28 ms·

A patent troll backs off

799 points by zdw 5y ago

schleck8 5y ago
Some folks are just not compatible with a cooperative society.
exabrial 5y ago
Go full scorched earth, every time. If possible, file complaints with their bar association. Work to get their licenses to practice law revoked. Form class action suits. Do whatever it takes, because they won't be the last.
jrochkind1 5y ago
> In this case, Jason, smelling potential money, purchased an expired patent ‘434 from Huawei and then formed a shell company to start suing people. What's going on with suing people under an expired patent? Is there actually some legal ground here -- like can you sue them for their historical violation before it expired or something?
- AlbertCory 5y ago
  "expired" doesn't mean you can't sue for infringement. For six years (someone check me on this), you can sue for infringements that happened while the patent was unexpired.
  - analog31 5y ago
    I seem to recall that you have to show intent to commercialize a patent in order to enforce it. Is that a thing, or just a bit of urban folklore that I picked up somewhere?
    - AlbertCory 5y ago
      IANAL but I don't think that's true. A patent doesn't allow you to practice an invention; it allows you to exclude others from practicing it.
- slac 5y ago
  I find it super bizarre that Huawei would sell expired patents. Is it really worth it?
  - HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
    Are you asking if it's worth it to them to sell something that is worthless to them?
- detaro 5y ago
  If I understand correctly not applicable here (patent expired after max duration of 20 years), but one facet of this is that in some cases you can buy a patent that is expired because the owner decided it wasn't worth to continue pay the extension fees and un-expire it by paying the fees retroactively.
MobiusHorizons 5y ago
From the article, it sounds like the patent was expired when the current owner purchased it. How does a suit like that even make it to court? Would the owner be able to sue for violations from before it expired?
Brizzley 5y ago
It is the system but I have yet to find anyone that understands the process of how they do it. I do because I experienced it. From the aspect of them stealing my patent. They do not purchase low-quality patents it is far different. It is time to expose the methods they use and the assistance they get from the examiners. From day one of the application they do an assignment and a Provisional Application that goes expired. Attorney's from different offices use same customer number that go to a central office the inventor is unaware of. Then an Attorney from that office files a POA and Oath to a foreign priority Application and in my case DECEASED.
h2odragon 5y ago
Thank you, Sparkfun, for spending the time and resources to defend the principles of civil society. Can Sparkfun now counter-sue for costs and maybe even Barratry? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barratry_(common_law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barratry_(common_law)
- imglorp 5y ago
  Thank you Sparkfun. I'll be ordering some circuity toys to let them know!
silexia 5y ago
A patent troll brought a lawsuit against my company, CoalitionTechnologies.com, in the Eastern District Court of Texas. My attorney and I were able to get them to voluntarily dismiss the lawsuit shortly afterwards. I won’t be naming the patent troll here as they voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit. Coalition has a policy of never settling frivolous lawsuits and fighting all the way to the bloody end. We recently won a judgement with attorneys fees in another lawsuit. When I first received the notice that I was being sued, I freaked out a little bit. I didn’t sleep well for the next couple of nights, but began working on this right away. I contacted a couple of dozen Texas patent attorneys, most of whom quoted outrageous prices ranging from $200 to $600 per hour and some asking for a $25k retainer upfront! I soon realized that all of these Texas patent attorneys are in the same game with the patent trolls… these attorneys make money the longer the legal process gets drawn out. I was contacted by Amit Agarwal (310-351-6596 – based in LA but he can operate anywhere) and at first I was turned off by his aggressive approach. However, I spoke with my other attorney and he said it won’t hurt to give him a shot. I signed up with Amit and it was the best decision I could have made. Amit brought a very aggressive approach and quickly got the patent troll to back down and dismiss the lawsuit. The lawsuit was mostly dismissed after Amit really went after the troll and their attorneys with some great research and motions he spent Christmas writing.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- ad404b8a372f2b9 5y ago
  I don't know if your work in SEO has affected your speech but this sounds a 100% like an ad that people write about themselves online to promote their services. It follows all the patterns of false testimonials you'd usually hear in infomercials. Sorry if it's genuine, I also sometimes like to recommend people and companies I've had good experiences with.
  - ghostbrainalpha 5y ago
    This is hilarious if it's satire. Pretty sad if its a genuine recommendation. But you are right, its too hard to tell.
tinus_hn 5y ago
A Pyrrhic victory; they are out $12k and the troll is free to go harass the next company.
- kiba 5y ago
  Perhaps, but it did impose a cost on the troll which makes their venture less lucrative and hopefully more importantly, a psychological and emotional cost on the lawyers who's working to extort people.
- tyingq 5y ago
  They did produce a fairly good pattern for the next company approached by Altair Logix. Including links to prior art, counterclaim documents, etc.
  - freejazz 5y ago
    That's all standard in a patent litigation and is by far the least expensive element of what you'd be paying an atty to do. That is to say, it's basically trivial to get an atty to say that you should contend invalidity via a counterclaim (especially in light of how §101 is treated lately). What costs is getting an atty to actually find the invalidating prior art, draft up the counterclaims, etc.
    - tyingq 5y ago
      Sorry, I'm confused. If Altair Logix sues some other party, for the same patent, why is this linked list of invalidating prior art and counter claims not useful in reducing cost?
    - Talanes 5y ago
      This is what I got from reading your comment: Least Expensive Element: Invalidating prior art, counterclaim documents. Actually Cost Money: Invalidating prior art, drafting counterclaim documents.
      - freejazz 5y ago
hackeraccount 5y ago
I'm reminded of how Newegg and Cloudflare have dealt with this kind of thing. https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/11/the-hunted-becomes-the-hunter-how-cloudflares-fight-with-a-patent-troll-could-alter-the-game/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAFS-v5Df7-ZudEc-U9Vvs3jfRXcmZVb8Vblj6Zm-aVnFWFGTJFtYi5cFw0dEKSZ_59Z5Eu3tcDKYxXJpixmgqL2_iquKmWqjYzitADTxrEY6bviUeC1cS6f9qr0SgRg0UV_x3aoKfAWeS3mfQrG6YZxAc8Y8RlUHRYcK0VPB-aGN https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/11/the-hunted-becomes-the-hun... At one time at least they seemed to view it as a fight to the death. When offered a settlement they'd just keep going.
