this issue: https://www.virnetx.com/patent-trolls-ask-jason-bourne/ https://www.virnetx.com/patent-trolls-ask-jason-bourne/
- kneel 10y ago
  VirnetX's version of 'imessage' was released May 2015. Apple's imessage was released October 2011. Yet they're suing because Apple infringed on their vague communication encryption patents from the early 2000s. There should be massive fines for patent trolls to deter this kind of behavior. Patenting abstract ideas with no viable product should not be allowed.
  - monochromatic 10y ago
    Haven't you heard? Abstract ideas aren't patentable--the Supreme Court cleared everything up in the Alice decision! /sarcasm
    - wsinks 10y ago
      Thank you for the sarcasm tag! I honestly use that on the internet lately because 63% of everything is sarcasm and then it's just a whole ridiculous mess of misunderstanding.
  - jb613 10y ago
    > There should be massive fines for patent trolls to deter this kind of behavior. Patenting abstract ideas with no viable product should not be allowed. Then start with fining large corporations who each hold numerous patents that do not ship a corresponding "viable product" for.
  - friendzis 10y ago
    Honestly I do not think it is the problem with a patent holder, but rather USPTO for giving patents to whatever. Maybe the problem is (or was) that staff were not knowledgeable about the subject enough. What are you saying sounds much like "People majoring in nose picking at college of Eastern Nowhere should not be allowed to run for President", or "people who won the lottery with random numbers should not be allowed to claim full reward". Patents are much like little pieces of law. And we can either believe in law in its entirety or ignore it whatsoever. I choose the former. If someone uses and abuses exceptions and loopholes in the law, the problem is with the law, not person using that to their advantage.
JustSomeNobody 10y ago
As many people as there are who use these services, I wonder if it would cause such a public outrage if they were turned off that congress would actually do something about the broken patent system in the U.S.
Steeeve 10y ago
The term patent troll is used without regard to any facts in the media these days, and I fear that is doing harm to the patent system. The patent system was designed to foster innovation. If you invent something, you get protection for your intellectual property. It's not a requirement that you produce a product. You could realize that you don't have the resources right out of the gate and choose to license your invention to someone that does. The days of submarine patents are over. There are some entities that actually are patent trolls - companies that collect patents for litigation purposes - but just because a lawsuit happens doesn't mean that the plaintiff is a patent troll.
- dreamsofdragons 10y ago
  This definitely fits the definition of a patent troll.
- jjbiotech 10y ago
  > The patent system was designed to foster innovation Hilarious joke man!
  - unlinker 10y ago
    Would you spend millions in developing something just so it's copied one month later after it's released?
    - Karunamon 10y ago
      If it's been copied directly, that's what copyright is for. Would you spend millions in developing something novel just to have some random with a capriciously granted "X, but on a computer" drag you through court?
      - jsmthrowaway 10y ago
        Copyright does not protect ideas and never will.
codedokode 10y ago
It is actually interesting to see a patent troll suing patent troll.
- piyush_soni 10y ago
  Downvotes? There have been proven incidences where Apple sued other companies (and even non-competing businesses) offensively for frivolous and ludicrous patents. Just because it's a loved company here, doesn't negate that fact (Sure, the degree of 'trolling' differs).
makecheck 10y ago
At this point the patent troll problem is so severe that I think any new law needs to not only fix the problem, but retroactively assess punitive damages to all patent troll companies. It should be relatively easy to prove which companies were created only to litigate (e.g. they have few employees and produce no products related to the patents that they own). The fines should be absolutely massive; to hell with these people.
- Karunamon 10y ago
  You want to be careful with the "produce no products" bit - you'd stomp on entities like ARM that don't actually fabricate chips, but create and license designs. Problem is, coming up with a definition of "patent troll" that's 100% objective and can reliably differentiate between a benevolent NPE like ARM and a group of snakes like VirnetX is tricky. Too strict and you'll have some awful false positives. Too vague and you're reduced to arguing it in court, something prohibitively expensive.
  - nickpsecurity 10y ago
    That's already governed under trade secret and copyright law. Their design itself would be protected the second it became a published work. Anyone could clean-slate the implementation themselves doing their own work on that. So, this is where patent law protects them as it prevents others from building something they described in detail. Aka, protects monopolistic business practices in chip industry. :)
  - neurotech1 10y ago
