5 ms·

> they usually sue with these two patents I couldn't find a lawsuit referencing either patent. Is there a link you could help provide?

kasabali 5y ago
Legal threats won't necessarily result in lawsuits. Lack of publicly accessible lawsuits doesn't input lawyers of Company X doesn't shot down every single remote competitor preemptively with threats of legal action. At that point possible competitors either won't even try bothering or they'll pay whatever asked and sign a NDA preventing then from disclosing the patents in question (as a common practice on patent litigation deals).
- robinsoh 5y ago
  Just to confirm since this isn't publicly accessible, are you saying this actually happened with E Ink? as I mentioned I work in the display industry, and if something like that happened, surely we'd all be talking about it during SID or stuff like that. When did it happen? Where? I'd love to know.
  - kasabali 5y ago
    I'm telling how patent litigation works in general and why you can't expect anybody to spoonfeed a random stranger on internet with a list of patents.
    - robinsoh 5y ago
      > I'm telling how patent litigation works in general and why you can't expect anybody to spoonfeed a random stranger on internet with a list of patents. I'm unsure what's with the "spoonfeed" remark, it seems intended to be insulting. As I said, I'm really curious what patent and what lawsuits or similar criminal activity has been done (or from the sound of these comments is being done) by E-Ink. HN people are referring to it in many posts and because I happen to work in the display industry, I'm really surprised. I'd never heard anything like that amongst my peers or during conferences. The main place I've seen this refrain is on HN. Please have a look at my comment history as I keep asking about which patent people are talking about. It is the equivalent of a bunch of my display industry people claiming that Google is blocking search engine progress and then justifying it by giving you a set of Google patents and then shouting, see there's the clear proof that Google is a bad actor. I hope the analogy is clear and that it is also clear why I remain unconvinced about both!
criddell 5y ago
https://www.eink.com/news.html?type=releasedetail&id=223&year=2012&page=1 https://www.eink.com/news.html?type=releasedetail&id=223&yea... I'm not sure why you find it so hard to believe that the Eink group has created 2000 display patents to use against competitors. At the bottom of that page they say: > E Ink intends to protect and defend its intellectual and other property worldwide by the means available in various countries. I tend to believe them.
- robinsoh 5y ago
  > I'm not sure why you find it so hard to believe that the Eink group has created 2000 display patents to use against competitors. I guess it is because I work in the display industry and I've never heard them talked about this way within my industry, conferences, symposiums or other peer group events. I've only seen this here on HN and on Boing Boing and some blogs which referenced an HN post making similar claims. I'll try to give you an analogy. Imagine if someone told you Microsoft group has created 2000 software patents to use against competitors and that they intend to defend theier intellectual property. Would you then believe if I told you Microsoft is blocking progress in the software industry? Because that's what the prior post is claiming. Incredible claims ought to at least have some proof or evidence, shouldn't they?
  - criddell 5y ago
    I would believe Microsoft was blocking progress if only they were making operating systems or office suites or whatever it is they patent. It isn't just a claim though - I pointed to an actual lawsuit. If there was a single eink competitor being used in products outside of China, I would agree with you. TCL claims to have something in the works, so maybe change is coming.
    - robinsoh 5y ago
      > If there was a single eink competitor being used in products outside of China I'd say there are far fewer Microsoft operating system competitors than there are eink competitors. Also eink is an fpl manufacturer not a whole industry. Meaning they're a component supplier and there's tonnes of alternatives, memory-LCD is what I promote, and even within the electrophoretic space, there's ClearInk, Shenzhen Wenfeng, and several others. In any case, it is unclear to me what the main argument is. If you are trying to say eink is blocking progress, then I don't see any evidence for that, and that 2012 lawsuit in fact seems like an entirely reasonable lawsuit since based on what I understand, 2 engineers who had worked for Eink in Boston moved to China, started Guangzhou OED and then produced the exact same pigment and particle formulations and started selling knockoff displays with even the exact same TFT backplanes and resolutions.