- beefield 5y ago
  Unfortunately, however, looks like the nice people[1] at Blackbird still keep on working their stuff, so it was not a fight to the death. https://www.blackbird-tech.com/blackbird-technologies-settles-patent-infringement-case-with-hp/ https://www.blackbird-tech.com/blackbird-technologies-settle... [1]that was sarcasm.
  - YetAnotherNick 5y ago
    They patented a switch?? How can this patent pass the basic check?
- anitil 5y ago
  Drawing a line in the sand and threatening mutual destruction is a good way to make the trolls move one to an easier target.
- dctoedt 5y ago
  And Blue Jeans Cable's 2008 response to a Monster Cable demand letter: The CEO of BlueJeans was an ex-litigator; excerpt: <quote> After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1985, I spent nineteen years in litigation practice, with a focus upon federal litigation involving large damages and complex issues. My first seven years were spent primarily on the defense side, where I developed an intense frustration with insurance carriers who would settle meritless claims for nuisance value when the better long-term view would have been to fight against vexatious litigation as a matter of principle. In plaintiffs' practice, likewise, I was always a strong advocate of standing upon principle and taking cases all the way to judgment, even when substantial offers of settlement were on the table. I am "uncompromising" in the most literal sense of the word. If Monster Cable proceeds with litigation against me I will pursue the same merits-driven approach; I do not compromise with bullies and I would rather spend fifty thousand dollars on defense than give you a dollar of unmerited settlement funds. As for signing a licensing agreement for intellectual property which I have not infringed: that will not happen, under any circumstances, whether it makes economic sense or not. I say this because my observation has been that Monster Cable typically operates in a hit-and-run fashion. Your client threatens litigation, expecting the victim to panic and plead for mercy; and what follows is a quickie negotiation session that ends with payment and a licensing agreement. Your client then uses this collection of licensing agreements to convince others under similar threat to accede to its demands. Let me be clear about this: there are only two ways for you to get anything out of me. You will either need to (1) convince me that I have infringed, or (2) obtain a final judgment to that effect from a court of competent jurisdiction. It may be that my inability to see the pragmatic value of settling frivolous claims is a deep character flaw, and I am sure a few of the insurance carriers for whom I have done work have seen it that way; but it is how I have done business for the last quarter-century and you are not going to change my mind. If you sue me, the case will go to judgment, and I will hold the court's attention upon the merits of your claims--or, to speak more precisely, the absence of merit from your claims--from start to finish. Not only am I unintimidated by litigation; I sometimes rather miss it. </quote> (Extra paragraphing added.) https://www.bluejeanscable.com/legal/mcp/response041408.pdf https://www.bluejeanscable.com/legal/mcp/response041408.pdf
mherdeg 5y ago
Wow is that a PDF of a Microsoft Word document with inline comments written by the judge? I don't think I've ever seen a document in that style in PACER before (linked in the blog post at https://cdn.sparkfun.com/assets/home_page_posts/3/9/7/0/Altair_Logix_Nguyen_Patent_Troll_17-1.pdf https://cdn.sparkfun.com/assets/home_page_posts/3/9/7/0/Alta...) . I think there's a typo in the blog post ("parent" should be "patent" below): > Do you ever wonder what parent trolls tell their children they do for a job? I read a story somewhere that claimed that "Captain Planet" had to be edited to feature cartoonishly evil villains, rather than the mundane day-to-day polluters, because they were worried that kids would ask uncomfortable career questions of their parents in sectors like disposable consumer goods, plastics, petrochemical, cigarettes, etc.
- yeetaccount 5y ago
  If you can find a link to that Captain Planet story I’d like to read it. It sounds totally plausible.
  - owlninja 5y ago
    I think this is it https://grist.org/culture/captain-planet-planeteers-real-story/ https://grist.org/culture/captain-planet-planeteers-real-sto... >That family edutainment goal affected a lot of the show’s writing. Pyle didn’t want kids to see their family members as evil, ecologically speaking. “That’s one of the reasons we made the bad guys and their plans so ridiculous,” she explained, “We tried to point the finger at behaviors rather than industries. That way, no child would go home and say, ‘Oh, daddy, you’re in a blah blah business.’ It would be horrible for some child to see their family member as a Captain Planet villain.”
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      I do not see why it would be terrible for a kid to see the ramifications of their future due to their current lifestyle of a 2k+ sq ft detached single family house with an SUV and pickup truck and flights to Disney world as a villain.
fhrow4484 5y ago
> Lesson #3) Anyone can sign up for Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) to search and retrieve your own legal documents [...] getting them yourself at $0.10 a page. It sounds cheap, but one bad search and you may be fetching 100s of pages (IIRC, the number of pages returned by your search is what counts - https://pacer.uscourts.gov/pacer-pricing-how-fees-work https://pacer.uscourts.gov/pacer-pricing-how-fees-work). If you do so, you can also use RECAP: https://free.law/recap https://free.law/recap. It's like the internet archive for PACER documents. It's a browser extension that helps create a crowdsourced archive of the PACER content. You can then search that archive (this time for free) in https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/ https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/ For stuff not on RECAP, then PACER can be used, and fee is waived if less than $30 that quarter according to https://free.law/pacer-facts https://free.law/pacer-facts
- AlbertCory 5y ago
  Hear, hear on RECAP. It is surprisingly complete. See [1] for the Theranos trial. I think most of the lawyers at Big Law must have the Chrome extension. A high percentage of the docs you would want are on there. [1] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/7185174/united-states-v-holmes/?filed_after=&filed_before=&entry_gte=&entry_lte=&order_by=desc https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/7185174/united-states-v...
  - freejazz 5y ago
    It's not the biglaw attorneys, its the reporters
- KennyBlanken 5y ago
  FYI RECAP means you're technically in violation of PACER's terms of use which prohibit redistribution or publishing. Violating terms laid forth by the federal court system ends (for wealthy internet tech celebrities) in the EFF picking up your legal tab and the FBI saying "okay FINE, just don't do that again." For you and me, it ends in tens of thousands in legal costs and at best probation terms that likely substantially interfere with your ability to make a living.