    I wonder how patents like this are even valid. IMHO The patent laws should be amended to require entities to both "articulate a solution" and "add value" to make the patent valid. For ARM (as a NPE) their patent licenses are bundled with a low-power processor core design that provides a solution to licensees requirements. The core design adds value to the basic technology covered by the patent. The VirnetX patents shouldn't be valid as they merely describe an element of a design, and not a particular means of implementation. This may fall under Sec. 112(f) "Means-plus-function" [0], but getting the patents invalidated is not easy. The EFF have tried to bust "stupid patents" [1] somewhat successfully. Please donate to support this worthy cause. [0] http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s2181.html http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s2181.html [1] https://www.eff.org/about/staff/daniel-nazer https://www.eff.org/about/staff/daniel-nazer
vonklaus 10y ago
Here is how we can start killing patent trolls vernetx stock is trading at 4.89 and has a total marketcap of $252M[0]. When the list a massive portfolio (e.g. a huge weapons cache which is then publicly purchaseable) all major companies and a fund set up by the ETF or a responsible steward, buy enough to control the company. This would technically fund a patent troll, however, you could limit the attack vector to a payout less than even a single win in court would be given the apple lawsuit was >600M minus all the law fees. There is conceiveably at least 1 other company with comprable shitty patents that is public, so a bidding war race to the bottom would incentize prices down instead of up if possible. It could also be possible (in a much more gray possibly worse) way, actively drum up interest for a patent trolls IPO from the alliance funds, and then not invest in the fund, but release open source patents sourced from a different provier inavlidating there ability to sue in the market, with the alliance fund promising anyone using [ rediculously standard tech ] would have their full support in leveraging the open source patents and fighting legal fees associated with someone trying to invalidate the open source patents. this could disincentize bad behaviour. It is pretty rediculous a company that is less than 2 years old can win a settlement for fucking twice it's market cap. I don';t think the market/law could limit age/market cap as startups would get killed if bigger people poach there stuff, but maybe some requirement to file suit of needing a working product or service using the technology and maybe some combo of years in the market / market cap, plus (which I think is critical) the public company must be owned by some reasonably large but not insane number. e.g. if you quietly ipo your shell and then you and your horrible 10-20 stakeholders foot the legal bill, then you shouldn't be allowed to sue, but if hundreds/thousands ++ are buying it, then it is likely actually a real or semi legit company. [0]https://www.google.com/finance?cid=663422 https://www.google.com/finance?cid=663422
- ikeboy 10y ago
  What? That just makes the incentives for patent trolling go up.
  - vonklaus 10y ago
    I approached it like a thought experiment, and it isn't really a workable strategy, especially not something I would argue should be eployed in perpetuatiy. It is an issue that should be handled legislatively, but in this thought experiment/hypthetical consider the objective an infinite game where the objective is war vs. patent trolls: A patent troll typical incorporates a vehicle and often they are public. This limits their risk as they are not opened to lawsuites (as many companies) but in cases of partnerships it is sometimes possible to target the partners themselves. When they take what is essentially a SPAC[1] public, it is likely only insiders invest. They must disclose their assets and thus, the "portfolio" is what is taken public. Even outside investors are likley either people contributing patents, banks/fin inst. with knowledge of space/lawyers/esecutives executing strategy. This extremely high level of consolidation would make it much easier to manipulate their share price. This is some of what I suggested above. Either during the IPO, in the media, or during trading trying to negatively impact patent trolls to disuade them from existing. What I suggested orignally may not be the correct strategy, but the thought was that it could be possible and very situationally, cooperate in a market as consolidated as this to make the cost of trolling so high that it would be unprofitable or very risky, ideally legislation/patent reform would fix these problems but this would be the patch. This would be a combination of hostile takeovers of companies, buying and open sourcing patents, and actively trying to make the risk and cost of capital so high, or an executives failure so humiliating there would be less people trying to raise, and the difficuly would go up substantially. Obviously, massive market coordination would be very difficult, but it is considerably easier to do this if a company is neccessarily consolidated as (I suspect) trolls might be, given they aren't real companies and are quite niche. Another possible benefit is that if a patent troll tried to dump a portfolio into another shell after a loss, or otherwise do something negative, a minority stake could bring lawsuits against the individual person. For example, a group of 10 troll execs would not think twice about started an identical company and moving assets packages there. If you were a shareholder of a real company, you wouldn't give away a lot of "IP" for free but they can, as they pass it to themselves or partners. A minority, but legal sharholder, could sue the individual executives for breach of fiduciary responsibiltiy and other than raising the risk financially, personal individuals could face risk if not operating 100% above board. [1] Special Purpose Acquision Vehicle edit; Also, being inside would allow information to be accessed about internals. Outside investors could be found and outed (if actual entities) and tried in the media. E.G. if a hedge fund or firm had money in, they would be outed and scandalized for hampering innovation and PE & VC funds would refuse(if possible) their investments in future funds if they continued to fund such poor investments. A logical argument could be made to such hedgefunds as well, that it is possible for a risky mediocre return from a patent troll, they may actually cause damage to their own portfolio if one company is in the ecosystem or directly affected by a PT>
