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The patent troll that won a $308M jury trial against Apple

• dt3ft 6y ago
  Software patents should not exist.
• everyone 6y ago
  The irony is delicious.
• lend000 6y ago
  A parasite resulting from society's outdated patent laws, with a simple fix. 1. Only make practicing entities eligible for IP damages. 2. Reduce the duration of all patents by 50%.
  • MegaButts 6y ago
    You should read the article. The patents are from 1981 (and to a lesser extent 1995). It explains how they get around the typical patent limitations which are usually not more than 20 years.
    • lend000 6y ago
      The solution is the same. Submarine patents shouldn't exist.
      • MegaButts 6y ago
        I agree, but they stopped making them 25 years ago. This company is taking advantage of legacy laws. You couldn't replicate this business model today because it's already been outlawed.
        • cmeacham98 6y ago
          Congress should just invalidate all submarine patents, full stop. When the 13th amendment was passed slave owners didn't get to "grandfather in" their existing slaves. Extreme example, but the point is sometimes old laws are so harmful to society we should not allow people to continue abusing them.
          • defaultname 6y ago
            You're absolutely right, however let's note that no rational person would conclude that Apple actually infringed on any invention of this patent troll. This case should have gone nowhere, and the plaintiffs should have been sent home with a bill for the defense's legal counsel. I mentioned in another comment about the Eastern District of Texas which became effectively a giant grift operation (though a recent SC case should put a damper on it). Plaintiffs sought it because they knew the jury pool would also be people who benefit from this extraordinarily corrupt, banana republic extortion racket. It was effectively like a forgettable little drive-through town that setup speed traps and decided to fund the municipality on the backs of outsiders. There are some people who would counter this. For instance one paper notes that of jury trials, 73% of East Texas cases choose for the plaintiff, versus 68% elsewhere, "proving" that it isn't that much of a difference. The problem with this reasoning, however, is that East Texas was specifically where the cases with no merit went. It was overloaded with patent trolls and NPEs. Actual, credible cases were seldom tried in East Texas. Every judgment of that district should be vacated.
            • DangitBobby 6y ago
              Yes, just reading a couple of paragraphs of this story reveals the obvious corruption, incompetence, or both, of the court room this took place in.
            • alisonkisk 6y ago
              It's ironic to use the xenophobic slur "banana republic" to describe a US Federal Court in Texas.
              • 6y ago
  • dasudasu 6y ago
    So you're a small startup with no sales trying to build a prototype, but you patented your idea so that you get a priority date, and also because a patent is the first thing investors want to see to know that your idea won't just be copied by anyone else. Now you just get run over by the big boys? Now you're in the same situation, but you sell your patent to another entity because you can't afford yourself to sue the big boys for damage. You or anyone else you delegate should have no recourse at all?
    • lend000 6y ago
      I'd support a short (relative to the patent term) grace period to become a practicing entity. If you create a reduction to practice, you are a practicing entity. If you file a patent but can't actually build the thing (or maybe it can't be built) -- this happens all too often, by the way -- then I don't see why they should hold on to their failed patent, only for it to be scooped up by some patent troll for pennies on the dollar and eventually clog our legal system and extract fees from real value producers. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Execution is what matters. IP has value and should be incentivized, but right now, the legal system weighs the legal application for an idea far too heavily, and so alas, patent trolls exist.
      • dasudasu 6y ago
        Execution can depend a lot on the amount of capital you have available in the first place. Imagine a startup trying to develop a very expensive solid state LIDAR. They don't have the millions in funds to go to a fab and go into production. They do shitty prototypes. But they get some attention and are able to sell/license their patents. In this alternative universe where patent law is much weaker: 1. The big corp can choose to ignore you and not buy or license the patents. Their defense will be that you are a non-practising entity since you have no revenues or customers. There is a grace period? They make the bet that they can just wait you out. 2. You never patent the idea in the first place. There is no point as there is no way for you to profit from the idea. The world never get access to the tech.