deleted 5y ago
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turbohz 5y ago
> Every time a company settles it just funds the trolls to wreak more havoc. This is especially true for companies larger than $100 million in revenue. I’m looking at you Texas Instruments, VIA Technologies, Renesas, ASUS, Caterpillar, Nuvision International, and Netgear, just to name a few of the companies that have dealt with Jason Nguyen’s Altair Logix. When you roll over and pay the trolls it hurts smaller companies terribly. I wonder if those companies consider this a "feature"?
- kbenson 5y ago
  That was my first thought too. In this way, it serves a similar purpose to overly strict regulation, which is also something smaller companies have a much harder time dealing with than larger ones (and encouraging regulation of a specific area is a well known tactic of larger companies to raise the bar of entry to the market). That's not to say all regulation is bad, just that like most things that have beneficial ways to be used, it can be abused by some to negative effect also.
- NicoJuicy 5y ago
  The company I work for also had a patent troll, who got settled by much bigger companies in the trolls favor. They found a previous concept that would invalidate their expensive patent(s). They tried to settle with 0€. The lawyer of HQ didn't agree and changed it so they had to pay 1 CAD. Just because they could. Ps. It was accepted ofc.
  - robocat 5y ago
    If the settlement were 0€, it could have been paid with a zero euro bank note: https://www.banknoteworld.com/zero-euro/ https://www.banknoteworld.com/zero-euro/
    - dqv 5y ago
      But then they would be settling for at least 1.72€!
  - rcxdude 5y ago
AlbertCory 5y ago
Hooray for him. Patent trolls have a business model, which he's disrupted: 1) buy a patent, the broader and better-tested the better 2) start threatening the easy marks; the ones who roll over and write you a check right away. Their trick is to ask for a settlement small enough to say "hey, it'll cost you more than that for attorney's fees!" 3) use that money to threaten the harder targets: the ones who will fight back. Those people get asked for much larger sums. 4) maybe actually go to trial with a very big target, one that'll get dinged for a 9-figure judgment if the troll wins. In the Eastern District of Texas, juries tend to do that. Researching the validity of a patent does not require $400/hour attorneys. Anyone with a basic knowledge of patent law and computer science can do it. (And no, I'm not advertising for myself. I'm retired.) Do you think those expensive attorneys do it themselves? It is to laugh -- they assign it to a junior who knows technology.
- shmerl 5y ago
  More like they have shakedown and protection racket model they call "business". Just highlights how messed up the legal system is, if someone has to do so much work to disrupt racketeers.
- freejazz 5y ago
  Junior attys at BigLaw firms are billed at the $400/hr rate...
- srcmap 5y ago
  Anti-Patent troll model: Talk to EFF, start a go-fund-me campaigns, wild up the public opinions,
- Jake232 5y ago
  First year associates at the law firm I use charge over $500/hr. Senior lawyers/partner cost well over $1,200/hour in 2021 at many of the largest / most successful firms now.
  - AlbertCory 5y ago
    OK, you don't need any of those. Certainly you need lawyers to actually write the IPR & conduct it, but nothing starts until someone finds that killer prior art.
CptanPanic 5y ago
What's the deal with buying an expired patent? Doesn't expired mean the patent is not valid?
- alangibson 5y ago
  I came here to ask the same question. It's he sitting for infringement that happened whale the patent was active? If so, don't you have a duty to sue in a "timely manner"?
alangibson 5y ago
Had anyone ever heard of businesses forming a mutual defense bloc? Every member could contribute to a pool of resources that gets tapped to go to the mat with trolls that sue a member. Sounds like troll insurance now that I read what I just wrote...
- schleck8 5y ago
  Isn't that legal insurance? It's a good idea though
- josaka 5y ago
  I think rpx and unified patents do something like this.
matsemann 5y ago
In the linked first post, they show a letter they received about this patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9729658 https://patents.google.com/patent/US9729658 Can't even fathom what the patent is saying. Sounds like they have tried patenting the web.
mijoharas 5y ago
So, I've not read much of this kind of stuff before. Can someone tell me if the following response is just a standard legal way of talking: 43. For example, US Patent No. 5,592,405 (Assignee Texas Instruments) discloses: “There is thus a need in the art for a system which handles multi-processors having multi-memories such that the address space from all of the memories is available to one or more processors concurrently[.]” 2:5-9. Answer: Altair Logix does not dispute the quoted language comes from U.S. Patent No. 5,592,405 to the extent it is quoted correctly. Altair denies the remaining allegations in paragraph 43. It's just very odd, as there is literally nothing else in the paragraph that they are "denying". Now it seems clear, that they just tack on "denies everything else in this paragraph" to every single thing they say, but why? Is it better to deny some unknown thing in case you miss it, than to not respond to it in a legal document? if so, why is that? Is there some other reason for it?
- freejazz 5y ago
  They are denying the claims in the patent... that there is a need for blah blah blah. Source: I litigate patents
- josaka 5y ago
  It's weird, but standard. These exchanges are a formal way of fleshing out what the parties do and do not dispute. Both sides limit what the agree to as much as they can with a straight face, and everything is qualified as much as possible to make it hard to pin you down on something later, after you've learned more about your and their case, e.g., they might disagree that TI is the assignee, or that the language is properly part of the patent b/c it was amended during prosecution or by a certificate of correction.
- toyg 5y ago
  They accept that the text comes from the US patent, while not accepting what the text states. It's like two people arguing, one going "The professor yesterday said X is true" and the other replying "Yes, indeed he said that yesterday, but that doesn't mean X is actually true".
supermatt 5y ago
Any way to recover the legal fees for something like this?
zh3 5y ago
This is sort of a tragedy-of-the-commons situation. Very few people want to stand up and be counted (Sparkfun aside), yet it's the few who do who keep the bottom feeders[0] in check. [0] I've been advised by lawyers to just pay them off, as it's "cheaper than dealing with the bottom feeders". Some things matter more than money, and on the few occasions I've pushed it to the wire the chancers have slunk away. It's still expensive though - and maybe only small companies can do it, because for big companies it would be internally expensive/potentially ruinous/worries the C suite it might affect the share price.