coldcode 10y ago
This is a public company troll just buy up all their stock and toss them in the nearest dumpster.
- mwfunk 10y ago
  Wouldn't that be their biggest payday ever? They'd go out with a massive pile of cash ahead of real patent reform that would otherwise tank their market cap. I've got to think that that's Plan B for every patent troll, and that it wouldn't be a disappointing outcome to them.
  - bduerst 10y ago
    Yeah, even assuming you bought the majority share and sued the executive team for mismanaging the company, you'd have to prove they weren't focusing on profits. Which they essentially are.
zaroth 10y ago
I don't see any chance at all that a company could actually get an injunction against iMessage based on a few patents like this. The judge will expect the parties to negotiate in good faith and come to a settlement. Apple will have to pay "a lot of money". Could Apple not find prior art and invalidate the patent? Apparently not. I assume a software patent in particular does not give VirnetX an absolute right to shut down a product for which it is just a small component. I do think patent awards for component functionality do not get adjusted downward enough based on the relatively small weight of the subject matter on the overall product. When one piece of software can be covered by thousands of parents, violating a single parent should, most of the time, cost less than a small fraction of the overall value of the product.
- neurotech1 10y ago
  I wonder how patents like this are even valid. IMHO The patent laws should be amended to require entities to both "articulate a solution" and "add value" to make the patent valid. For ARM (described in other posts as a NPE) their patent licenses are bundled with a low-power processor core design that provides a solution to licensees requirements. The core design adds value to the basic technology covered by the patent. The VirnetX patents shouldn't be valid as they merely describe an element of a design, and not a particular means of implementation. This may fall under Sec. 112(f) "Means-plus-function" [0], but getting the patents invalidated is not easy. The EFF have tried to bust "stupid patents" [1] somewhat successfully. Please donate to support this worthy cause. [0] http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s2181.html http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s2181.html [1] https://www.eff.org/about/staff/daniel-nazer https://www.eff.org/about/staff/daniel-nazer
bitmapbrother 10y ago
I would normally have sympathy for Apple due to the voracity of this patent troll, but Apple once demanded that Samsung pay them a $40+ per phone licensing fee. Karma sure is a bitch.
caycep 10y ago
The even shadier part of this is that VirnetX comes out of SAIC - shady US govt. contractor (with a healthy private military contractor arm...). The tech was probably funded out of taxpayer dollars, that they are using to (arguably already) unethically profit off of.
sndean 10y ago
Maybe I'm really uninformed or haven't been paying attention, but I was really surprised to see that a patent troll is traded on the NYSE: https://www.nyse.com/quote/XASE:VHC/company https://www.nyse.com/quote/XASE:VHC/company Is that normal?
- jb613 10y ago
  What is a patent troll really? In VirnetX's case, last time I checked most (all?) of their patents were created in house. There are numerous publicly traded stocks of companies that are mainly patent holding entities: Acacia (ACTG), Finjan (FNJN), Inventergy (INVT), MARA, Wi-lan (WILN), Hopto (HPTO), etc... But where does the whole troll definition end - many mid-large corporations have patents that they do not practice or not embodied in any product - so aren't they trolls too? even if they haven't explicitly threatened legal action with those patents - competitors view those patents as implicit threats. So why not label them as trolls too? At the end of the day, every patent holder can be considered a troll in some way - so the definition of a troll really comes down to: patent troll = patent holder.
  - ksowocki 10y ago
    straw man argument is made of straw.
musesum 10y ago
There is a really simple solution to patent trolls: make every patent follow the guidelines for "Petition to Make Special". In other words: "use it or lose it". PTMS was created to expedite patents based on the assumption that it would be too costly to make an invention without patent protection. For example is my patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5341429A/en?q=transformation&q=ephemeral+material https://patents.google.com/patent/US5341429A/en?q=transforma... which has about 500+ citations. After the dot bomb, the company went out of business. That patent was not picked up by a troll. Why? Not sure, but perhaps the PTMS made it less useful for litigation.
MerlinDE 10y ago
Why not just revolutionize patent laws? Make it only applicable if the patent is used for a real product available on the market. That would make patent trolling unattractive.