        • lend000 6y ago
• savant_penguin 6y ago
  Good. I hope these kind of lawsuits put an end this terrible patent system And I hope the software copywriting goes on the same way
  • dylan604 6y ago
    what's your suggestion? total elimination? how does that help people? changes to correct issues? what changes?
• ptero 6y ago
  The patent system, at least in the US, is broken and supports many actions, like patent trolling, that only benefit such vermin. Rather than trying to make life harder for such trolls we should focus on fixing the patent system. My 2c.
  • ta2987 6y ago
    "Rather?" Like, we've collectively got half an hour for lunch and we can either go get a sandwich or pick up our dry cleaning?
  • PopePompus 6y ago
    There's no reason not to do both.
    • ptero 6y ago
      Fixing the system is hard while harassing a troll is a lot easier. This might lead to avoiding fixing the system altogether -- once people realize how hard it us, both technically and politically, they might stop at beating the troll solution as "good enough for now".
• freedomben 6y ago
  Every so often a patent troll story comes up on HN, and people like me bitch about how broken the system is and get group therapy from shouting into the wind on a web forum. What can we actually do. How do we start fixing this problem?
  • taf2 6y ago
    Think carefully about who you vote for. Get involved in the process- like anything unless you actually really care and have the means or can turn it into your means most likely you will move onto something else...
    • mdorazio 6y ago
      The problem is I'm pretty sure this needs to be fixed at the national legislative level. There are somewhere between few and no electable congressional candidates who actually care enough about patents to stand up to lobbying. And there are very few people outside the microcosm of the tech community who care enough about patent reform to prioritize it above other mainstream issues. So what's the practical game plan that doesn't take 20+ years?
      • erosenbe0 6y ago
        You tie it to something strategic, even if it the relationship is loose. We have a chip shortage right? And an American manufacturing crisis, right? "We need to eliminate trolling waste and abuse for national security. In Asia they don't have this dysfunction and we're ceding ground to adversaries simply to make lawyering trolls rich!"
    • BurningFrog 6y ago
      That can work for the 1-3 top issues in the country. This issue is maybe in the top 1000.
  • tombert 6y ago
    I've wondered that too. How can we realistically boycott the companies that abuse patents? I suppose I could stop using Apple products, but most current software jobs require some form of smartphone for authentication, so I need an iPhone or Android phone, thus supporting Google or Samsung or LG or one of the other big megacorps that abuse the American patent system. I feel like the only thing that could conceivably happen is to fight fire with fire, and start suing these companies and challenging these patents to a point where it's so expensive for them that they lobby congress to regulate it better. Even still, I have doubts that that would even work, since it's still probably more profitable for them to keep all their ridiculous patents than the loss in legal fees.
• ggm 6y ago
  Tax farming did for royalty in France. I wonder if patent farming can do anything similar for society.
• aeturnum 6y ago
  Our current IP system is remarkable in that it is both very complex and, despite that complexity, it is entirely reducible to a system for allocating fees for entities to pay. Using you own IP? You pay your fees to your legal team. Using IP owned by someone else? Pay your legal team and their legal team and them. Except for the situation where you are much larger than the IP owner - then they get nothing from you and pay their normal fees to their legal team. There's a cottage industry of infringement on social media where 'enterprising' companies outside the US take art they don't own and put it on merchandise. Large brands routinely duplicate small artist styles or simply trace their work. Often single individuals at the larger company choose to illegally copy the work of another, but the bulk of the benefit accrues to the corporation. Personally, though I am a software engineer and much of my "property" is intellectual, the whole system feels wrongly conceived. It focuses on allowing commercial activity to continue around IP instead of keeping creators in control of their creations. In general, the best way to make money is to excise any humans from the IP as quickly as possible (like cutting away an un-wanted growth) to best shape the IP for future needs and markets. It sucks, even if I understand all the decisions along its path.
