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IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties

225 points by hhs 7y ago

dang 7y ago
Url changed from https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/ibm-sues-airbnb-for-patent-royalties-on-e-commerce-technologies https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/ibm-sues-airbnb-for-pat... to one that isn't hardwalled, even though all it does is summarize this one. Is there a URL to another, fuller article?
- lode 7y ago
  https://www.ft.com/content/6f02ce76-e1d6-45d8-b27a-0491281c2507 https://www.ft.com/content/6f02ce76-e1d6-45d8-b27a-0491281c2...
  - dubcanada 7y ago
    That's paywalled. Does anyone have a non paywalled URL?
    - Strom 7y ago
      You can get past the FT paywall by having a google referer. Usually as simple as googling for the headline.
gscott 7y ago
IBM made a large investment in Prodigy the bbs/internet service of the 90's and came out of it with a lot of patents.
- Veen 7y ago
  Wouldn’t those patents have expired? The 90s is now more than 20 years ago.
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    There's this ugly thing called a continuation. You file a patent in the 90s, the patent office says "I don't think so", you modify the patent, the PTO still says no, you modify it again, and so on. If I understand correctly, you can wind up with a patent with a priority date of when you first filed, but an expiration date of 20 years from when it was finally granted. (The "priority date" means that you need prior art from before that date to invalidate the patent.)
johnward 7y ago
IBM has so many generic patents. I wonder why they don't sue more companies? I guess maybe they settle under the radar.
- snarf21 7y ago
  Yeah, they would rather license. 2018 was $1.2B+ in revenue just for the patents they already have. Our patent system really needs fixed.
  - mattrp 7y ago
    If someone invests resources inventing something, why shouldn't that entity be entitled to participate in the on-going monetization of that invention? If we presume the prior statement is simply a straw man, do you agree partially with this statement and it simply needs reform or would you propose to throw it out altogether? If the former, how would you propose to reform it?
    - urthen 7y ago
      The problem is so many software patents just cover "do a thing on a computer," which becomes so broad nobody else can ever do that thing without infringing on the patent. Even if I have an objectively different, even better, way of doing it, software patents are used far too broadly because they tend to protect the act of doing a thing as opposed to specifically how to do the thing. This is in contrast to something like a hardware patent, where if you patent a tool, and I build a better tool that does the same thing, the mere fact it does the same thing is not infringing unless I copy specific aspects of your patented physical design. The reform is that an ideal implementation of software patents is largely the same as an ideal implementation of software copyright. I can't just copy what you did, but if I figure out a different way to do it, that's perfectly fine. That's why so many people say scrap software patents altogether and work on improving software copyright instead.
      - freejazz 7y ago
        The software patents you described are consistently knocked-out on §101 eligibility grounds for being an "abstract concept". IMO people who advocate scrapping software patents are disingenuous - look at what Google is trying to do software copyright at the same time. Essentially, if you take Google up on software patents and copyright, there will be no protection left for software.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
vikramkr 7y ago
I recall an article a while back about how IBM is so innovative because it had the most patents filed per year on tech or something. I think we can see now that their patenting is less about innovation and more about patent trolling. Quote from the FT article on this below does not seem to show to me that this is the sort of patent that promotes real innovation - "improved navigation using bookmarks" does not seem like a breakthrough patent-worthy innovation, and I wonder how defensible these will be in court. Quote from (https://www.ft.com/content/6f02ce76-e1d6-45d8-b27a-0491281c2507?ftcamp=traffic/partner/feed_headline/us_yahoo/auddev&yptr=yahoo https://www.ft.com/content/6f02ce76-e1d6-45d8-b27a-0491281c2...) The computing giant has accused Airbnb of “building its business” by using patents relating to functions such as “presenting advertising in an interactive service” and “improved navigation using bookmarks”.
- egdod 7y ago
  Are you quoting from the Abstract or something? The claims are what matters.
  - vikramkr 7y ago
    I'm quoting the news article linked.
- edge17 7y ago
  IBM files a lot of patent because (at least when I was there many years ago), employees and their management chain have strong economic incentives to file anything. Even interns were encouraged to file patents, and as a student it's a great way to beef up your resume. Ironically, even between technology professionals, the patents one files at IBM are great marketing material on the resume. IBM marketing itself as 'the most innovative' does work on the vast majority of the world that isn't in technology.
  - johnward 7y ago
    I was pushed several times to get a patent when I worked at IBM. I never did it because I didn't think anything I really did was an "invention". I think they have a whole team dedicated to ghost writing patents.
blairanderson 7y ago
Can someone find the relevant suit and allegations? What eCommerce patents does IBM own?
- adrianmonk 7y ago
  This is from 2007, but it sounds right, and it includes some patent numbers: https://www.computerworld.com/article/2545023/ibm--amazon-com-settle-patent-fight.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/2545023/ibm--amazon-co...
  - _bxg1 7y ago
    > IBM sued Amazon in October last year, alleging that the company was infringing on a number of its U.S. patents, including those relating to storing data in an interactive network (Patent No. 5,442,771), adjusting hypertext links with weighted user goals and activities (5,446,891) and ordering items using an electronic catalogue (5,319,542) Hahahahahaha
brenden2 7y ago
The whole US patent system needs to either be scrapped or rebuilt. The purpose it was originally intended to be used for doesn't make sense in a world where most new technology is just software, and software is incredibly easy to copy and duplicate. Getting a software patent is mostly a matter of sneaking past the people at the USPTO, and making sure you're the first to file. These patent factories could just write code to generate patents all day (maybe start using PyTorch?).
- throwaway894345 7y ago
  I guess I always assumed this is more or less how it worked everywhere, at least anywhere that respect intellectual property. Is this not the case? What other models are out there, and which ones work better?