exabrial 5y ago
I've ordered a ton of crap from SparkFun, and to help out as a thank you, I'll be ordering a huge batch of RPIs from them when they come back in stock.
rbanffy 5y ago
> Use your settlements budgets to fight because the rest of us don’t have settlement budgets. That's one of the reasons why some companies will settle instead of litigate - it's a cheap way to kill your competition before it threatens you while, at the same time, not raising any eyebrows about anti-competitive practices.
danhorner 5y ago
One aspect of this defense was failure to mark: A previous owner of the patent produced processors covered by the patent but did not mark them as such. It turns out that systematically not marking your patent on your products invalidates claims for infringement unless it occurred after the owner notified future infringers of the violation. The striking thing about this for a patent troll is (if I understand this correctly) that it's easier to shake companies down if your patent has never been used to ship anything. That seems odd.
can16358p 5y ago
The only problem I see about this post is that asking big companies to fight against trolls otherwise it hurts small companies. While no one would legally admit that and putting aside morals, isn't it what big companies want anyway?
tschesnok 5y ago
It would be great if VCs created funds / departments to fight trolls attacking their portfolio. I understand that there are many issues with this model. But it might just work. Especially for accelerators like YC. I think word would get around quickly to "not touch YC companies" and the expense would go to zero. It would also be easy for YC to decide what is a troll and what is legit.
- eschaton 5y ago
  The problem is that even if VCs hate patent trolls when directly affected by them, they don’t actually hate patents, and in fact try to make their portfolio companies patent everything under the sun.
deleted 5y ago
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aerosmile 5y ago
For every instance that results in a win against a patent troll, there are many more instances where people just pay - you just don't hear about them. More recently the portfolio of companies I am a part of has seen an uptick in demands, and I have to assume that this is driven by a feedback loop that's producing good outcomes for trolls.
henvic 5y ago
If you're interest in this subject, I recommend Austin Meyer's documentary The Patent Scam (https://www.thepatentscam.com/ https://www.thepatentscam.com/). * Austin Meyer is the creator of X-Plane / Laminar Research.
chenster 5y ago
Who's this Jason Nguyen? Should it be time to doxx him??
EastOfTruth 5y ago
Question: Are you considered a patent troll if you are an individual that was granted a patent but don't want to go through the hassle of manufacturing and customer support, etc? If a patent troll is only someone that attempts to enforce patent rights against accused infringers far beyond the patent's actual value as Wikipedia's article claim, perhaps the justice system is broken?
- josephwegner 5y ago
  This seems like it is against the spirit of the patent system, and supporting it would be just as broken. I can get behind the thought of someone coming up with an innovative idea, patenting it, and then selling that idea for a royalty... but someone coming up with an innovative idea and just sitting on it, while stifling other people's similar intuition? That's certainly not doing anything good for the world. It's just lining the pocket books of the idle thinker.
unobatbayar 5y ago
I wonder how much it costed for the patent troll?
Liron 5y ago
Can a billionaire please step up and fund all anti-trolling defense? Where’s Peter Thiel when you need him?
AlbertCory 5y ago
One thing I forgot to mention about searching for prior art, kinda important, too: Do a web search for "prior art search." There are companies that do it for you, at costs that are... well, less than $500/hour. It's a flat fee. When I was at Google we tried a whole bunch of them on the same patent, so we could compare them. There were a few that were quite good. Unfortunately I can't remember their names, but they're probably different now anyway. So that's your gutsy opening conversation with Mr. Troll: "Hey, our search firm found some prior art that invalidates your patent. [Do NOT show it to him.] We're going to IPR you with it." They might bluff you, laugh at your naivete, and say "We know all about that prior art; it's no good." If you have a lawyer, which you should, let him or her handle all this. You want the threat of an IPR to sound credible.
cigrainger 5y ago
As others have said, there are more cost effective options than just getting your attorney to do a patent search for you. There are definitely plenty of companies that will do it for you for far less. But the quality is... variable, to say the least. As a point of shameless self-promotion, I'm the founder of a company seeking to improve the patent system, starting with prior art search [1][2]. We're not one of those companies that will do it for you for less. Instead, we empower you to do it yourself, then have your attorney go deeper if needed. The idea being that you don't need to be a patent expert or lawyer to do it; anyone with knowledge of their technical area can search effectively. Plus we've got some collaboration features so when you're ready to hand off to your $500/hr attorney, you can. And not just hand off -- collaborate. If a patent troll is shaking you down, reach out to us and we'll do you a generous deal, no strings attached. We very much do not like patent trolls. [1] https://www.amplified.ai/ https://www.amplified.ai/ [2] https://www.amplified.ai/en/blog/22062020/introducing-amplified https://www.amplified.ai/en/blog/22062020/introducing-amplif...
- dave_sullivan 5y ago
  Seems you are coming from a good place, but IMO there is no fixing the system, patents are a bad idea. They cause price distortions for consumers by creating state-sanctioned monopolies. Monopolies are a type of market failure and do a great deal of harm. The commonly cited goal of giving monopolies to little inventors and helping the underdog is not a good justification; it doesn't create any value for the user/consumer and ensures they will have fewer choices in the marketplace. Don't fool yourself, it's not patent trolls that are the problem, it's the whole system. The only innovation I want to see in patents is a huge worldwide lobbying operation to abolish them and make sure everyone knows how detrimental they are to consumer choice.
  - halfdan 5y ago
    > The commonly cited goal of giving monopolies to little inventors and helping the underdog is not a good justification; it doesn't create any value for the user/consumer and ensures they will have fewer choices in the marketplace. The more common argument I hear is: Why would a company invest resources into research if there was no way to prevent a competitor from copying the result on day 1 of you selling a product?
bencollier49 5y ago
I'm appalled that the US system doesn't automatically charge costs to the litigant in a losing case. The fact that a blameless party will now probably be underwater by about $12k is shocking.