  • rswail 6y ago
    The purpose of IPR is not to "keep[ing] creators in control of their creations". It's to "promote the progress of science and useful arts". That's the whole point, to "allow... commercial activity to continue around IP". Creators are given a limited period of monopoly over the rights for reproduction and use of expression (copyright), ideas (patents), branding (trademark) to allow them to earn some return on their creations, but at the same time put the expression, ideas or branding into the public domain. Copyright terms have been bastardized by Disney et al and author estates to extend the terms beyond anything reasonable. Patent trolls and an unfunded USPTO and compliant court districts have bastardized patents.
  • estaseuropano 6y ago
    Your are equivocating patents and copyright, which are both IPR and yet worlds apart. There is some similarity in that both have their purposes and both are clearly being abused by some actors.
• Black101 6y ago
  if "patent trolls" would only go against monopolies, I would be fine with it...
  • thret 6y ago
    I doubt they are using the money any more altruistically than Apple would.
    • Black101 6y ago
      At least they were smarter then the monopolies...
  • seaman1921 6y ago
    you fail to realise that you are the one paying for it in the end - blindly hating innovative companies who make amazing products just because they make too much money for your liking is quite immature
    • Black101 5y ago
      If they are so innovative, why do they need to use somebody else's patent? I think that the monopolies are the immature ones if they complain about the price of patents owned by others...
• defaultname 6y ago
  https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2017-05-25/the-texas-town-that-patent-trolls-built-j34rlmjc https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2017-05-25/the-te... An entire industry has sprung up in Texas specifically around the extortion of actual technology companies -- which almost always exist in other states -- and it has been profoundly corrupting. https://www.judicialhellholes.org/hellhole/2015-2016/u-s-district-court-for-the-eastern-district-of-texas/ https://www.judicialhellholes.org/hellhole/2015-2016/u-s-dis...
  • lotsofpulp 6y ago
    This May 2017 SC ruling should have fixed a lot of that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TC_Heartland_LLC_v._Kraft_Foods_Group_Brands_LLC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TC_Heartland_LLC_v._Kraft_Food...
    • rosstex 6y ago
      The Western District (containing Austin, TX) is now having a run for its money. https://www.law360.com/trials/articles/1361545/intel-verdict-gives-ip-attys-2-billion-reasons-to-sue-in-wdtx https://www.law360.com/trials/articles/1361545/intel-verdict...
• ur-whale 6y ago
  Apple getting beaten at its own game is kind of fun to witness TBH.
• marvindanig 6y ago
  A startup in PMC space that reverse trolls the patent troll using the same strategy a week later? Would YC fund such a venture? lol
• linspace 6y ago
  As an european I find the american legal system baffling. I do wonder if the sentiment is reciprocal. In particular everytime I see a movie about lawyers I think that something must be broken if there is a subgenre about "how the system works in the end". That and incarceration rate. Trials suck everywhere, even if you win, but it seems it's much easier to end having one in USA.
  • gambiting 6y ago
    It's the jury system that seems to be one of the craziest things about the US system. Luckily other countries don't have it, or only have it for the most serious of crimes(murder trials). Like....who ever thought that having 12 random people decide if you're guilty or not is a good idea?
    • hutzlibu 6y ago
      "Like....who ever thought that having 12 random people decide if you're guilty or not is a good idea?" Probably people, who experienced their share of professional, but corrupt judges, who live worlds apart from the common people they judge over. If a verdict is supposed to represent the peoples will - doesn't it make sense to involve actual common people?
      • gambiting 6y ago
        >>If a verdict is supposed to represent the peoples will - doesn't it make sense to involve actual common people? No, because the law should be followed to the letter and "common people" are not qualified to pass judgement. Jury trials in the US just seem to be about how 12 people feel about someone, not whether law was actually broken or not. Every time I hear a case where there was no hard evidence against somebody, but the prosecutor made an impassioned case to the jury and they decide that the person is guilty I'm like.....what even is this. Why have a justice system if you're going to have this circus at the end.