  - noir_lord 7y ago
    EU doesn't allow software patents. The world hasn't ended so far. https://fsfe.org/campaigns/swpat/swpat.en.html https://fsfe.org/campaigns/swpat/swpat.en.html for a decent overview
    - azinman2 7y ago
      Too be fair, the EU also never managed to build a large scale software industry. I’m not saying this is only because of patents, but it’s not a great example to uphold.
      - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
        Someone should tell Spotify, SAP, Sage, Nokia, and ARM they're not large scale.
        azinman2 7y ago
        Compare that to just Bay Area alone or one Alibaba and then tell me about large scale...
unlinked_dll 7y ago
AirBNB is like the Michael Jordan of getting sued
Shivetya 7y ago
Does anyone have details of how much IBM is trying to extract from Airbnb? I see the settlement with Groupon but surely they cannot be aiming that high? (of course I could be too optimistic here)
exabrial 7y ago
One would think after years of getting trolled by SCO IBM would be over this.
- hindsightbias 7y ago
  Their staff lawyers were probably so scarred by that they just want to make an example of someone every now and then.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  I seem to recall that there was a patent claim in SCO v IBM, but it got knocked out very early. The suit was actually about copyrights and contracts.
xmkcof0 7y ago
Shocking: some people believe they should rule the world forever. What a novel play by entitled aristocrats.
- freejazz 7y ago
  Forever? Patents typically last 13 years
  - xmkcof0 7y ago
    Software patents are a joke that the tech industry has relied upon to give it relevance. Why should “using commonly known syntax patterns to enable mechanized organization and display of text and images in any number arbitrary configurations”, which is a reasonable enough description of what we’re doing from a user perspective, be protected? That’s ALL software work is. “Feeling” ephemeral things are real is not a good enough justification for shackling us all with such laws. That’s ripe for abuse. No less than being told we have to make laws this way because people “felt” God was telling them that’s ok. But money makes laws change so they can collect on our innate agency and curiosity for these things. They own the land and the ideas. Sorry, mate, read a bit more than contemporary politics & economics books. A philosophy that undoes all this captured emotional energy to prop up correctness of winning favor with stern old people who don’t literally contribute except via condescending approval is right there. Society will instead kowtow to daddy despite all the now dead philosophers writing that we should avoid just that, lest they reign over us with their feelings of what is appropriate and emotional wanky tales of grandiose pipe dreams they want to achieve for themselves via our effort. More real gains for them, inequality gains for those of us that prop up their emotional castles. Adam Smith was right: the extreme division of labor has created a society of ignorant humans whose agency has been boxed in by the state apparatus. I’m not talking about anti-science and well argued positions. Politically the people are not existing in one. They’re existing as scared children too afraid of the ruler their fifth grade teacher who died years ago, keeps in her drawer. Childish paranoias literally etched in these brains forever. Thanks neuroscience for showing us the long life of our childhood anxieties and paranoias.
    - 7y ago
blaincate 7y ago
famous fat line patent ! https://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/044.html https://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/044.html >>> The chief blue suit orchestrated the presentation of the seven patents IBM claimed were infringed, the most prominent of which was IBM's notorious "fat lines" patent: To turn a thin line on a computer screen into a broad line, you go up and down an equal distance from the ends of the thin line and then connect the four points. You probably learned this technique for turning a line into a rectangle in seventh-grade geometry, and, doubtless, you believe it was devised by Euclid or some such 3,000-year-old thinker. Not according to the examiners of the USPTO, who awarded IBM a patent on the process. Read the whole story and you will see how IBM makes money !
- ALurchyBeast 7y ago
  Here is the 'fat lines' patent you mentioned: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6930686 https://patents.google.com/patent/US6930686. It's more about efficiency of drawing a line than connecting four dots.
  - unlinked_dll 7y ago
    What the patent says it's about and what your lawyers say it's about are two different things
    - ska 7y ago
      That's not true. If a patent doesn't say what it's about in a fairly prescribed way, it is easily defeated.
- aluminussoma 7y ago
  Also worth reading again is former Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz's anecdotes on Apple, Microsoft and Kodak trying to shake down Sun using patents: https://jonathanischwartz.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/good-artists-copy-great-artists-steal/ https://jonathanischwartz.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/good-arti...
cody3222 7y ago
This is not a good year for AirBnB. First the virus, then this, all while they were planning to IPO.
- dehrmann 7y ago
  This should be noise. COVID-19 will be a big hit, though.
yazr 7y ago
Is there some sort of group-defense, where several sue-ees group together to contest a ridiculous patent ? I guess the main difficulty is not the legal framework, but the business framing
- freejazz 7y ago
  Yup, you can seek a declaratory judgment of non-infringement, or institute an IPR at the PTAB to get a patent knocked-out. As a patent litigator, I believe most people don't understand patents, the patent system, nor what it tries to achieve.
  - therealx 7y ago
    What else do you think people don't know? I'd love to hear from someone knowledgeable.
    - freejazz 7y ago
      I think people misunderstand the patent system. It's not perfect, but to expect it to be so is entirely absurd. People do not realize it is a set of laws that is supposed to categorize and provide structure... to the unknown. If people realized this is the starting point from which all patent laws must be developed, it would create the context to understand why everything else happens. It's kind of absurd, even amongst the quite intelligent folks here, that this goes without notice. To say software patents shouldn't exist outright is to say that no one could invent anything in software that is novel and beneficial to society. I'm not sure how people come to that conclusion! I think people also fundamentally misunderstand that the "patent troll" is kinda like the "jaywalker" a term made up by an industry attacking the very concept. The car companies made up jaywalking once they got cities to switch off streetcars and to free the roads up for individual's motor vehicles. Similarly, patent troll is something used by large corporations owning vast troves of IP that get attacked by a smaller company that owns less IP. Is every patent litigation great? No! But our legal system already prefers to let a guilty man free rather than put an innocent man in jail... yet there is some absurd belief that the patent system should be more perfect than this. And lets be fair, it's a lot easier to say "killing people is wrong and deserves XYZ punishment" than it is to determine every unknown thing in the world. Patent trolls aren't really trolls, they are the inventors. Most of the time, if you invent a patent, you still can't find the funds to take on a big corporation infringing your patent. At least if "trolls" exist, the founder can sell his patent right to an entity that specializes in enforcing it. This is the market working.