157 points by doctorshady 10y ago

> 'Apple "argued that VirnetX is improperly trying to secure an overly broad injunction so that it can be used to extract a massive licensing fee," Law360 reported.' That's the usual dance. Normally, a non-practicing patent owner such as VirnetX would FAR prefer to have the infringement continue, and thus get a bigger payday, than to have the court order the defendant (Apple) to stop the infringement. So, the patent owner pushes hard for just such a shut-down order, to try to bulldoze the defendant into settling. Outside observers would be forgiven for thinking that there's a certain element of "playing chicken" involved. To a first approximation, this seems to be pretty much what happened in the NTP v. Blackberry case ten years ago. [0] [1] [0] http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/24/technology/blackberry/ http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/24/technology/blackberry/ [1] http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/03/technology/rimm_ntp/ http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/03/technology/rimm_ntp/

oddevan 10y ago
And now I'm wondering what the repercussions of Apple actually shutting down FaceTime and iMessage with a notice saying "This feature is unavailable due to a lawsuit filed by VirnetX, Inc." I don't think they'd actually do it. It would probably be kinda stupid to do. But it's fun to imagine.
- cordite 10y ago
  Could VirnetX sue for defamation if Apple specifically said that?
  - thomasmeeks 10y ago
    You can sue for anything, so yes, but in this thought experiment they would lose the lawsuit. In order for a defamation/libel lawsuit to be successful, the statement must be untrue.
    - dnautics 10y ago
      Further, if it was found that they were executing this suit vexactiously, they might be liable for anti-SLAPP damages.
  - dctoedt 10y ago
    > Could VirnetX sue for defamation if Apple specifically said that? Probably not with any reasonable chance of success. At least in the U.S. legal system, if you can convince the jury that your allegation was in fact true, then that's an absolute defense to a defamation action. (There would also be other obstacles, which I won't address here.)
  - notduncansmith 10y ago
    It'd be factually accurate so I don't think so (IANAL).
  - DasIch 10y ago
    You can always sue but by my understanding they would have to show that statement to be false. I think that would prove to be rather difficult.
  - yompers888 10y ago
    There are four responses here correctly agreeing that the lawsuit would fail, but they disagree on the reason. Do you have to prove that the statement is untrue for it to be possible libel, or do you have to prove it's true to defend yourself from the accusation? Who wins in the middle?
    - dctoedt 10y ago
      In the U.S. the burden is on the plaintiff (the person allegedly defamed) to prove that the defamatory statement was false IF the plaintiff is a public figure OR if the statement involved a matter of public concern; otherwise the burden is on the defendant to prove the truth of the defamatory statement. [0] [0] http://www.rcfp.org/first-amendment-handbook/introduction-defamatory-communication-publication-falsity http://www.rcfp.org/first-amendment-handbook/introduction-de... (scroll down to "Falsity")
  - the_watcher 10y ago
    "This feature is unavailable due to a lawsuit filed by VirnetX, Inc." A necessary element for a defamation claim is that the statement be false. As this statement is 100% provably true, it is not defamation. They'd be thrown out in an instant.
    - Someone 10y ago
      VirnetX would claim it isn't because of the lawsuit they filed, but because Apple infringed on their patents. I think I would side with that. Do you get sent to jail because someone saw you, or because you were stealing stuff?
      - the_watcher 10y ago
        > Do you get sent to jail because someone saw you, or because you were stealing stuff? You're sent to jail because you were caught, tried, and convicted of stealing things. The act of stealing alone does not send you to jail. Same with patent infringement. The act of infringement alone does not force Apple to shut down iMessage. VirnetX is required to actually file the lawsuit, and then win, for Apple to be required to shut it down.
- jbigelow76 10y ago
  If you're hoping to see user rage on such a massive scale that true patent reform was pushed through, I think you would be disappointed. Most users would probably blame Apple for being so careless with how they implemented their feature set... and then they would install Google Duo[1] [1]http://www.androidcentral.com/duo-googles-attempt-most-human-video-chat-service-ever http://www.androidcentral.com/duo-googles-attempt-most-human...
  - oddevan 10y ago
    Yes, I would be hoping to see such rage, much scale, very reform; and I know I would be disappointed.
  - madaxe_again 10y ago
    You're correct. Users would direct the rage at Apple, and any technical friends they have because they can't fix it. Honestly, expecting humans to respond rationally. Whatever next?
- noonespecial 10y ago
  Or just turn it off in East Texas. That would be fun. These juries come from somewhere, I bet many of them have iPhones.
  - dhimes 10y ago
    At least then they could argue for a venue change.
    - noonespecial 10y ago
      I've often wondered if that would work. How big a market could that district be? If you made some documented effort not to sell your product there, would that be enough to argue that the case should be heard in a different venue?
      - the_watcher 10y ago
        There are 3.5M people in the Eastern District of Texas. However, the seat of the court is in Tyler, which has a metro area population of about 215K. Tyler will be where the majority of jurors come from, so that would be where the impact was felt most by jurors.
        noonespecial 10y ago
        I wasn't really wondering about the jurors for this question. I was wondering if I received a lawsuit in the notoriously plaintiff friendly Eastern Texas district if having a company policy of just not dealing with any customers in those zipcodes would be enough to automatically (or at least very likely) allow my case to be heard in a different venue. It might actually be worth forgoing those 3.5M potential customers for that.
        dhimes 10y ago
        I wonder too and actually put such language into my TOS. I hope I never forget find out, however.
cloudjacker 10y ago
They defendant always says the patent is overly broad. The patent attorney specifically MADE the patent broad. Thats the only way it gets any value anyway.
- moomin 10y ago
  But broad patents aren't valid. Well, not in theory. In practice you're right.
  - jb613 10y ago
    broad != overly broad It's a balancing act between a patent that is worthwhile to own yet still novel+non-obvious. Overly broad means prior art exists that can be used to invalidate. If none could be found then it means patent is valid.

