5 ms·

I don't understand why Apple, ms, Cisco, etc don't just set up a shell company that works to invalidate patents owned by these companies. For example, set up a

by josho 10y ago

I don't understand why Apple, ms, Cisco, etc don't just set up a shell company that works to invalidate patents owned by these companies. For example, set up an EFF like non-profit whose mission is to invalidate bad patents. Then these tech. companies can just throw money at the non-profit as a preventive strike against patent trolls working in their solution space.

asdfologist 10y ago
Agreed, that's a great idea to deal with those companies patenting stupid things like rounded corners.
dboreham 10y ago
Because they've told their shareholders they own a crapton worth of valuable patent IP? (And once the emperor's clothes are shown to be gone, that IP is worth zero.)
- fludlight 10y ago
  The value of software IP in public companies is generally considered to be immaterial. It is surprising, however, that the "risk factors" section of publicly traded US companies does not contain a clause that says that the software IP on the balance sheet is one SCOTUS ruling or federal law away from a logarithmic re(valuation|statement). This is covered by more general "laws and regulations" clauses, but IMHO software IP legal climate risk should have its own subsection in firms with substantial software divisions.
DasIch 10y ago
These companies are forced to play a game with no end. Such an effort would allow them to win a few rounds but without a doubt they'd continue to lose some. If you really want to do something about this, you need to get political and change the rules. A stronger combined effort into lobbying would be a much better approach to solve this problem once and for all. It would also open up a path for other issues such as crypto, net neutrality and immigration that's also important to all of these companies.
cookiecaper 10y ago
Those big companies depend heavily on their patent portfolios for both offensive and defensive uses. Once in a blue moon someone will win something like this, but most of the time their fancy big company lawyers will stave it off (and indeed, it sounds like they may avoid this liability because the patent they've infringed may be invalid), often by sheer legal force ("How are you going to afford to fight my army of $1k/hr lawyers?"). When it's business as usual, these companies rather enjoy the benefits of having large portfolios filled with patents of dubious validity. They don't want to get the ball rolling on something that may end up costing them money in the long run, like drawing attention to the dubious nature of most patents or starting an initiative that may backfire by invalidating some of their own IP. You'll find this is common with big companies. The law governing a certain type of conduct may be a totally incomprehensible, unpredictable, and uneven disaster, but incumbent players don't mind because for the most part, it enables them to scare off any upstart challenger by intimidation. The challengers who are too foolish to back down will generally struggle to keep representation and eventually end up completely destroyed (see Facebook v. Power Ventures), which makes a fine example to warn off any other cheeky upstarts who think they'll play hardball with the big conglomerate. These big companies know that their peers won't press the legal matters or try to get the law improved because they benefit from the same effects. Instead, two big companies with beef will, after some legal posturing, eventually come to a mutual licensing deal (which may be in the form of a settlement) where they each send the other a large check every month to license the patents that could be construed as covering components of each others' products. The matter is only pressed when there's no mutually-beneficial agreement to be had, like in Oracle v. Google regarding the Java API; Google wants the right to re-implement the Java API as they see fit, without having to pay royalties, and Oracle wants the right to exact payment from anyone implementing the Java API. Indeed, some Sun insiders consider Google's refusal to license Java components (they had apparently been in talks at some point) as one of the final blows that forced Sun to sell. However, the way