verdverm 7y ago
It would be great if more companies handled patents like Tesla. They obtain patents and then let others use them royalty free
- JackFr 7y ago
  Volvo did that with the 3 point seatbelt.
- jascii 7y ago
  Does their royalty free license have any guarantees that the license stays royalty free? If not, it could be an potential trap..
  - Keverw 7y ago
    Not a lawyer but I'd imagine depends on the way they wrote the license. Like with software if someone open sourced something and then wanted to make it closed source, if they own the copyright 100% and you didn't violate the license you could keep using the current version but their new private changes you wouldn't get. So I'd imagine something similar unless the license expires after X time but that doesn't make sense in open source as haven't seen that other than in commercial closed source programs, and even then some programs still work but you won't get updates unless you pay to upgrade or a yearly maintenance fee. However you might want to document these things, heard once some copyright troll put images out under a free license and then changed their mind so went after websites using it.
- olyjohn 7y ago
  Do they do that with all their patents?
- LeoTinnitus 7y ago
  I thought the reason behind that was because they wanted to make uniform charging ports so companies like GM didn't make proprietary ports you couldn't charge teslas with and vice versa.
st_vincent33 7y ago
According to the article, IBM did this same thing to Twitter (suing for ridiculous patent claims immediately prior to an IPO, in order to pressure some sort of settlement). I don't know much about the stock market, but this doesn't make a ton of sense to me. If the claim really is meritless (which, it certainly seems to be), it shouldn't effect the fundamental value of Airbnb's business. If the underlying business is unaffected, won't whatever PR-related impact the lawsuit has on stock prices be erased rather quickly? Or would investors still price in some risk as long as the lawsuit was pending, even if they felt confident it would be thrown out?
peter_d_sherman 7y ago
Related: (This is with respect to IBM vs. Groupon, an earlier case) "What patents are IBM claiming Groupon infringed upon?": https://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/19726/what-patents-are-ibm-claiming-groupon-infringed-upon https://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/19726/what-paten...
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
rawoke083600 7y ago
Ag nee jislaaik ouens !
gran_colombia 7y ago
It seems like patent laws are a barrier to grow your business up to a certain size in the US. Would it be more sensible to incorporate in a jurisdiction - say, Canada - which does not allow such broad patents?
- endorphone 7y ago
  If you operate in a country you fall victim to its patent laws, regardless of where you incorporate.
- DethNinja 7y ago
  I’m not 100% sure but they should be able to sue you for sales gained at USA. Unfortunately entire system is built around protecting monopolies / giant corporations.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
_bxg1 7y ago
It's pretty uncommon these days to see a major tech company (read: one that has a reputation to maintain) actually litigate over a software patent in court, especially over something as established and basic as "ecommerce". I'm curious what the exact patent is for.
PaulDavisThe1st 7y ago
I was a fact witness for Groupon in the IBM/groupon suit (which IBM won). Airbnb is going to need a lot of luck with a jury to win this. Morally they ought to win it, but ...
- paulgb 7y ago
  > Airbnb is going to need a lot of luck with a jury to win this. As an aside, the fact that these things are decided by juries is nuts to me. Why should the average Joe who needs help installing a printer be compelled to miss work to decide multibillion dollar lawsuits that are deeply technical? I understand the right to a jury if you are accused of murder, but for patent cases it just seems asinine.
  - slim 7y ago
    because justice must not depend on any preexisting hierarchy
    - paulgb 7y ago
      This makes sense to me in the context of humans committing natural crimes, but not in the context of multinational corporations squabbling over IP. The very concept of ideas as defensible property depends on a pre-existing hierarchy.
- svscam 7y ago
  >Morally Morally, Airbnb deserves to go bankrupt.
tyingq 7y ago
Apparently, it includes patent 7,072,849, which they also sued Groupon for. "Method for presenting advertising in an interactive service" https://patents.google.com/patent/US7072849B1/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US7072849B1/en
neonate 7y ago
FT article: http://archive.md/ESune http://archive.md/ESune
abridgett 7y ago
I remember when I worked at IBM Hursley research labs 20 years ago. The lab director told us all "patents are very important to IBM". I expected him to tell us that IBM made billions from licensing them. He didn't say that though. I don't think he even _mentioned_ that. Instead he stated: "It raises the entry barrier for the competition". Patents were (narrowly) created to _encourage_ the spread of knowledge. Instead of risky "trade secrets" a company would make the knowledge public for a short monopoly. Most patents these days are not worthy of protection (certainly not as long as they are granted for). We need different lengths for different patents - we shouldn't treat how rectangular a phone is the same way as a life saving drug.
- patentatt 7y ago
  To be fair to IBM, what your director may have been saying is that their use was primarily defensive, which it is and was for IBM. It’s not wrong for them to patent as much as they are able to, it serves an important disclosure function. When I worked at the USPTO, we used several patent databases. The US, of course, Japan, Europe, and IBM. IBM had their own database because of how significant their IP was. So while it’s unfortunate that they’ve taken the offensive in this case, historically IBM has been an important and relatively benign player in the IP landscape.
  - raywu 7y ago