799 points by zdw 5y ago

Some folks are just not compatible with a cooperative society.

Go full scorched earth, every time. If possible, file complaints with their bar association. Work to get their licenses to practice law revoked. Form class action suits. Do whatever it takes, because they won't be the last.

jrochkind1 5y ago

> In this case, Jason, smelling potential money, purchased an expired patent ‘434 from Huawei and then formed a shell company to start suing people. What's going on with suing people under an expired patent? Is there actually some legal ground here -- like can you sue them for their historical violation before it expired or something?

AlbertCory 5y ago
"expired" doesn't mean you can't sue for infringement. For six years (someone check me on this), you can sue for infringements that happened while the patent was unexpired.
- analog31 5y ago
  I seem to recall that you have to show intent to commercialize a patent in order to enforce it. Is that a thing, or just a bit of urban folklore that I picked up somewhere?
  - AlbertCory 5y ago
    IANAL but I don't think that's true. A patent doesn't allow you to practice an invention; it allows you to exclude others from practicing it.
slac 5y ago
I find it super bizarre that Huawei would sell expired patents. Is it really worth it?
- HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
  Are you asking if it's worth it to them to sell something that is worthless to them?
detaro 5y ago
If I understand correctly not applicable here (patent expired after max duration of 20 years), but one facet of this is that in some cases you can buy a patent that is expired because the owner decided it wasn't worth to continue pay the extension fees and un-expire it by paying the fees retroactively.

MobiusHorizons 5y ago

From the article, it sounds like the patent was expired when the current owner purchased it. How does a suit like that even make it to court? Would the owner be able to sue for violations from before it expired?

Brizzley 5y ago

It is the system but I have yet to find anyone that understands the process of how they do it. I do because I experienced it. From the aspect of them stealing my patent. They do not purchase low-quality patents it is far different. It is time to expose the methods they use and the assistance they get from the examiners. From day one of the application they do an assignment and a Provisional Application that goes expired. Attorney's from different offices use same customer number that go to a central office the inventor is unaware of. Then an Attorney from that office files a POA and Oath to a foreign priority Application and in my case DECEASED.

h2odragon 5y ago

Thank you, Sparkfun, for spending the time and resources to defend the principles of civil society. Can Sparkfun now counter-sue for costs and maybe even Barratry? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barratry_(common_law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barratry_(common_law)

imglorp 5y ago
Thank you Sparkfun. I'll be ordering some circuity toys to let them know!

silexia 5y ago

A patent troll brought a lawsuit against my company, CoalitionTechnologies.com, in the Eastern District Court of Texas. My attorney and I were able to get them to voluntarily dismiss the lawsuit shortly afterwards. I won’t be naming the patent troll here as they voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit. Coalition has a policy of never settling frivolous lawsuits and fighting all the way to the bloody end. We recently won a judgement with attorneys fees in another lawsuit. When I first received the notice that I was being sued, I freaked out a little bit. I didn’t sleep well for the next couple of nights, but began working on this right away. I contacted a couple of dozen Texas patent attorneys, most of whom quoted outrageous prices ranging from $200 to $600 per hour and some asking for a $25k retainer upfront! I soon realized that all of these Texas patent attorneys are in the same game with the patent trolls… these attorneys make money the longer the legal process gets drawn out. I was contacted by Amit Agarwal (310-351-6596 – based in LA but he can operate anywhere) and at first I was turned off by his aggressive approach. However, I spoke with my other attorney and he said it won’t hurt to give him a shot. I signed up with Amit and it was the best decision I could have made. Amit brought a very aggressive approach and quickly got the patent troll to back down and dismiss the lawsuit. The lawsuit was mostly dismissed after Amit really went after the troll and their attorneys with some great research and motions he spent Christmas writing.

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ad404b8a372f2b9 5y ago
I don't know if your work in SEO has affected your speech but this sounds a 100% like an ad that people write about themselves online to promote their services. It follows all the patterns of false testimonials you'd usually hear in infomercials. Sorry if it's genuine, I also sometimes like to recommend people and companies I've had good experiences with.
- ghostbrainalpha 5y ago
  This is hilarious if it's satire. Pretty sad if its a genuine recommendation. But you are right, its too hard to tell.

tinus_hn 5y ago

A Pyrrhic victory; they are out $12k and the troll is free to go harass the next company.

kiba 5y ago
Perhaps, but it did impose a cost on the troll which makes their venture less lucrative and hopefully more importantly, a psychological and emotional cost on the lawyers who's working to extort people.
tyingq 5y ago
They did produce a fairly good pattern for the next company approached by Altair Logix. Including links to prior art, counterclaim documents, etc.
- freejazz 5y ago
  That's all standard in a patent litigation and is by far the least expensive element of what you'd be paying an atty to do. That is to say, it's basically trivial to get an atty to say that you should contend invalidity via a counterclaim (especially in light of how §101 is treated lately). What costs is getting an atty to actually find the invalidating prior art, draft up the counterclaims, etc.
  - tyingq 5y ago
    Sorry, I'm confused. If Altair Logix sues some other party, for the same patent, why is this linked list of invalidating prior art and counter claims not useful in reducing cost?
  - Talanes 5y ago
    This is what I got from reading your comment: Least Expensive Element: Invalidating prior art, counterclaim documents. Actually Cost Money: Invalidating prior art, drafting counterclaim documents.
    - freejazz 5y ago

hackeraccount 5y ago

I'm reminded of how Newegg and Cloudflare have dealt with this kind of thing. https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/11/the-hunted-becomes-the-hunter-how-cloudflares-fight-with-a-patent-troll-could-alter-the-game/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAFS-v5Df7-ZudEc-U9Vvs3jfRXcmZVb8Vblj6Zm-aVnFWFGTJFtYi5cFw0dEKSZ_59Z5Eu3tcDKYxXJpixmgqL2_iquKmWqjYzitADTxrEY6bviUeC1cS6f9qr0SgRg0UV_x3aoKfAWeS3mfQrG6YZxAc8Y8RlUHRYcK0VPB-aGN https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/11/the-hunted-becomes-the-hun... At one time at least they seemed to view it as a fight to the death. When offered a settlement they'd just keep going.