        • hutzlibu 6y ago
• VWWHFSfQ 6y ago
  This is a very sensationalized, editorialized opinion-piece article. I would like to see something more objective, and substantive. > So fast-forward a few years to 1981. Mr. Harvey sat down with an electrical engineer whose name was Jim Cuddihy. And together, Mr. Harvey and Mr. Cuddihy put together ground-breaking inventions in communications technology that were ahead of their time. It sounds like they made something novel and interesting! > PMC’s business “is to license out the technology of Mr. Harvey and Mr. Cuddihy so that companies that want to use that technology with permission can do so,” Subramanian explained. “The company has over 20 licensees, and they've earned millions and millions of dollars from companies who have paid for the right to use PMC's technology." > To the extent that Harvey and Cuddihy ever had an idea for an actual product, it seems to have been a kind of computerized graphical overlay on top of a TV screen. At some point in the early 1990s, PMC demonstrated a prototype to some potential investors in New York City. The prototype system consisted of a VCR and a computer that were hooked up to another TV screen, which combined the video streams in some way. It wasn’t connected to the internet. But they were given the patent for it right? And they clearly had some kind of a working prototype. > Whatever this contraption was, it was likely pathetically out of date when it was shown off. Oh so their "contraption" was pathetically out of date.. > PMC never made any for sale. And as the CEO admitted, they didn’t even spend on R&D. Instead, they embraced the fantasy language of the patent troll—one in which real companies, like Sony and Arris and other licensees, “took licenses in our inventions because they were using those inventions,” in the words of PMC’s general counsel, Thomas Scott. REAL COMPANIES, like Sony and Arris and other licensees. This is the crux of the issue right here. Basically, they developed the technology but were never able to productize it themselves. So they sold the tech to a bunch of other companies. And then later they discovered that the tech was being used by many more companies, in many more products. This doesn't sound like a typical patent-troll case to me. Apple can afford to pay 300 mil for some tech that they didn't invent. God knows they've stolen way more than that.
  • microtherion 6y ago
    All the language you're citing is how the plaintiff's lawyer describes the business. The other "licensees" are companies against whom they won lawsuits or who settled with them. If they win this one, in the next lawsuit, they'll be able to describe Apple as one of their licensees, paying them hundreds of millions of dollars. PMC is "licensing" technology the way the mob is providing fire protection.
• broooder 6y ago
  There may not be many, but there are some upsides. It may incentivize small inventors who believe there will be a value for their invention even if they themselves are not capable of productizing it. Shouldn’t they be rewarded by being able to sell their creation to the patent troll?
• splithalf 6y ago
  I wish there was a good “how to” guide for patent trolling.
• sverhagen 6y ago
  At the risk of losing some karma here... and prefacing this with: I hate these patent trolls, they go entirely against my senses... I am wondering: is there a charitable view on the "other side" of this that I'm not seeing, in which these people have some (perhaps weird) way of morally justifying this practice?
  • RobertRoberts 6y ago
    I finally heard a good argument in support of "patent trolls" from a friend who has a few patents. It was something like this: "The little guys can't fight legal battles with large corporations. So either you work with lawyers that are labeled patent trolls or you lose your patent by default by lack of defending it. Or you can go broke fighting in court." It was the first time I had considered the possibility that there may be more at play here and that I couldn't see all sides clearly.
    • lostdog 6y ago
      How is this argument remotely good? These lawyers, and more importantly, these shell companies, are being labeled as patent trolls because they're filing nonsense patents and then spraying nonsense lawsuits around to try to capture random prey. They're not the vanguard of "protecting the little guy." The idea that making it easy for bad patents to be defended is somehow good is ridiculous. It ignores the possibility that the patent office, the legislature, and the courts need to improve so that good patents are protected but bad patents aren't a drain on society.
      • matsemann 6y ago
        Of course the argument doesn't seem any good if you completely misunderstand it.. Let's say you're a small player with a legitimate patent. A huge entity is infringing. In order to make any money of your invention, you have to fight. But that can be very costly and risky. Instead, you sell your patent to someone specialized in this, a "patent troll". You get some money, they use their expertise to fight the big player. Like selling someone's debt to a collector so at least you get some money.