api 10y ago

What are the actual patents? I never see them explicitly listed anywhere.

janpieterz 10y ago
As listed in the article: https://www.google.com/patents/US6502135 https://www.google.com/patents/US6502135 https://www.google.com/patents/US7418504 https://www.google.com/patents/US7418504 https://www.google.com/patents/US7490151 https://www.google.com/patents/US7490151 https://www.google.com/patents/US7921211 https://www.google.com/patents/US7921211
- bmuon 10y ago
  Could someone who knows about network engineering give a quick summary on whether the claims make any sense? I do mostly front-end and to me they look like "that's just how the Internet works".
  - api 10y ago
    It almost looks like DNSSEC is patented here... :P
    - nickpsecurity 10y ago
      Good call. It's broad enough to catch DNSSEC in a suit. I double up on claim to buy this company given its patents are on Internet foundations. Too risky to leave to trolling.
- onetwotree 10y ago
  The patents to me seem broad enough to cover DNSSEC, but in intent they discuss a DNS proxy that intercepts non-standard TLDs like '.scom', '.snet', etc. and routes them over a VPN. Interesting idea, but I don't see how iMessage infringes on it.
  - api 10y ago

51Cards 10y ago

Maybe OT but I found this blog post by VirnetX while reading further into this issue: https://www.virnetx.com/patent-trolls-ask-jason-bourne/ https://www.virnetx.com/patent-trolls-ask-jason-bourne/