beefield 5y ago
Unfortunately, however, looks like the nice people[1] at Blackbird still keep on working their stuff, so it was not a fight to the death. https://www.blackbird-tech.com/blackbird-technologies-settles-patent-infringement-case-with-hp/ https://www.blackbird-tech.com/blackbird-technologies-settle... [1]that was sarcasm.
- YetAnotherNick 5y ago
  They patented a switch?? How can this patent pass the basic check?
anitil 5y ago
Drawing a line in the sand and threatening mutual destruction is a good way to make the trolls move one to an easier target.
dctoedt 5y ago
And Blue Jeans Cable's 2008 response to a Monster Cable demand letter: The CEO of BlueJeans was an ex-litigator; excerpt: <quote> After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1985, I spent nineteen years in litigation practice, with a focus upon federal litigation involving large damages and complex issues. My first seven years were spent primarily on the defense side, where I developed an intense frustration with insurance carriers who would settle meritless claims for nuisance value when the better long-term view would have been to fight against vexatious litigation as a matter of principle. In plaintiffs' practice, likewise, I was always a strong advocate of standing upon principle and taking cases all the way to judgment, even when substantial offers of settlement were on the table. I am "uncompromising" in the most literal sense of the word. If Monster Cable proceeds with litigation against me I will pursue the same merits-driven approach; I do not compromise with bullies and I would rather spend fifty thousand dollars on defense than give you a dollar of unmerited settlement funds. As for signing a licensing agreement for intellectual property which I have not infringed: that will not happen, under any circumstances, whether it makes economic sense or not. I say this because my observation has been that Monster Cable typically operates in a hit-and-run fashion. Your client threatens litigation, expecting the victim to panic and plead for mercy; and what follows is a quickie negotiation session that ends with payment and a licensing agreement. Your client then uses this collection of licensing agreements to convince others under similar threat to accede to its demands. Let me be clear about this: there are only two ways for you to get anything out of me. You will either need to (1) convince me that I have infringed, or (2) obtain a final judgment to that effect from a court of competent jurisdiction. It may be that my inability to see the pragmatic value of settling frivolous claims is a deep character flaw, and I am sure a few of the insurance carriers for whom I have done work have seen it that way; but it is how I have done business for the last quarter-century and you are not going to change my mind. If you sue me, the case will go to judgment, and I will hold the court's attention upon the merits of your claims--or, to speak more precisely, the absence of merit from your claims--from start to finish. Not only am I unintimidated by litigation; I sometimes rather miss it. </quote> (Extra paragraphing added.) https://www.bluejeanscable.com/legal/mcp/response041408.pdf https://www.bluejeanscable.com/legal/mcp/response041408.pdf

mherdeg 5y ago

Wow is that a PDF of a Microsoft Word document with inline comments written by the judge? I don't think I've ever seen a document in that style in PACER before (linked in the blog post at https://cdn.sparkfun.com/assets/home_page_posts/3/9/7/0/Altair_Logix_Nguyen_Patent_Troll_17-1.pdf https://cdn.sparkfun.com/assets/home_page_posts/3/9/7/0/Alta...) . I think there's a typo in the blog post ("parent" should be "patent" below): > Do you ever wonder what parent trolls tell their children they do for a job? I read a story somewhere that claimed that "Captain Planet" had to be edited to feature cartoonishly evil villains, rather than the mundane day-to-day polluters, because they were worried that kids would ask uncomfortable career questions of their parents in sectors like disposable consumer goods, plastics, petrochemical, cigarettes, etc.

yeetaccount 5y ago
If you can find a link to that Captain Planet story I’d like to read it. It sounds totally plausible.
- owlninja 5y ago
  I think this is it https://grist.org/culture/captain-planet-planeteers-real-story/ https://grist.org/culture/captain-planet-planeteers-real-sto... >That family edutainment goal affected a lot of the show’s writing. Pyle didn’t want kids to see their family members as evil, ecologically speaking. “That’s one of the reasons we made the bad guys and their plans so ridiculous,” she explained, “We tried to point the finger at behaviors rather than industries. That way, no child would go home and say, ‘Oh, daddy, you’re in a blah blah business.’ It would be horrible for some child to see their family member as a Captain Planet villain.”
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    I do not see why it would be terrible for a kid to see the ramifications of their future due to their current lifestyle of a 2k+ sq ft detached single family house with an SUV and pickup truck and flights to Disney world as a villain.

fhrow4484 5y ago

> Lesson #3) Anyone can sign up for Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) to search and retrieve your own legal documents [...] getting them yourself at $0.10 a page. It sounds cheap, but one bad search and you may be fetching 100s of pages (IIRC, the number of pages returned by your search is what counts - https://pacer.uscourts.gov/pacer-pricing-how-fees-work https://pacer.uscourts.gov/pacer-pricing-how-fees-work). If you do so, you can also use RECAP: https://free.law/recap https://free.law/recap. It's like the internet archive for PACER documents. It's a browser extension that helps create a crowdsourced archive of the PACER content. You can then search that archive (this time for free) in https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/ https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/ For stuff not on RECAP, then PACER can be used, and fee is waived if less than $30 that quarter according to https://free.law/pacer-facts https://free.law/pacer-facts

AlbertCory 5y ago
Hear, hear on RECAP. It is surprisingly complete. See [1] for the Theranos trial. I think most of the lawyers at Big Law must have the Chrome extension. A high percentage of the docs you would want are on there. [1] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/7185174/united-states-v-holmes/?filed_after=&filed_before=&entry_gte=&entry_lte=&order_by=desc https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/7185174/united-states-v...
- freejazz 5y ago
  It's not the biglaw attorneys, its the reporters
KennyBlanken 5y ago
FYI RECAP means you're technically in violation of PACER's terms of use which prohibit redistribution or publishing. Violating terms laid forth by the federal court system ends (for wealthy internet tech celebrities) in the EFF picking up your legal tab and the FBI saying "okay FINE, just don't do that again." For you and me, it ends in tens of thousands in legal costs and at best probation terms that likely substantially interfere with your ability to make a living.

