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It's never discussed in these cases where the original inventor has gotten to. Apple licenses from Lodsys who bought from Intellectual Ventures who owns 30,000
by bugsy 15y ago
It's never discussed in these cases where the original inventor has gotten to. Apple licenses from Lodsys who bought from Intellectual Ventures who owns 30,000 patents, apparently none of which they have invented themselves.
Where are the original inventors?
What I have seen in industry is companies write contracts so that people who invent things automatically transfer ownership to the company, often even if the invention was made off hours and has nothing to do with the company, and in some cases when the invention was completed before or started after their term of employment.
Now the whole argument is that these patents protect the rights of inventors and give them an incentive to invent.
Yeah? Well let's see how much the inventor is getting paid out of these millions. I bet the amount the inventor, the dude that actually did the work, gets is absolutely nothing, or maybe he got a $1 bonus for the invention, which is a typical clause I've seen. $1 awarded for patents.
- mikeryan 15y agoI'm not sure what you're looking for here. Actually when this story broke, there was an assumption that Lodsys was owned by Daniel Abelow the original inventor of the patents. This was proven to be incorrect. Abelow had sold the patents to IV (I think) which were later purchased by Lodsys. Once he sold the patent rights he doesn't have much to do with anything. I can't find the article now but some news or blog outlet tracked him down and I believe the statement they got was along the lines of "I sold the rights to those patents a while back, and I've got nothing to do with this anymore" His website is here http://www.abelow.com/ http://www.abelow.com/
- bugsy 15y agoThanks, I also found Dan's other site here: http://computing2.com/ http://computing2.com/ So in this case the inventor did make some money off it at some point. Abelow has a bunch of other patents that he seems to have never used himself but just sells to these various interlinked companies that then sue people. Another patent, 5251294 covers anyone using rollover menus in javascript. If you've got those and aren't paying WebVention a license fee (which is a shell company of IntellectualVentures, the company that sold to Lodsys) you might be in trouble, well except it seems to have expired in 2010, but they had a good ride up to then. discussion: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2609936/javascript-css-rollover-menus-are-patented-and-subject-to-licensing http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2609936/javascript-css-ro... analysis: http://www.law.com/jsp/lawtechnologynews/PubArticleLTN.jsp?id=1202436141846&slreturn=1&hbxlogin=1 http://www.law.com/jsp/lawtechnologynews/PubArticleLTN.jsp?i... litigation: http://news.priorsmart.com/webvention-v-abercrombie-fitch-lX5/ http://news.priorsmart.com/webvention-v-abercrombie-fitch-lX...
- mikeryan 15y agoAgreed I have to say its not to say that Abelow is not part of the problem, from looking at his site I have to say he's part of the systemic patent troll system. From what I can tell he just ideates and then patents without ever building anything.