• IG_Semmelweiss 6y ago
  The most probable solution to IP trolling is likely more attainable than most, here on HN. It is also not the most elegant. If only 1 reader here on this HN thread ends up founding a unicorn company, you will have enough money & pull to get real patent reform thru congress, if you so wish. Go out there, make serious money, then change the world of IP. Let that be your legacy. That's your path forward.
• devUnderStress 6y ago
  I don't see the problems with such non-practicing entities. They serve a legitimate purpose and advance the goal of patent laws by paying existing patent holders for their patents and suing companies for patent infringement. In this way, companies that would otherwise have to take on risks to mount an expensive lawsuit themselves can receive ready cash. If such non-practicing entities are outlawed, the inventors would never have been rewarded, and companies like Apple will likely not be held accountable for their patent infringement. Conceptually these companies can be thought of as debt buyers or debt collection agencies.
  • alisonkisk 6y ago
    Reread the article. The "inventions" are trivial and the patents are of a sort that was banned decades ago.
    • devUnderStress 6y ago
      That doesn't change what I said though. The "non-practicing entity" part got too much undeserved criticism. It's the submarine patent part that is really problematic.
• rasz 6y ago
  Apple is very reluctant to put all of their heart in patent battles, to the point you start wondering if maybe internal patent attorneys are calling the shots and like the status quo a little too much. They pretty much intentionally lost S3TC patent case opting not to push for patent invalidation https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/itc-judge-rules-that-apple-infringes-two-s3-graphics-patents-124892519.html https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/itc-judge-rules-tha... The thing about s3tc is _its Apple own technology_, just renamed and repurposed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S3_Texture_Compression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S3_Texture_Compression "This mode operates similarly to mode 0xC0 of the original Apple Video codec." is an understatement. S3 directly lifted Apple patented QuickTime Road Pizza technique of encoding 4 colors using 2 values (same math, same values, same purpose, no prior art acknowledgment), to ~10 years later sue and win.
  • nhoughto 6y ago
    Pretty strange world where losing 300mil to this lot is a net win to maintain the hostile patent environment against their competitors. I guess it’s pretty similar to Apple acquiring the patents and then suing competitors.. but without all the ill will that directly suing companies off a weak base brings. Bit sad that it all rationally makes sense.
  • onetimemanytime 6y ago
    >>They pretty much intentionally lost S3TC patent case opting not to push for patent invalidation Do you have any inside knowledge or just guessing the strategy of the lawyers in the courtroom?
    • rasz 6y ago
      They didnt even try to file a case with USPTO's Patent Trial and Appeal Board. Their iPhone "strategy" was avoiding the matter altogether, stripping S3TC assets and support from the software (still in the SoC).
  • thaumasiotes 6y ago
    > S3 directly lifted Apple patented QuickTime Road Pizza technique of encoding 4 colors using 2 values (same math, same values, same purpose, no prior art acknowledgment), to ~10 years later sue and win. This seems like the type of thing that an amicus brief could point out regardless of Apple's strategy in the case. Did that not happen?
• qq12as 6y ago
  NPEs help make the market for patents more efficient -- small firms invent and have a hard time protecting their patent? They sell it to an NPE. Is the system imperfect? Probably. Worst case scenario, a big firm get frivolously sued and loses -- this is just a transfer of money from Apple to the NPE and the small inventor. Will Apple be less likely to invent as a consequence? I don't think so, but you can prove me wrong. Best case scenario, small actors are incentivized to invent and sell their ideas in the market for patents. So why is everybody outraged? Because the lawful licensing agreements don't make it to the news. The outrageous cases do.