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turbohz 5y ago

> Every time a company settles it just funds the trolls to wreak more havoc. This is especially true for companies larger than $100 million in revenue. I’m looking at you Texas Instruments, VIA Technologies, Renesas, ASUS, Caterpillar, Nuvision International, and Netgear, just to name a few of the companies that have dealt with Jason Nguyen’s Altair Logix. When you roll over and pay the trolls it hurts smaller companies terribly. I wonder if those companies consider this a "feature"?

kbenson 5y ago
That was my first thought too. In this way, it serves a similar purpose to overly strict regulation, which is also something smaller companies have a much harder time dealing with than larger ones (and encouraging regulation of a specific area is a well known tactic of larger companies to raise the bar of entry to the market). That's not to say all regulation is bad, just that like most things that have beneficial ways to be used, it can be abused by some to negative effect also.
NicoJuicy 5y ago
The company I work for also had a patent troll, who got settled by much bigger companies in the trolls favor. They found a previous concept that would invalidate their expensive patent(s). They tried to settle with 0€. The lawyer of HQ didn't agree and changed it so they had to pay 1 CAD. Just because they could. Ps. It was accepted ofc.
- robocat 5y ago
  If the settlement were 0€, it could have been paid with a zero euro bank note: https://www.banknoteworld.com/zero-euro/ https://www.banknoteworld.com/zero-euro/
  - dqv 5y ago
    But then they would be settling for at least 1.72€!
- rcxdude 5y ago

AlbertCory 5y ago

Hooray for him. Patent trolls have a business model, which he's disrupted: 1) buy a patent, the broader and better-tested the better 2) start threatening the easy marks; the ones who roll over and write you a check right away. Their trick is to ask for a settlement small enough to say "hey, it'll cost you more than that for attorney's fees!" 3) use that money to threaten the harder targets: the ones who will fight back. Those people get asked for much larger sums. 4) maybe actually go to trial with a very big target, one that'll get dinged for a 9-figure judgment if the troll wins. In the Eastern District of Texas, juries tend to do that. Researching the validity of a patent does not require $400/hour attorneys. Anyone with a basic knowledge of patent law and computer science can do it. (And no, I'm not advertising for myself. I'm retired.) Do you think those expensive attorneys do it themselves? It is to laugh -- they assign it to a junior who knows technology.

shmerl 5y ago
More like they have shakedown and protection racket model they call "business". Just highlights how messed up the legal system is, if someone has to do so much work to disrupt racketeers.
freejazz 5y ago
Junior attys at BigLaw firms are billed at the $400/hr rate...
srcmap 5y ago
Anti-Patent troll model: Talk to EFF, start a go-fund-me campaigns, wild up the public opinions,
Jake232 5y ago
First year associates at the law firm I use charge over $500/hr. Senior lawyers/partner cost well over $1,200/hour in 2021 at many of the largest / most successful firms now.
- AlbertCory 5y ago
  OK, you don't need any of those. Certainly you need lawyers to actually write the IPR & conduct it, but nothing starts until someone finds that killer prior art.

CptanPanic 5y ago

What's the deal with buying an expired patent? Doesn't expired mean the patent is not valid?

alangibson 5y ago
I came here to ask the same question. It's he sitting for infringement that happened whale the patent was active? If so, don't you have a duty to sue in a "timely manner"?

alangibson 5y ago

Had anyone ever heard of businesses forming a mutual defense bloc? Every member could contribute to a pool of resources that gets tapped to go to the mat with trolls that sue a member. Sounds like troll insurance now that I read what I just wrote...

schleck8 5y ago
Isn't that legal insurance? It's a good idea though
josaka 5y ago
I think rpx and unified patents do something like this.

matsemann 5y ago

In the linked first post, they show a letter they received about this patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9729658 https://patents.google.com/patent/US9729658 Can't even fathom what the patent is saying. Sounds like they have tried patenting the web.

mijoharas 5y ago

So, I've not read much of this kind of stuff before. Can someone tell me if the following response is just a standard legal way of talking: 43. For example, US Patent No. 5,592,405 (Assignee Texas Instruments) discloses: “There is thus a need in the art for a system which handles multi-processors having multi-memories such that the address space from all of the memories is available to one or more processors concurrently[.]” 2:5-9. Answer: Altair Logix does not dispute the quoted language comes from U.S. Patent No. 5,592,405 to the extent it is quoted correctly. Altair denies the remaining allegations in paragraph 43. It's just very odd, as there is literally nothing else in the paragraph that they are "denying". Now it seems clear, that they just tack on "denies everything else in this paragraph" to every single thing they say, but why? Is it better to deny some unknown thing in case you miss it, than to not respond to it in a legal document? if so, why is that? Is there some other reason for it?

freejazz 5y ago
They are denying the claims in the patent... that there is a need for blah blah blah. Source: I litigate patents
josaka 5y ago
It's weird, but standard. These exchanges are a formal way of fleshing out what the parties do and do not dispute. Both sides limit what the agree to as much as they can with a straight face, and everything is qualified as much as possible to make it hard to pin you down on something later, after you've learned more about your and their case, e.g., they might disagree that TI is the assignee, or that the language is properly part of the patent b/c it was amended during prosecution or by a certificate of correction.
toyg 5y ago
They accept that the text comes from the US patent, while not accepting what the text states. It's like two people arguing, one going "The professor yesterday said X is true" and the other replying "Yes, indeed he said that yesterday, but that doesn't mean X is actually true".

supermatt 5y ago

Any way to recover the legal fees for something like this?

zh3 5y ago

This is sort of a tragedy-of-the-commons situation. Very few people want to stand up and be counted (Sparkfun aside), yet it's the few who do who keep the bottom feeders[0] in check. [0] I've been advised by lawyers to just pay them off, as it's "cheaper than dealing with the bottom feeders". Some things matter more than money, and on the few occasions I've pushed it to the wire the chancers have slunk away. It's still expensive though - and maybe only small companies can do it, because for big companies it would be internally expensive/potentially ruinous/worries the C suite it might affect the share price.