that that intellectual property law is written, it's difficult to have firm, universally-applicable precedents established. Fair use is fundamentally a case-by-case basis, which means even if Google gets it established that their use of the Java API is fair (afaik, it has already been established that APIs are protected under copyright, so fair use is the applicable defense), it doesn't necessarily apply to anyone or anything else. That means big companies can still intimidate little guys by threatening to drag them through 10 years of ultra-expensive court proceedings, plus the risk of a judgment finding damages, injunctions, etc., if they don't immediately comply with the BigCo's demands. Convoluted and murky law benefits the massive corporations, who would much rather pay lawyers a few million to dispose of a plucky competitor than actually have to fight that competitor in the marketplace.
NetStrikeForce 10y ago
Or maybe US citizens could vote for someone that invalidates software patents. They're not valid in other parts of the world.
- GirlsCanCode 10y ago
  That's not completely true.
- twblalock 10y ago
  That's not true. Lots of countries allow software patents. The rules are sometimes stricter than in the US, but they definitely exist and are considered valid by the courts in the UK, the EU, Canada, Japan, and South Korea, among others.
- megablast 10y ago
  Sure, that should be the overriding issue that people use to vote for someone?
  - NetStrikeForce 10y ago
    It's not a small thing to just brush off, but it depends on your priorities.
- jwatte 10y ago
  If you believe that patents, in general, are more good than bad, because they coax trade secrets out into the open after an amount of time, then they are just as valid for inventive software as for i inventive hardware/chemistry/biology/mechanics. The problem comes when the bar for "inventive" and "novel" and "non-obvious" is too low, and a guy or girl in a garage facing the problem to be solved is just as likely to reinvent the solution independently. Often, it's the problem that shapes the solution, rather than any particular inventiveness. It turns out, other engineering disciplines also have this problem, but because their times to market are much longer and more expensive, and their times of prior art are much longer (and thus the foundations are more well known/documented) it doesn't quite rise to the immediate existential threat that it does for independent software developers.
mtgx 10y ago
> For example, set up an EFF like non-profit whose mission is to invalidate bad patents Microsoft (yes, even the polished up, lipstick on a pig, "new Microsoft") benefits from "bad patents" waaay more than it loses to a few random patent trolls. It actually lobbied to stop the elimination of "business method" patents, which are just lawyer-written garbage. http://bgr.com/2013/05/01/microsofts-android-licensing-agreements-earnings/ http://bgr.com/2013/05/01/microsofts-android-licensing-agree... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/11/20/software-patent-reform-just-died-in-the-house-thanks-to-ibm-and-microsoft/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/11/20... Fortunately, business method patents are on their last legs thanks to Supreme Court's "Alice" ruling, but they can still cause damage (or profits, depending from which perspective you're look at it): http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2015/08/04/are-business-method-patents-dead-it-depends-on-whos-applying-for-them/id=60077/ http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2015/08/04/are-business-method-pat...
geofft 10y ago
Because Apple, MS, and Cisco can afford to litigate cases and pay the occasional settlement, and smaller companies that might threaten Apple, MS, and Cisco's market dominance cannot. Therefore, it is at least somewhat in their interest for patent trolls to stick around, as a way of maintaining the status quo.
- ptzz 10y ago
  OTH the smaller companies are usually not as interesting to patent trolls as there's not as much $$$ to be gained. In case of Apple, I believe the damage is related to number of infringing iPhones sold. Also it would be in the trolls interest to be able to continuously sue a company rather than bankrupting it and destroy a revenue stream.