    This is informative. What is a good way to keep track of 1) parents filed by IBM, 2) lawsuits and parties involved IBM? Is there a service you like that provide weekly or monthly updates?
    - ChuckMcM 7y ago
      Disclaimer, I've contributed a couple of patents to IBM's hoard of patents, but I no longer work there. #1 is fairly straight forward, a simple script that uses the USPTO search function and searches for the Assignee field being IBM and the date range being the last 30 days gives you the patents issued that month to IBM. You can do that with a simple cron script, curl, and some script code. #2 is somewhat more difficult, IBM gets sued a lot because they are big and a juicy target. If you have access to one of the legal databases (Lexis, Etc) you can search for cases where IBM is the plaintiff and the complaint contains phaseology around patents (like "patent", "infringement", Etc.) While expensive to access, if you live near a College or University with a Law program and you can get library privileges you use their access. In Santa Clara county you can join the Santa Clara Law Library (http://sccll.org/ http://sccll.org/) which will give you access. Unfortunately, you need to be there to access the databases so that would involve a monthly trip to the library (not a bad thing in my opinion :-))
api 7y ago
If IBM is patent trolling now it means they're on death watch... this is a top indicator of a failing company.
sequoia 7y ago
What are the patents?
anigbrowl 7y ago
AirBNB is already facing a severe shock from pandemic and economic disruptions to travel. I can't say I'm going to be sad if the short-term rental market collapses after what they've done to the housing situation in so many cities.
nancycut10 7y ago
Hacking a WhatsApp account with the help of ethical hacking https://www.hackerslist.co/hacking-a-whatsapp-account-with-the-help-of-ethical-hacking/ https://www.hackerslist.co/hacking-a-whatsapp-account-with-t...
rdxm 7y ago
ABNB lining up with IBM in a patent dispute is priceless. If you look up bringing a knife to a gunfight in the "dictionary" you'd see a picture of this. There are probably 3rd or 4th generation patent attorneys in IBM's shop. This will not end well for ABNB.... To quote Dean Wormer: "Fat drunk and stupid is no way to go through life son"
say_it_as_it_is 7y ago
Does anyone know what specific patents IBM is defending?
NoblePublius 7y ago
Why doesnt this link to the actual story on Bloomberg?
indigo62018 7y ago
Just skimmed some patents being mentioned. I'm surprised that such a engineering company is trying to make money using such a non-technical patents. Very disappointed on IBM.
yourapostasy 7y ago
Can someone with patent law domain expertise please describe the "novel" patent criteria to laypeople here for software patents? To my simple lay mind, I apply a "not-novel" test criteria to patents. If I can describe a software patent in non-software terms, and apply a "...then a light-speed fast homunculus does this all...", then I'm already skeptical of the novelty of the software patent. In this specific instance, change "interactive service" to "newspaper, fetched from a vast library...by a very, very fast homunculus", and "advertisement" to "advertisement cut out and replaced by another advertisement fetched from a vast library...by a very, very fast homunculus". So obviously my lay understanding is way off, and I'm seeking to rectify that flawed understanding.
- freejazz 7y ago
  You might be surprised that it is fairly complicated and there is not a clear standard on what "novel" means for every single instance of possible novelty
jariel 7y ago
IBM is a patent troll. They'll come in and threaten to sue on a patent, and then indicate they have a zillion patents, that they'll 'find some infringement' and then exhort. They have a cadre of lawyers incented to do this. It's fair that people can defend their IP, but it goes too far in many cases.
jlokier 7y ago
I wonder how the Red Hat people, committed to open source and now IBM employees, feel about this.
- pyb 7y ago
  Thanks to the Red Hat acquisition, IBM became a member of the anti-patent troll group, LOT Network : https://newsroom.ibm.com/2020-01-14-IBM-Joins-LOT-Network-in-Major-Step-to-Promote-and-Protect-Open-Innovation https://newsroom.ibm.com/2020-01-14-IBM-Joins-LOT-Network-in... The fox is in the henhouse
ambyra 7y ago
The patents involved in the case are United States Patent Nos. 7,072,849 (the ‘849 patent), 6,778,193 (the ‘193 patent), 7,631,346 (the ‘346 patent), and 6,966,038 (the ‘038 patent). The ‘849 patent was used in IBM’s development of Prodigy, a precursor to the World Wide Web, and involved taking advantage of the computing power of a user’s PC to increase response speed. The ‘193 patent involved a method to improve search results based on user context. The ‘346 patent involved improvements to single-sign-on technology for first-time users. The ‘038 patent improved navigation by using bookmarks. These sound so generic and ubiquitous to how the internet works. The once great IBM is becoming a patent troll :(
- teddyh 7y ago
  > The once great IBM is becoming a patent troll :( IBM has always been a huge patent troll. "OK," [IBM] said, [to Sun in the 1980s] "maybe you don't infringe these seven patents. But we have 10,000 U.S. patents. Do you really want us to go back to Armonk [IBM headquarters in New York] and find seven patents you do infringe? Or do you want to make this easy and just pay us $20 million?" After a modest bit of negotiation, Sun cut IBM a check, and the blue suits went to the next company on their hit list. — Patently Absurd, Forbes, 2002: https://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/044.html https://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/044.html
- bosswipe 7y ago
  How is that 42 year old ‘849 patent not expired?
bobbydreamer 7y ago
Oracle copied IBMs SQL amd its mostly built from IBMs white paper. IBM allowed it. Oracle bought JAVA to sue Google and get some billions out of it.
Cyclone_ 7y ago
As a host I've always hated Airbnb,a guest overstayed and they didn't allow me to charge the guest extra even though the guest admitted to overstaying in the chat with me. Can't say I feel much pity for them, they've always had the grow at all costs mentality and have been pretty ruthless about it.
WalterBright 7y ago
The US industrial revolution started from ignoring British patents. Much as I admire the engineering prowess of the Wrights, their attempts to extract value via patents crippled the US aviation industry for a decade, ceding aviation dominance to Europe who ignored those patents. Similarly, Hollywood grew out of people evading Edison's patents on motion pictures. The notion that patents encourage innovation and progress doesn't seem to have much historical supporting evidence.
- WalterBright 7y ago
  Edison also spent much of his career in court being sued, suing, and being hired as an expert witness in patent suits. Much of his contracts were from companies trying to get around patents. To be fair, much of his income came from exploiting patents.