exabrial 5y ago

I've ordered a ton of crap from SparkFun, and to help out as a thank you, I'll be ordering a huge batch of RPIs from them when they come back in stock.

rbanffy 5y ago

> Use your settlements budgets to fight because the rest of us don’t have settlement budgets. That's one of the reasons why some companies will settle instead of litigate - it's a cheap way to kill your competition before it threatens you while, at the same time, not raising any eyebrows about anti-competitive practices.

danhorner 5y ago

One aspect of this defense was failure to mark: A previous owner of the patent produced processors covered by the patent but did not mark them as such. It turns out that systematically not marking your patent on your products invalidates claims for infringement unless it occurred after the owner notified future infringers of the violation. The striking thing about this for a patent troll is (if I understand this correctly) that it's easier to shake companies down if your patent has never been used to ship anything. That seems odd.

can16358p 5y ago

The only problem I see about this post is that asking big companies to fight against trolls otherwise it hurts small companies. While no one would legally admit that and putting aside morals, isn't it what big companies want anyway?

tschesnok 5y ago

It would be great if VCs created funds / departments to fight trolls attacking their portfolio. I understand that there are many issues with this model. But it might just work. Especially for accelerators like YC. I think word would get around quickly to "not touch YC companies" and the expense would go to zero. It would also be easy for YC to decide what is a troll and what is legit.

eschaton 5y ago
The problem is that even if VCs hate patent trolls when directly affected by them, they don’t actually hate patents, and in fact try to make their portfolio companies patent everything under the sun.

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aerosmile 5y ago

For every instance that results in a win against a patent troll, there are many more instances where people just pay - you just don't hear about them. More recently the portfolio of companies I am a part of has seen an uptick in demands, and I have to assume that this is driven by a feedback loop that's producing good outcomes for trolls.

henvic 5y ago

If you're interest in this subject, I recommend Austin Meyer's documentary The Patent Scam (https://www.thepatentscam.com/ https://www.thepatentscam.com/). * Austin Meyer is the creator of X-Plane / Laminar Research.

chenster 5y ago

Who's this Jason Nguyen? Should it be time to doxx him??

EastOfTruth 5y ago

Question: Are you considered a patent troll if you are an individual that was granted a patent but don't want to go through the hassle of manufacturing and customer support, etc? If a patent troll is only someone that attempts to enforce patent rights against accused infringers far beyond the patent's actual value as Wikipedia's article claim, perhaps the justice system is broken?

josephwegner 5y ago
This seems like it is against the spirit of the patent system, and supporting it would be just as broken. I can get behind the thought of someone coming up with an innovative idea, patenting it, and then selling that idea for a royalty... but someone coming up with an innovative idea and just sitting on it, while stifling other people's similar intuition? That's certainly not doing anything good for the world. It's just lining the pocket books of the idle thinker.

unobatbayar 5y ago

I wonder how much it costed for the patent troll?

Liron 5y ago

Can a billionaire please step up and fund all anti-trolling defense? Where’s Peter Thiel when you need him?

AlbertCory 5y ago

One thing I forgot to mention about searching for prior art, kinda important, too: Do a web search for "prior art search." There are companies that do it for you, at costs that are... well, less than $500/hour. It's a flat fee. When I was at Google we tried a whole bunch of them on the same patent, so we could compare them. There were a few that were quite good. Unfortunately I can't remember their names, but they're probably different now anyway. So that's your gutsy opening conversation with Mr. Troll: "Hey, our search firm found some prior art that invalidates your patent. [Do NOT show it to him.] We're going to IPR you with it." They might bluff you, laugh at your naivete, and say "We know all about that prior art; it's no good." If you have a lawyer, which you should, let him or her handle all this. You want the threat of an IPR to sound credible.

cigrainger 5y ago

As others have said, there are more cost effective options than just getting your attorney to do a patent search for you. There are definitely plenty of companies that will do it for you for far less. But the quality is... variable, to say the least. As a point of shameless self-promotion, I'm the founder of a company seeking to improve the patent system, starting with prior art search [1][2]. We're not one of those companies that will do it for you for less. Instead, we empower you to do it yourself, then have your attorney go deeper if needed. The idea being that you don't need to be a patent expert or lawyer to do it; anyone with knowledge of their technical area can search effectively. Plus we've got some collaboration features so when you're ready to hand off to your $500/hr attorney, you can. And not just hand off -- collaborate. If a patent troll is shaking you down, reach out to us and we'll do you a generous deal, no strings attached. We very much do not like patent trolls. [1] https://www.amplified.ai/ https://www.amplified.ai/ [2] https://www.amplified.ai/en/blog/22062020/introducing-amplified https://www.amplified.ai/en/blog/22062020/introducing-amplif...

dave_sullivan 5y ago
Seems you are coming from a good place, but IMO there is no fixing the system, patents are a bad idea. They cause price distortions for consumers by creating state-sanctioned monopolies. Monopolies are a type of market failure and do a great deal of harm. The commonly cited goal of giving monopolies to little inventors and helping the underdog is not a good justification; it doesn't create any value for the user/consumer and ensures they will have fewer choices in the marketplace. Don't fool yourself, it's not patent trolls that are the problem, it's the whole system. The only innovation I want to see in patents is a huge worldwide lobbying operation to abolish them and make sure everyone knows how detrimental they are to consumer choice.
- halfdan 5y ago
  > The commonly cited goal of giving monopolies to little inventors and helping the underdog is not a good justification; it doesn't create any value for the user/consumer and ensures they will have fewer choices in the marketplace. The more common argument I hear is: Why would a company invest resources into research if there was no way to prevent a competitor from copying the result on day 1 of you selling a product?

bencollier49 5y ago

I'm appalled that the US system doesn't automatically charge costs to the litigant in a losing case. The fact that a blameless party will now probably be underwater by about $12k is shocking.