kneel 10y ago
VirnetX's version of 'imessage' was released May 2015. Apple's imessage was released October 2011. Yet they're suing because Apple infringed on their vague communication encryption patents from the early 2000s. There should be massive fines for patent trolls to deter this kind of behavior. Patenting abstract ideas with no viable product should not be allowed.
- monochromatic 10y ago
  Haven't you heard? Abstract ideas aren't patentable--the Supreme Court cleared everything up in the Alice decision! /sarcasm
  - wsinks 10y ago
    Thank you for the sarcasm tag! I honestly use that on the internet lately because 63% of everything is sarcasm and then it's just a whole ridiculous mess of misunderstanding.
- jb613 10y ago
  > There should be massive fines for patent trolls to deter this kind of behavior. Patenting abstract ideas with no viable product should not be allowed. Then start with fining large corporations who each hold numerous patents that do not ship a corresponding "viable product" for.
- friendzis 10y ago
  Honestly I do not think it is the problem with a patent holder, but rather USPTO for giving patents to whatever. Maybe the problem is (or was) that staff were not knowledgeable about the subject enough. What are you saying sounds much like "People majoring in nose picking at college of Eastern Nowhere should not be allowed to run for President", or "people who won the lottery with random numbers should not be allowed to claim full reward". Patents are much like little pieces of law. And we can either believe in law in its entirety or ignore it whatsoever. I choose the former. If someone uses and abuses exceptions and loopholes in the law, the problem is with the law, not person using that to their advantage.

JustSomeNobody 10y ago

As many people as there are who use these services, I wonder if it would cause such a public outrage if they were turned off that congress would actually do something about the broken patent system in the U.S.

Steeeve 10y ago

The term patent troll is used without regard to any facts in the media these days, and I fear that is doing harm to the patent system. The patent system was designed to foster innovation. If you invent something, you get protection for your intellectual property. It's not a requirement that you produce a product. You could realize that you don't have the resources right out of the gate and choose to license your invention to someone that does. The days of submarine patents are over. There are some entities that actually are patent trolls - companies that collect patents for litigation purposes - but just because a lawsuit happens doesn't mean that the plaintiff is a patent troll.

dreamsofdragons 10y ago
This definitely fits the definition of a patent troll.
jjbiotech 10y ago
> The patent system was designed to foster innovation Hilarious joke man!
- unlinker 10y ago
  Would you spend millions in developing something just so it's copied one month later after it's released?
  - Karunamon 10y ago
    If it's been copied directly, that's what copyright is for. Would you spend millions in developing something novel just to have some random with a capriciously granted "X, but on a computer" drag you through court?
    - jsmthrowaway 10y ago
      Copyright does not protect ideas and never will.

codedokode 10y ago

It is actually interesting to see a patent troll suing patent troll.

piyush_soni 10y ago
Downvotes? There have been proven incidences where Apple sued other companies (and even non-competing businesses) offensively for frivolous and ludicrous patents. Just because it's a loved company here, doesn't negate that fact (Sure, the degree of 'trolling' differs).

makecheck 10y ago

At this point the patent troll problem is so severe that I think any new law needs to not only fix the problem, but retroactively assess punitive damages to all patent troll companies. It should be relatively easy to prove which companies were created only to litigate (e.g. they have few employees and produce no products related to the patents that they own). The fines should be absolutely massive; to hell with these people.

Karunamon 10y ago
You want to be careful with the "produce no products" bit - you'd stomp on entities like ARM that don't actually fabricate chips, but create and license designs. Problem is, coming up with a definition of "patent troll" that's 100% objective and can reliably differentiate between a benevolent NPE like ARM and a group of snakes like VirnetX is tricky. Too strict and you'll have some awful false positives. Too vague and you're reduced to arguing it in court, something prohibitively expensive.
- nickpsecurity 10y ago
  That's already governed under trade secret and copyright law. Their design itself would be protected the second it became a published work. Anyone could clean-slate the implementation themselves doing their own work on that. So, this is where patent law protects them as it prevents others from building something they described in detail. Aka, protects monopolistic business practices in chip industry. :)
- neurotech1 10y ago
  I wonder how patents like this are even valid. IMHO The patent laws should be amended to require entities to both "articulate a solution" and "add value" to make the patent valid. For ARM (as a NPE) their patent licenses are bundled with a low-power processor core design that provides a solution to licensees requirements. The core design adds value to the basic technology covered by the patent. The VirnetX patents shouldn't be valid as they merely describe an element of a design, and not a particular means of implementation. This may fall under Sec. 112(f) "Means-plus-function" [0], but getting the patents invalidated is not easy. The EFF have tried to bust "stupid patents" [1] somewhat successfully. Please donate to support this worthy cause. [0] http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s2181.html http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s2181.html [1] https://www.eff.org/about/staff/daniel-nazer https://www.eff.org/about/staff/daniel-nazer