225 points by hhs 7y ago

dang 7y ago

Url changed from https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/ibm-sues-airbnb-for-patent-royalties-on-e-commerce-technologies https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/ibm-sues-airbnb-for-pat... to one that isn't hardwalled, even though all it does is summarize this one. Is there a URL to another, fuller article?

lode 7y ago
https://www.ft.com/content/6f02ce76-e1d6-45d8-b27a-0491281c2507 https://www.ft.com/content/6f02ce76-e1d6-45d8-b27a-0491281c2...
- dubcanada 7y ago
  That's paywalled. Does anyone have a non paywalled URL?
  - Strom 7y ago
    You can get past the FT paywall by having a google referer. Usually as simple as googling for the headline.

gscott 7y ago

IBM made a large investment in Prodigy the bbs/internet service of the 90's and came out of it with a lot of patents.

Veen 7y ago
Wouldn’t those patents have expired? The 90s is now more than 20 years ago.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  There's this ugly thing called a continuation. You file a patent in the 90s, the patent office says "I don't think so", you modify the patent, the PTO still says no, you modify it again, and so on. If I understand correctly, you can wind up with a patent with a priority date of when you first filed, but an expiration date of 20 years from when it was finally granted. (The "priority date" means that you need prior art from before that date to invalidate the patent.)

johnward 7y ago

IBM has so many generic patents. I wonder why they don't sue more companies? I guess maybe they settle under the radar.

snarf21 7y ago
Yeah, they would rather license. 2018 was $1.2B+ in revenue just for the patents they already have. Our patent system really needs fixed.
- mattrp 7y ago
  If someone invests resources inventing something, why shouldn't that entity be entitled to participate in the on-going monetization of that invention? If we presume the prior statement is simply a straw man, do you agree partially with this statement and it simply needs reform or would you propose to throw it out altogether? If the former, how would you propose to reform it?
  - urthen 7y ago
    The problem is so many software patents just cover "do a thing on a computer," which becomes so broad nobody else can ever do that thing without infringing on the patent. Even if I have an objectively different, even better, way of doing it, software patents are used far too broadly because they tend to protect the act of doing a thing as opposed to specifically how to do the thing. This is in contrast to something like a hardware patent, where if you patent a tool, and I build a better tool that does the same thing, the mere fact it does the same thing is not infringing unless I copy specific aspects of your patented physical design. The reform is that an ideal implementation of software patents is largely the same as an ideal implementation of software copyright. I can't just copy what you did, but if I figure out a different way to do it, that's perfectly fine. That's why so many people say scrap software patents altogether and work on improving software copyright instead.
    - freejazz 7y ago
      The software patents you described are consistently knocked-out on §101 eligibility grounds for being an "abstract concept". IMO people who advocate scrapping software patents are disingenuous - look at what Google is trying to do software copyright at the same time. Essentially, if you take Google up on software patents and copyright, there will be no protection left for software.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

vikramkr 7y ago

I recall an article a while back about how IBM is so innovative because it had the most patents filed per year on tech or something. I think we can see now that their patenting is less about innovation and more about patent trolling. Quote from the FT article on this below does not seem to show to me that this is the sort of patent that promotes real innovation - "improved navigation using bookmarks" does not seem like a breakthrough patent-worthy innovation, and I wonder how defensible these will be in court. Quote from (https://www.ft.com/content/6f02ce76-e1d6-45d8-b27a-0491281c2507?ftcamp=traffic/partner/feed_headline/us_yahoo/auddev&yptr=yahoo https://www.ft.com/content/6f02ce76-e1d6-45d8-b27a-0491281c2...) The computing giant has accused Airbnb of “building its business” by using patents relating to functions such as “presenting advertising in an interactive service” and “improved navigation using bookmarks”.

egdod 7y ago
Are you quoting from the Abstract or something? The claims are what matters.
- vikramkr 7y ago
  I'm quoting the news article linked.
edge17 7y ago
IBM files a lot of patent because (at least when I was there many years ago), employees and their management chain have strong economic incentives to file anything. Even interns were encouraged to file patents, and as a student it's a great way to beef up your resume. Ironically, even between technology professionals, the patents one files at IBM are great marketing material on the resume. IBM marketing itself as 'the most innovative' does work on the vast majority of the world that isn't in technology.
- johnward 7y ago
  I was pushed several times to get a patent when I worked at IBM. I never did it because I didn't think anything I really did was an "invention". I think they have a whole team dedicated to ghost writing patents.

blairanderson 7y ago

Can someone find the relevant suit and allegations? What eCommerce patents does IBM own?

adrianmonk 7y ago
This is from 2007, but it sounds right, and it includes some patent numbers: https://www.computerworld.com/article/2545023/ibm--amazon-com-settle-patent-fight.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/2545023/ibm--amazon-co...
- _bxg1 7y ago
  > IBM sued Amazon in October last year, alleging that the company was infringing on a number of its U.S. patents, including those relating to storing data in an interactive network (Patent No. 5,442,771), adjusting hypertext links with weighted user goals and activities (5,446,891) and ordering items using an electronic catalogue (5,319,542) Hahahahahaha

brenden2 7y ago

The whole US patent system needs to either be scrapped or rebuilt. The purpose it was originally intended to be used for doesn't make sense in a world where most new technology is just software, and software is incredibly easy to copy and duplicate. Getting a software patent is mostly a matter of sneaking past the people at the USPTO, and making sure you're the first to file. These patent factories could just write code to generate patents all day (maybe start using PyTorch?).