kasabali 5y ago

Legal threats won't necessarily result in lawsuits. Lack of publicly accessible lawsuits doesn't input lawyers of Company X doesn't shot down every single remote competitor preemptively with threats of legal action. At that point possible competitors either won't even try bothering or they'll pay whatever asked and sign a NDA preventing then from disclosing the patents in question (as a common practice on patent litigation deals).

robinsoh 5y ago
Just to confirm since this isn't publicly accessible, are you saying this actually happened with E Ink? as I mentioned I work in the display industry, and if something like that happened, surely we'd all be talking about it during SID or stuff like that. When did it happen? Where? I'd love to know.
- kasabali 5y ago
  I'm telling how patent litigation works in general and why you can't expect anybody to spoonfeed a random stranger on internet with a list of patents.
  - robinsoh 5y ago
    > I'm telling how patent litigation works in general and why you can't expect anybody to spoonfeed a random stranger on internet with a list of patents. I'm unsure what's with the "spoonfeed" remark, it seems intended to be insulting. As I said, I'm really curious what patent and what lawsuits or similar criminal activity has been done (or from the sound of these comments is being done) by E-Ink. HN people are referring to it in many posts and because I happen to work in the display industry, I'm really surprised. I'd never heard anything like that amongst my peers or during conferences. The main place I've seen this refrain is on HN. Please have a look at my comment history as I keep asking about which patent people are talking about. It is the equivalent of a bunch of my display industry people claiming that Google is blocking search engine progress and then justifying it by giving you a set of Google patents and then shouting, see there's the clear proof that Google is a bad actor. I hope the analogy is clear and that it is also clear why I remain unconvinced about both!

criddell 5y ago

https://www.eink.com/news.html?type=releasedetail&id=223&year=2012&page=1 https://www.eink.com/news.html?type=releasedetail&id=223&yea... I'm not sure why you find it so hard to believe that the Eink group has created 2000 display patents to use against competitors. At the bottom of that page they say: > E Ink intends to protect and defend its intellectual and other property worldwide by the means available in various countries. I tend to believe them.

robinsoh 5y ago
> I'm not sure why you find it so hard to believe that the Eink group has created 2000 display patents to use against competitors. I guess it is because I work in the display industry and I've never heard them talked about this way within my industry, conferences, symposiums or other peer group events. I've only seen this here on HN and on Boing Boing and some blogs which referenced an HN post making similar claims. I'll try to give you an analogy. Imagine if someone told you Microsoft group has created 2000 software patents to use against competitors and that they intend to defend theier intellectual property. Would you then believe if I told you Microsoft is blocking progress in the software industry? Because that's what the prior post is claiming. Incredible claims ought to at least have some proof or evidence, shouldn't they?
- criddell 5y ago
  I would believe Microsoft was blocking progress if only they were making operating systems or office suites or whatever it is they patent. It isn't just a claim though - I pointed to an actual lawsuit. If there was a single eink competitor being used in products outside of China, I would agree with you. TCL claims to have something in the works, so maybe change is coming.
  - robinsoh 5y ago
    > If there was a single eink competitor being used in products outside of China I'd say there are far fewer Microsoft operating system competitors than there are eink competitors. Also eink is an fpl manufacturer not a whole industry. Meaning they're a component supplier and there's tonnes of alternatives, memory-LCD is what I promote, and even within the electrophoretic space, there's ClearInk, Shenzhen Wenfeng, and several others. In any case, it is unclear to me what the main argument is. If you are trying to say eink is blocking progress, then I don't see any evidence for that, and that 2012 lawsuit in fact seems like an entirely reasonable lawsuit since based on what I understand, 2 engineers who had worked for Eink in Boston moved to China, started Guangzhou OED and then produced the exact same pigment and particle formulations and started selling knockoff displays with even the exact same TFT backplanes and resolutions.