vonklaus 10y ago

Here is how we can start killing patent trolls vernetx stock is trading at 4.89 and has a total marketcap of $252M[0]. When the list a massive portfolio (e.g. a huge weapons cache which is then publicly purchaseable) all major companies and a fund set up by the ETF or a responsible steward, buy enough to control the company. This would technically fund a patent troll, however, you could limit the attack vector to a payout less than even a single win in court would be given the apple lawsuit was >600M minus all the law fees. There is conceiveably at least 1 other company with comprable shitty patents that is public, so a bidding war race to the bottom would incentize prices down instead of up if possible. It could also be possible (in a much more gray possibly worse) way, actively drum up interest for a patent trolls IPO from the alliance funds, and then not invest in the fund, but release open source patents sourced from a different provier inavlidating there ability to sue in the market, with the alliance fund promising anyone using [ rediculously standard tech ] would have their full support in leveraging the open source patents and fighting legal fees associated with someone trying to invalidate the open source patents. this could disincentize bad behaviour. It is pretty rediculous a company that is less than 2 years old can win a settlement for fucking twice it's market cap. I don';t think the market/law could limit age/market cap as startups would get killed if bigger people poach there stuff, but maybe some requirement to file suit of needing a working product or service using the technology and maybe some combo of years in the market / market cap, plus (which I think is critical) the public company must be owned by some reasonably large but not insane number. e.g. if you quietly ipo your shell and then you and your horrible 10-20 stakeholders foot the legal bill, then you shouldn't be allowed to sue, but if hundreds/thousands ++ are buying it, then it is likely actually a real or semi legit company. [0]https://www.google.com/finance?cid=663422 https://www.google.com/finance?cid=663422

ikeboy 10y ago
What? That just makes the incentives for patent trolling go up.
- vonklaus 10y ago
  I approached it like a thought experiment, and it isn't really a workable strategy, especially not something I would argue should be eployed in perpetuatiy. It is an issue that should be handled legislatively, but in this thought experiment/hypthetical consider the objective an infinite game where the objective is war vs. patent trolls: A patent troll typical incorporates a vehicle and often they are public. This limits their risk as they are not opened to lawsuites (as many companies) but in cases of partnerships it is sometimes possible to target the partners themselves. When they take what is essentially a SPAC[1] public, it is likely only insiders invest. They must disclose their assets and thus, the "portfolio" is what is taken public. Even outside investors are likley either people contributing patents, banks/fin inst. with knowledge of space/lawyers/esecutives executing strategy. This extremely high level of consolidation would make it much easier to manipulate their share price. This is some of what I suggested above. Either during the IPO, in the media, or during trading trying to negatively impact patent trolls to disuade them from existing. What I suggested orignally may not be the correct strategy, but the thought was that it could be possible and very situationally, cooperate in a market as consolidated as this to make the cost of trolling so high that it would be unprofitable or very risky, ideally legislation/patent reform would fix these problems but this would be the patch. This would be a combination of hostile takeovers of companies, buying and open sourcing patents, and actively trying to make the risk and cost of capital so high, or an executives failure so humiliating there would be less people trying to raise, and the difficuly would go up substantially. Obviously, massive market coordination would be very difficult, but it is considerably easier to do this if a company is neccessarily consolidated as (I suspect) trolls might be, given they aren't real companies and are quite niche. Another possible benefit is that if a patent troll tried to dump a portfolio into another shell after a loss, or otherwise do something negative, a minority stake could bring lawsuits against the individual person. For example, a group of 10 troll execs would not think twice about started an identical company and moving assets packages there. If you were a shareholder of a real company, you wouldn't give away a lot of "IP" for free but they can, as they pass it to themselves or partners. A minority, but legal sharholder, could sue the individual executives for breach of fiduciary responsibiltiy and other than raising the risk financially, personal individuals could face risk if not operating 100% above board. [1] Special Purpose Acquision Vehicle edit; Also, being inside would allow information to be accessed about internals. Outside investors could be found and outed (if actual entities) and tried in the media. E.G. if a hedge fund or firm had money in, they would be outed and scandalized for hampering innovation and PE & VC funds would refuse(if possible) their investments in future funds if they continued to fund such poor investments. A logical argument could be made to such hedgefunds as well, that it is possible for a risky mediocre return from a patent troll, they may actually cause damage to their own portfolio if one company is in the ecosystem or directly affected by a PT>

coldcode 10y ago

This is a public company troll just buy up all their stock and toss them in the nearest dumpster.