throwaway894345 7y ago
I guess I always assumed this is more or less how it worked everywhere, at least anywhere that respect intellectual property. Is this not the case? What other models are out there, and which ones work better?
- noir_lord 7y ago
  EU doesn't allow software patents. The world hasn't ended so far. https://fsfe.org/campaigns/swpat/swpat.en.html https://fsfe.org/campaigns/swpat/swpat.en.html for a decent overview
  - azinman2 7y ago
    Too be fair, the EU also never managed to build a large scale software industry. I’m not saying this is only because of patents, but it’s not a great example to uphold.
    - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
      Someone should tell Spotify, SAP, Sage, Nokia, and ARM they're not large scale.
      - azinman2 7y ago
        Compare that to just Bay Area alone or one Alibaba and then tell me about large scale...

unlinked_dll 7y ago

AirBNB is like the Michael Jordan of getting sued

Shivetya 7y ago

Does anyone have details of how much IBM is trying to extract from Airbnb? I see the settlement with Groupon but surely they cannot be aiming that high? (of course I could be too optimistic here)

exabrial 7y ago

One would think after years of getting trolled by SCO IBM would be over this.

hindsightbias 7y ago
Their staff lawyers were probably so scarred by that they just want to make an example of someone every now and then.
AnimalMuppet 7y ago
I seem to recall that there was a patent claim in SCO v IBM, but it got knocked out very early. The suit was actually about copyrights and contracts.

xmkcof0 7y ago

Shocking: some people believe they should rule the world forever. What a novel play by entitled aristocrats.

freejazz 7y ago
Forever? Patents typically last 13 years
- xmkcof0 7y ago
  Software patents are a joke that the tech industry has relied upon to give it relevance. Why should “using commonly known syntax patterns to enable mechanized organization and display of text and images in any number arbitrary configurations”, which is a reasonable enough description of what we’re doing from a user perspective, be protected? That’s ALL software work is. “Feeling” ephemeral things are real is not a good enough justification for shackling us all with such laws. That’s ripe for abuse. No less than being told we have to make laws this way because people “felt” God was telling them that’s ok. But money makes laws change so they can collect on our innate agency and curiosity for these things. They own the land and the ideas. Sorry, mate, read a bit more than contemporary politics & economics books. A philosophy that undoes all this captured emotional energy to prop up correctness of winning favor with stern old people who don’t literally contribute except via condescending approval is right there. Society will instead kowtow to daddy despite all the now dead philosophers writing that we should avoid just that, lest they reign over us with their feelings of what is appropriate and emotional wanky tales of grandiose pipe dreams they want to achieve for themselves via our effort. More real gains for them, inequality gains for those of us that prop up their emotional castles. Adam Smith was right: the extreme division of labor has created a society of ignorant humans whose agency has been boxed in by the state apparatus. I’m not talking about anti-science and well argued positions. Politically the people are not existing in one. They’re existing as scared children too afraid of the ruler their fifth grade teacher who died years ago, keeps in her drawer. Childish paranoias literally etched in these brains forever. Thanks neuroscience for showing us the long life of our childhood anxieties and paranoias.
  - 7y ago

blaincate 7y ago

famous fat line patent ! https://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/044.html https://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/044.html >>> The chief blue suit orchestrated the presentation of the seven patents IBM claimed were infringed, the most prominent of which was IBM's notorious "fat lines" patent: To turn a thin line on a computer screen into a broad line, you go up and down an equal distance from the ends of the thin line and then connect the four points. You probably learned this technique for turning a line into a rectangle in seventh-grade geometry, and, doubtless, you believe it was devised by Euclid or some such 3,000-year-old thinker. Not according to the examiners of the USPTO, who awarded IBM a patent on the process. Read the whole story and you will see how IBM makes money !

ALurchyBeast 7y ago
Here is the 'fat lines' patent you mentioned: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6930686 https://patents.google.com/patent/US6930686. It's more about efficiency of drawing a line than connecting four dots.
- unlinked_dll 7y ago
  What the patent says it's about and what your lawyers say it's about are two different things
  - ska 7y ago
    That's not true. If a patent doesn't say what it's about in a fairly prescribed way, it is easily defeated.
aluminussoma 7y ago
Also worth reading again is former Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz's anecdotes on Apple, Microsoft and Kodak trying to shake down Sun using patents: https://jonathanischwartz.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/good-artists-copy-great-artists-steal/ https://jonathanischwartz.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/good-arti...

cody3222 7y ago

This is not a good year for AirBnB. First the virus, then this, all while they were planning to IPO.

dehrmann 7y ago
This should be noise. COVID-19 will be a big hit, though.

yazr 7y ago

Is there some sort of group-defense, where several sue-ees group together to contest a ridiculous patent ? I guess the main difficulty is not the legal framework, but the business framing

freejazz 7y ago
Yup, you can seek a declaratory judgment of non-infringement, or institute an IPR at the PTAB to get a patent knocked-out. As a patent litigator, I believe most people don't understand patents, the patent system, nor what it tries to achieve.
- therealx 7y ago
  What else do you think people don't know? I'd love to hear from someone knowledgeable.
  - freejazz 7y ago
    I think people misunderstand the patent system. It's not perfect, but to expect it to be so is entirely absurd. People do not realize it is a set of laws that is supposed to categorize and provide structure... to the unknown. If people realized this is the starting point from which all patent laws must be developed, it would create the context to understand why everything else happens. It's kind of absurd, even amongst the quite intelligent folks here, that this goes without notice. To say software patents shouldn't exist outright is to say that no one could invent anything in software that is novel and beneficial to society. I'm not sure how people come to that conclusion! I think people also fundamentally misunderstand that the "patent troll" is kinda like the "jaywalker" a term made up by an industry attacking the very concept. The car companies made up jaywalking once they got cities to switch off streetcars and to free the roads up for individual's motor vehicles. Similarly, patent troll is something used by large corporations owning vast troves of IP that get attacked by a smaller company that owns less IP. Is every patent litigation great? No! But our legal system already prefers to let a guilty man free rather than put an innocent man in jail... yet there is some absurd belief that the patent system should be more perfect than this. And lets be fair, it's a lot easier to say "killing people is wrong and deserves XYZ punishment" than it is to determine every unknown thing in the world. Patent trolls aren't really trolls, they are the inventors. Most of the time, if you invent a patent, you still can't find the funds to take on a big corporation infringing your patent. At least if "trolls" exist, the founder can sell his patent right to an entity that specializes in enforcing it. This is the market working.