by josho 10y ago

asdfologist 10y ago

Agreed, that's a great idea to deal with those companies patenting stupid things like rounded corners.

dboreham 10y ago

Because they've told their shareholders they own a crapton worth of valuable patent IP? (And once the emperor's clothes are shown to be gone, that IP is worth zero.)

fludlight 10y ago
The value of software IP in public companies is generally considered to be immaterial. It is surprising, however, that the "risk factors" section of publicly traded US companies does not contain a clause that says that the software IP on the balance sheet is one SCOTUS ruling or federal law away from a logarithmic re(valuation|statement). This is covered by more general "laws and regulations" clauses, but IMHO software IP legal climate risk should have its own subsection in firms with substantial software divisions.

DasIch 10y ago

These companies are forced to play a game with no end. Such an effort would allow them to win a few rounds but without a doubt they'd continue to lose some. If you really want to do something about this, you need to get political and change the rules. A stronger combined effort into lobbying would be a much better approach to solve this problem once and for all. It would also open up a path for other issues such as crypto, net neutrality and immigration that's also important to all of these companies.

cookiecaper 10y ago

Those big companies depend heavily on their patent portfolios for both offensive and defensive uses. Once in a blue moon someone will win something like this, but most of the time their fancy big company lawyers will stave it off (and indeed, it sounds like they may avoid this liability because the patent they've infringed may be invalid), often by sheer legal force ("How are you going to afford to fight my army of $1k/hr lawyers?"). When it's business as usual, these companies rather enjoy the benefits of having large portfolios filled with patents of dubious validity. They don't want to get the ball rolling on something that may end up costing them money in the long run, like drawing attention to the dubious nature of most patents or starting an initiative that may backfire by invalidating some of their own IP. You'll find this is common with big companies. The law governing a certain type of conduct may be a totally incomprehensible, unpredictable, and uneven disaster, but incumbent players don't mind because for the most part, it enables them to scare off any upstart challenger by intimidation. The challengers who are too foolish to back down will generally struggle to keep representation and eventually end up completely destroyed (see Facebook v. Power Ventures), which makes a fine example to warn off any other cheeky upstarts who think they'll play hardball with the big conglomerate. These big companies know that their peers won't press the legal matters or try to get the law improved because they benefit from the same effects. Instead, two big companies with beef will, after some legal posturing, eventually come to a mutual licensing deal (which may be in the form of a settlement) where they each send the other a large check every month to license the patents that could be construed as covering components of each others' products. The matter is only pressed when there's no mutually-beneficial agreement to be had, like in Oracle v. Google regarding the Java API; Google wants the right to re-implement the Java API as they see fit, without having to pay royalties, and Oracle wants the right to exact payment from anyone implementing the Java API. Indeed, some Sun insiders consider Google's refusal to license Java components (they had apparently been in talks at some point) as one of the final blows that forced Sun to sell. However, the way that that intellectual property law is written, it's difficult to have firm, universally-applicable precedents established. Fair use is fundamentally a case-by-case basis, which means even if Google gets it established that their use of the Java API is fair (afaik, it has already been established that APIs are protected under copyright, so fair use is the applicable defense), it doesn't necessarily apply to anyone or anything else. That means big companies can still intimidate little guys by threatening to drag them through 10 years of ultra-expensive court proceedings, plus the risk of a judgment finding damages, injunctions, etc., if they don't immediately comply with the BigCo's demands. Convoluted and murky law benefits the massive corporations, who would much rather pay lawyers a few million to dispose of a plucky competitor than actually have to fight that competitor in the marketplace.

NetStrikeForce 10y ago

Or maybe US citizens could vote for someone that invalidates software patents. They're not valid in other parts of the world.

GirlsCanCode 10y ago
That's not completely true.
twblalock 10y ago
That's not true. Lots of countries allow software patents. The rules are sometimes stricter than in the US, but they definitely exist and are considered valid by the courts in the UK, the EU, Canada, Japan, and South Korea, among others.
megablast 10y ago
Sure, that should be the overriding issue that people use to vote for someone?
- NetStrikeForce 10y ago
  It's not a small thing to just brush off, but it depends on your priorities.
jwatte 10y ago
If you believe that patents, in general, are more good than bad, because they coax trade secrets out into the open after an amount of time, then they are just as valid for inventive software as for i inventive hardware/chemistry/biology/mechanics. The problem comes when the bar for "inventive" and "novel" and "non-obvious" is too low, and a guy or girl in a garage facing the problem to be solved is just as likely to reinvent the solution independently. Often, it's the problem that shapes the solution, rather than any particular inventiveness. It turns out, other engineering disciplines also have this problem, but because their times to market are much longer and more expensive, and their times of prior art are much longer (and thus the foundations are more well known/documented) it doesn't quite rise to the immediate existential threat that it does for independent software developers.

mtgx 10y ago

> For example, set up an EFF like non-profit whose mission is to invalidate bad patents Microsoft (yes, even the polished up, lipstick on a pig, "new Microsoft") benefits from "bad patents" waaay more than it loses to a few random patent trolls. It actually lobbied to stop the elimination of "business method" patents, which are just lawyer-written garbage. http://bgr.com/2013/05/01/microsofts-android-licensing-agreements-earnings/ http://bgr.com/2013/05/01/microsofts-android-licensing-agree... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/11/20/software-patent-reform-just-died-in-the-house-thanks-to-ibm-and-microsoft/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/11/20... Fortunately, business method patents are on their last legs thanks to Supreme Court's "Alice" ruling, but they can still cause damage (or profits, depending from which perspective you're look at it): http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2015/08/04/are-business-method-patents-dead-it-depends-on-whos-applying-for-them/id=60077/ http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2015/08/04/are-business-method-pat...

geofft 10y ago

Because Apple, MS, and Cisco can afford to litigate cases and pay the occasional settlement, and smaller companies that might threaten Apple, MS, and Cisco's market dominance cannot. Therefore, it is at least somewhat in their interest for patent trolls to stick around, as a way of maintaining the status quo.

ptzz 10y ago
OTH the smaller companies are usually not as interesting to patent trolls as there's not as much $$$ to be gained. In case of Apple, I believe the damage is related to number of infringing iPhones sold. Also it would be in the trolls interest to be able to continuously sue a company rather than bankrupting it and destroy a revenue stream.