mwfunk 10y ago
Wouldn't that be their biggest payday ever? They'd go out with a massive pile of cash ahead of real patent reform that would otherwise tank their market cap. I've got to think that that's Plan B for every patent troll, and that it wouldn't be a disappointing outcome to them.
- bduerst 10y ago
  Yeah, even assuming you bought the majority share and sued the executive team for mismanaging the company, you'd have to prove they weren't focusing on profits. Which they essentially are.

zaroth 10y ago

I don't see any chance at all that a company could actually get an injunction against iMessage based on a few patents like this. The judge will expect the parties to negotiate in good faith and come to a settlement. Apple will have to pay "a lot of money". Could Apple not find prior art and invalidate the patent? Apparently not. I assume a software patent in particular does not give VirnetX an absolute right to shut down a product for which it is just a small component. I do think patent awards for component functionality do not get adjusted downward enough based on the relatively small weight of the subject matter on the overall product. When one piece of software can be covered by thousands of parents, violating a single parent should, most of the time, cost less than a small fraction of the overall value of the product.

neurotech1 10y ago
I wonder how patents like this are even valid. IMHO The patent laws should be amended to require entities to both "articulate a solution" and "add value" to make the patent valid. For ARM (described in other posts as a NPE) their patent licenses are bundled with a low-power processor core design that provides a solution to licensees requirements. The core design adds value to the basic technology covered by the patent. The VirnetX patents shouldn't be valid as they merely describe an element of a design, and not a particular means of implementation. This may fall under Sec. 112(f) "Means-plus-function" [0], but getting the patents invalidated is not easy. The EFF have tried to bust "stupid patents" [1] somewhat successfully. Please donate to support this worthy cause. [0] http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s2181.html http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s2181.html [1] https://www.eff.org/about/staff/daniel-nazer https://www.eff.org/about/staff/daniel-nazer

bitmapbrother 10y ago

I would normally have sympathy for Apple due to the voracity of this patent troll, but Apple once demanded that Samsung pay them a $40+ per phone licensing fee. Karma sure is a bitch.

caycep 10y ago

The even shadier part of this is that VirnetX comes out of SAIC - shady US govt. contractor (with a healthy private military contractor arm...). The tech was probably funded out of taxpayer dollars, that they are using to (arguably already) unethically profit off of.

sndean 10y ago

Maybe I'm really uninformed or haven't been paying attention, but I was really surprised to see that a patent troll is traded on the NYSE: https://www.nyse.com/quote/XASE:VHC/company https://www.nyse.com/quote/XASE:VHC/company Is that normal?

jb613 10y ago
What is a patent troll really? In VirnetX's case, last time I checked most (all?) of their patents were created in house. There are numerous publicly traded stocks of companies that are mainly patent holding entities: Acacia (ACTG), Finjan (FNJN), Inventergy (INVT), MARA, Wi-lan (WILN), Hopto (HPTO), etc... But where does the whole troll definition end - many mid-large corporations have patents that they do not practice or not embodied in any product - so aren't they trolls too? even if they haven't explicitly threatened legal action with those patents - competitors view those patents as implicit threats. So why not label them as trolls too? At the end of the day, every patent holder can be considered a troll in some way - so the definition of a troll really comes down to: patent troll = patent holder.
- ksowocki 10y ago
  straw man argument is made of straw.

musesum 10y ago

There is a really simple solution to patent trolls: make every patent follow the guidelines for "Petition to Make Special". In other words: "use it or lose it". PTMS was created to expedite patents based on the assumption that it would be too costly to make an invention without patent protection. For example is my patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5341429A/en?q=transformation&q=ephemeral+material https://patents.google.com/patent/US5341429A/en?q=transforma... which has about 500+ citations. After the dot bomb, the company went out of business. That patent was not picked up by a troll. Why? Not sure, but perhaps the PTMS made it less useful for litigation.

MerlinDE 10y ago

Why not just revolutionize patent laws? Make it only applicable if the patent is used for a real product available on the market. That would make patent trolling unattractive.