verdverm 7y ago

It would be great if more companies handled patents like Tesla. They obtain patents and then let others use them royalty free

JackFr 7y ago
Volvo did that with the 3 point seatbelt.
jascii 7y ago
Does their royalty free license have any guarantees that the license stays royalty free? If not, it could be an potential trap..
- Keverw 7y ago
  Not a lawyer but I'd imagine depends on the way they wrote the license. Like with software if someone open sourced something and then wanted to make it closed source, if they own the copyright 100% and you didn't violate the license you could keep using the current version but their new private changes you wouldn't get. So I'd imagine something similar unless the license expires after X time but that doesn't make sense in open source as haven't seen that other than in commercial closed source programs, and even then some programs still work but you won't get updates unless you pay to upgrade or a yearly maintenance fee. However you might want to document these things, heard once some copyright troll put images out under a free license and then changed their mind so went after websites using it.
olyjohn 7y ago
Do they do that with all their patents?
LeoTinnitus 7y ago
I thought the reason behind that was because they wanted to make uniform charging ports so companies like GM didn't make proprietary ports you couldn't charge teslas with and vice versa.

st_vincent33 7y ago

According to the article, IBM did this same thing to Twitter (suing for ridiculous patent claims immediately prior to an IPO, in order to pressure some sort of settlement). I don't know much about the stock market, but this doesn't make a ton of sense to me. If the claim really is meritless (which, it certainly seems to be), it shouldn't effect the fundamental value of Airbnb's business. If the underlying business is unaffected, won't whatever PR-related impact the lawsuit has on stock prices be erased rather quickly? Or would investors still price in some risk as long as the lawsuit was pending, even if they felt confident it would be thrown out?

peter_d_sherman 7y ago

Related: (This is with respect to IBM vs. Groupon, an earlier case) "What patents are IBM claiming Groupon infringed upon?": https://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/19726/what-patents-are-ibm-claiming-groupon-infringed-upon https://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/19726/what-paten...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

rawoke083600 7y ago

Ag nee jislaaik ouens !

gran_colombia 7y ago

It seems like patent laws are a barrier to grow your business up to a certain size in the US. Would it be more sensible to incorporate in a jurisdiction - say, Canada - which does not allow such broad patents?

endorphone 7y ago
If you operate in a country you fall victim to its patent laws, regardless of where you incorporate.
DethNinja 7y ago
I’m not 100% sure but they should be able to sue you for sales gained at USA. Unfortunately entire system is built around protecting monopolies / giant corporations.

deleted 7y ago

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_bxg1 7y ago

It's pretty uncommon these days to see a major tech company (read: one that has a reputation to maintain) actually litigate over a software patent in court, especially over something as established and basic as "ecommerce". I'm curious what the exact patent is for.

PaulDavisThe1st 7y ago

I was a fact witness for Groupon in the IBM/groupon suit (which IBM won). Airbnb is going to need a lot of luck with a jury to win this. Morally they ought to win it, but ...

paulgb 7y ago
> Airbnb is going to need a lot of luck with a jury to win this. As an aside, the fact that these things are decided by juries is nuts to me. Why should the average Joe who needs help installing a printer be compelled to miss work to decide multibillion dollar lawsuits that are deeply technical? I understand the right to a jury if you are accused of murder, but for patent cases it just seems asinine.
- slim 7y ago
  because justice must not depend on any preexisting hierarchy
  - paulgb 7y ago
    This makes sense to me in the context of humans committing natural crimes, but not in the context of multinational corporations squabbling over IP. The very concept of ideas as defensible property depends on a pre-existing hierarchy.
svscam 7y ago
>Morally Morally, Airbnb deserves to go bankrupt.

tyingq 7y ago

Apparently, it includes patent 7,072,849, which they also sued Groupon for. "Method for presenting advertising in an interactive service" https://patents.google.com/patent/US7072849B1/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US7072849B1/en

neonate 7y ago

FT article: http://archive.md/ESune http://archive.md/ESune

abridgett 7y ago

I remember when I worked at IBM Hursley research labs 20 years ago. The lab director told us all "patents are very important to IBM". I expected him to tell us that IBM made billions from licensing them. He didn't say that though. I don't think he even _mentioned_ that. Instead he stated: "It raises the entry barrier for the competition". Patents were (narrowly) created to _encourage_ the spread of knowledge. Instead of risky "trade secrets" a company would make the knowledge public for a short monopoly. Most patents these days are not worthy of protection (certainly not as long as they are granted for). We need different lengths for different patents - we shouldn't treat how rectangular a phone is the same way as a life saving drug.

patentatt 7y ago
To be fair to IBM, what your director may have been saying is that their use was primarily defensive, which it is and was for IBM. It’s not wrong for them to patent as much as they are able to, it serves an important disclosure function. When I worked at the USPTO, we used several patent databases. The US, of course, Japan, Europe, and IBM. IBM had their own database because of how significant their IP was. So while it’s unfortunate that they’ve taken the offensive in this case, historically IBM has been an important and relatively benign player in the IP landscape.
- raywu 7y ago
  This is informative. What is a good way to keep track of 1) parents filed by IBM, 2) lawsuits and parties involved IBM? Is there a service you like that provide weekly or monthly updates?
  - ChuckMcM 7y ago
    Disclaimer, I've contributed a couple of patents to IBM's hoard of patents, but I no longer work there. #1 is fairly straight forward, a simple script that uses the USPTO search function and searches for the Assignee field being IBM and the date range being the last 30 days gives you the patents issued that month to IBM. You can do that with a simple cron script, curl, and some script code. #2 is somewhat more difficult, IBM gets sued a lot because they are big and a juicy target. If you have access to one of the legal databases (Lexis, Etc) you can search for cases where IBM is the plaintiff and the complaint contains phaseology around patents (like "patent", "infringement", Etc.) While expensive to access, if you live near a College or University with a Law program and you can get library privileges you use their access. In Santa Clara county you can join the Santa Clara Law Library (http://sccll.org/ http://sccll.org/) which will give you access. Unfortunately, you need to be there to access the databases so that would involve a monthly trip to the library (not a bad thing in my opinion :-))

api 7y ago

If IBM is patent trolling now it means they're on death watch... this is a top indicator of a failing company.