• lettergram 6y ago
  I’ll give a contrary view point to most “patent trolls”. I’m an inventor (100+ Issued patents), I develop POCs and concepts well beyond my ability to productionize. That’s not to say I couldnt create a product, just that I don’t have the resources. However, I do have the resources to develop novel techniques. Does that mean I didn’t invent the process- no, I did invent a new process. I just didn’t build them into a product. You know what? Apple is also inventing things and has a plethora of patents. Further, I 100% guarantee they did a patent search and knew of this patent prior to releasing their product(s). While I don’t think patent trolling is necessarily fair, I don’t think saying “poor old Apple” for having to pay for someone else’s invention is fair either. Do I think patent law needs reform? Yes. Right after copyright, which can be extended decades/a century after publication. That being said, this is the game. Play by the rules while you’re in it.
  • speedgoose 6y ago
    How can you invent so many things?
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  • breck 6y ago
    Human slavery was also the game until 150 years ago. Patents and copyright are immoral, or the word immoral has no meaning. Don’t play immoral games. Think from first principles.
    • dlivingston 6y ago
      To start, human slavery was certainly not abolished 150 years ago...[0] [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century
  • 6y ago
• mitchdoogle 6y ago
  I think we need a new definition of innovation. One that doesn't limit the potential of inventors and one that doesn't limit the future. We need shorter time spans for software given how quickly things change. We need a measure of societal good beyond dollars and cents. Our goal should be improving the life of people, not improving the profits of corporations.
  • djohnston 6y ago
    I think it's mostly these NPE's. Start with companies filing hundreds of patents with no actual R&D
• cycomanic 6y ago
  The issue I have with much of the patent trolling bashing is, that it somehow makes a distinction between practicing companies who make something and non practicing entities. I think this is a huge veil the industry pulled over people's eyes. Why is it OK for huge companies like apple, IBM, Google... to use the patent system to keep out any competitors or newcomers, but it is not ok for smaller inventors to sell their patents to some of these "trolls" who then sue the big companies for violating the patents? Don't get me wrong, many of the patents are absolutely bogus, but that's not exclusive to patent troll patents. In fact bogus patents help established companies even more, because the trolls at least have to defend those patents in court at times, a small new player who is threatened by a large established one over some bogus patent can't afford to defend themselves. The whole notion that patents are only legitimate if you build something is completely bogus. Either the patent system is about encouraging and rewarding innovation and then it should apply to anyone equally, or it is not and we should abolish it. I'm firmly in the second camp, but it seems the big players want to have their cake and eat it too.
  • mrslave 6y ago
    Agree. Everyone wants to have their cake and eat it too. Live by the patent, die by the patent.
  • choppaface 6y ago
    Looking at the article, it looks like if the patent holder John Harvey had spent his post-Yale life simply resting and investing in the S&P 500, then the "infringing" technology in question would have happened just fine with out him. And Mr. Harvey would probably have been richer doing that, too.
  • hurril 6y ago
    This is a false dichotomy if I ever saw one. The fight is not between the ones that legitimately use patents and those that've merely bought (or created) them to make money off of the IP itself. There are, in fact, four alternatives here and not two: 1. Producing company, legitimate patents; 2. Producing company, illegitimate patents; 3. Non-producing company, legitimate patents; 4. Non-producing company, illegitimate patents. What I think grinds most people's gears are #4 suing #1 (or #3, though I don't think _this_ is common.) So your attempt at making this out to be a (false) choice between #1+2 on the one hand and #3+4 on the other is disingenuous.