sequoia 7y ago

What are the patents?

anigbrowl 7y ago

AirBNB is already facing a severe shock from pandemic and economic disruptions to travel. I can't say I'm going to be sad if the short-term rental market collapses after what they've done to the housing situation in so many cities.

nancycut10 7y ago

Hacking a WhatsApp account with the help of ethical hacking https://www.hackerslist.co/hacking-a-whatsapp-account-with-the-help-of-ethical-hacking/ https://www.hackerslist.co/hacking-a-whatsapp-account-with-t...

rdxm 7y ago

ABNB lining up with IBM in a patent dispute is priceless. If you look up bringing a knife to a gunfight in the "dictionary" you'd see a picture of this. There are probably 3rd or 4th generation patent attorneys in IBM's shop. This will not end well for ABNB.... To quote Dean Wormer: "Fat drunk and stupid is no way to go through life son"

say_it_as_it_is 7y ago

Does anyone know what specific patents IBM is defending?

NoblePublius 7y ago

Why doesnt this link to the actual story on Bloomberg?

indigo62018 7y ago

Just skimmed some patents being mentioned. I'm surprised that such a engineering company is trying to make money using such a non-technical patents. Very disappointed on IBM.

yourapostasy 7y ago

Can someone with patent law domain expertise please describe the "novel" patent criteria to laypeople here for software patents? To my simple lay mind, I apply a "not-novel" test criteria to patents. If I can describe a software patent in non-software terms, and apply a "...then a light-speed fast homunculus does this all...", then I'm already skeptical of the novelty of the software patent. In this specific instance, change "interactive service" to "newspaper, fetched from a vast library...by a very, very fast homunculus", and "advertisement" to "advertisement cut out and replaced by another advertisement fetched from a vast library...by a very, very fast homunculus". So obviously my lay understanding is way off, and I'm seeking to rectify that flawed understanding.

freejazz 7y ago
You might be surprised that it is fairly complicated and there is not a clear standard on what "novel" means for every single instance of possible novelty

jariel 7y ago

IBM is a patent troll. They'll come in and threaten to sue on a patent, and then indicate they have a zillion patents, that they'll 'find some infringement' and then exhort. They have a cadre of lawyers incented to do this. It's fair that people can defend their IP, but it goes too far in many cases.

jlokier 7y ago

I wonder how the Red Hat people, committed to open source and now IBM employees, feel about this.

pyb 7y ago
Thanks to the Red Hat acquisition, IBM became a member of the anti-patent troll group, LOT Network : https://newsroom.ibm.com/2020-01-14-IBM-Joins-LOT-Network-in-Major-Step-to-Promote-and-Protect-Open-Innovation https://newsroom.ibm.com/2020-01-14-IBM-Joins-LOT-Network-in... The fox is in the henhouse

ambyra 7y ago

The patents involved in the case are United States Patent Nos. 7,072,849 (the ‘849 patent), 6,778,193 (the ‘193 patent), 7,631,346 (the ‘346 patent), and 6,966,038 (the ‘038 patent). The ‘849 patent was used in IBM’s development of Prodigy, a precursor to the World Wide Web, and involved taking advantage of the computing power of a user’s PC to increase response speed. The ‘193 patent involved a method to improve search results based on user context. The ‘346 patent involved improvements to single-sign-on technology for first-time users. The ‘038 patent improved navigation by using bookmarks. These sound so generic and ubiquitous to how the internet works. The once great IBM is becoming a patent troll :(

teddyh 7y ago
> The once great IBM is becoming a patent troll :( IBM has always been a huge patent troll. "OK," [IBM] said, [to Sun in the 1980s] "maybe you don't infringe these seven patents. But we have 10,000 U.S. patents. Do you really want us to go back to Armonk [IBM headquarters in New York] and find seven patents you do infringe? Or do you want to make this easy and just pay us $20 million?" After a modest bit of negotiation, Sun cut IBM a check, and the blue suits went to the next company on their hit list. — Patently Absurd, Forbes, 2002: https://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/044.html https://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/044.html
bosswipe 7y ago
How is that 42 year old ‘849 patent not expired?

bobbydreamer 7y ago

Oracle copied IBMs SQL amd its mostly built from IBMs white paper. IBM allowed it. Oracle bought JAVA to sue Google and get some billions out of it.

Cyclone_ 7y ago

As a host I've always hated Airbnb,a guest overstayed and they didn't allow me to charge the guest extra even though the guest admitted to overstaying in the chat with me. Can't say I feel much pity for them, they've always had the grow at all costs mentality and have been pretty ruthless about it.

WalterBright 7y ago

The US industrial revolution started from ignoring British patents. Much as I admire the engineering prowess of the Wrights, their attempts to extract value via patents crippled the US aviation industry for a decade, ceding aviation dominance to Europe who ignored those patents. Similarly, Hollywood grew out of people evading Edison's patents on motion pictures. The notion that patents encourage innovation and progress doesn't seem to have much historical supporting evidence.

WalterBright 7y ago
Edison also spent much of his career in court being sued, suing, and being hired as an expert witness in patent suits. Much of his contracts were from companies trying to get around patents. To be fair, much of his income came from exploiting patents.