• strenholme 6y ago
  Now, one thing buried near the end of the article and something which I have seem very little discussion here about: The patents in question are from 1995. So why are the patents valid until 2027 and 2030, since patents, these days, are only valid for 20 years after filing. These particular patents are a kind of submarine patent based on a particular abuse of the patent system: Someone files a patent, which means they get a monopoly on an idea. But they delay the granting of the patent. This way, they can wait until the idea they came up with is being used in some form by large companies before the patent gets granted, then they have 17 years when they can sue anyone and everyone who implements their idea from 1995. Now, as it turns out, in 1995 the patent office changed their practice to stop this very particular type of abuse: Patents, starting in mid-1995, are valid for 20 years from date they were filed, not 17 years after the patent was granted. However, this particular company, back in 1995, filed a large number of patents right just before that practice was changed, then delayed the patents in the Google lawsuit being granted until 2010 or 2013, allowing them to have a monopoly on a 1981 or 1995 idea from 2010 until 2027, or 2013 until 2030. What needs to be done, in this particular case, is have congress pass a law saying that, for any and all patents filed in 1995 or sooner, every single one of those patents are now expired (or better yet, retroactively expire them in 2015, i.e. 20 years after 1995). Barring an act of congress, maybe when this case is appealed, higher courts will give us a precedent which invalidates those old 1995 patents still being enforced here in 2021.
• seaman1921 6y ago
  Well in the end it is the consumers who pay for this nonsense.
• vkaku 6y ago
  Chaotic Neutral.
• djohnston 6y ago
  I don't see how this one district in eastern Texas can be such an outlier without some sort of oversight. Does no one find it absurd that all these patent cases go here, that the results are so consistently in the favour of the plaintiff, etc?
  • TrackerFF 6y ago
    Seems like they've found their niche. More lawsuits = more business lawyers = more money for local business. But AFAIK, this has only been possible because the plaintiffs have been able to choose their venue. And in the end, it's a game of numbers. If venues where chosen at random, I'd imagine the the whole business model would fold - simply too much risk/uncertainty.
• jmartrican 6y ago
  Maybe the value added that PMC provides is protection from other lawsuits? Basically you pay them and now you have protection from other similar companies trying to sue you. Sounds like classic protection racket that the mob is known for.
• jmartrican 6y ago
  As a small company, can you go to one of these patent trolls for protection? Maybe make a deal while you are still small and the fees are manageable. Go to them and say... "This is what we do. Do you have patents to protect us from lawsuits?"
  • traspler 6y ago
    Even as a big company you can do that. E.g Intellectual Ventures [1] offers such protection services. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_Ventures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_Ventures
    • jmartrican 6y ago
      Pretty cool. Know of any instances of one patent troll going to battle with another patent troll, to protect one of its clients? Before I pay for protection, I want to be sure they got my back.
• joemullin 6y ago
  I'm the author of the above piece. I'm a bit late to the party here, but really appreciate the conversation——it's my first time on this site as a solo blogger (former Ars Technica writer). For those that found this interesting——especially those that are frustrated by the current software patent system——consider subscribing. It's free, just a passion project I'm doing on the side. I think writing about & publicizing these problems is one of the ways forward to a solution, which is one of the reasons I started Letters Patent. If you have questions about what i've covered, or suggestions about what to write about, please send them my way: joe@letterspatent.org.
• cannabis_sam 6y ago
  Patents are just the civil law equivalent of thought crimes. They are a crime against humanity.
• avsteele 6y ago
  I'll give my opinion as someone who holds several patents, has filed for protection internationally under the PCT, and whose business is based on proprietary technology as well: The entire system is useless and should be abolished. 1) You can get nonsense patented if you are patient enough and keep going back to the patent offices over and over. The people who are reviewing the patents aren't in any way expert enough in the subject matter to meaningfully judge whether something is new. They should just as well issue everything that comes in the door because they aren't a meaningful block to the issuance of garbage patents. When they send back objections they are usually non-sequiturs (>90% of the time) 2) "Holding the patent gives you the right to exclude". This is useless for a small fry anyway because patent litigation is so costly that unless you are in a huge industry it will never be worth it go to court anyway. 3) The patent doesn't meaningfully put any real ideas into the public domain. The info in the patent itself is the tiniest fraction of what you'd need to know to make a working product. The useful stuff is the trade secrets and know-how. I could see this being not the case in a few select fields like biotech. 4) The system is a net drain on the economy. Big corps have to keep filing their nonsense patents to protect themselves from each other. None of these filings are adding value. Funders like to see patents. But I think this is because they don't appreciate the weaknesses of the system.