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"BlackBerry's sale is to what could be considered a "Non-practicing entity," a company that doesn't earn revenue from product or services sales, but is more lik
by blakesterz 5y ago
"BlackBerry's sale is to what could be considered a "Non-practicing entity," a company that doesn't earn revenue from product or services sales, but is more likely to do so through asset protection. Many refer to these sorts of entities as "patent trolls.""
That looks pretty bad. Seems pretty obvious this is going to cost Apple & Google some serious money, even if it's just hiring more lawyers for the lawsuits from "Catapult IP Innovations".
- netsharc 5y agoSeems surprising that Apple/Google didn't just offer BlackBerry $610M to stop the bullshit. Maybe the freshly formed company is owned by some former RIM exec(s)...
- prepend 5y agoI’m guessing that it will not cost Apple and Google that much money or they would have just bought the patents outright. I expect that Apple and Google were already licensing any blackberry patents they needed/would be forced to use. This is big enough that Apple and Google’s operational risk group would have done a calculation to buy if the exposure was less than the sale price. The patent trolling is likely for smaller companies who can’t afford to fight the troll.
- troyvit 5y agoI'm worried about Linux phone operating systems at this point. They seem ripe for this sort of trolling.
- grej 5y agoGood question. What actually happens if an open source permissive license product is accused of violating a patent? There’s not exactly a company to sue.
- tsimionescu 5y agoThere is always a company, NGO or individual(s) that is distributing the code.
- hedora 5y agoI'm not. There's no point suing for patent infringement unless (a) you want to squash competitors or (b) you think you'll get a bucket of money. Since they were bought up by a nonpracticing entity, (a) doesn't apply. There's no way they'll recoup their $600M investment by going after companies that sell low volume, low margin devices. By the time the Linux phone people have war chests to raid, theses patents will be expired. Rest assured they're targeting some subset of FAANG. The article mentions a patent on charging batteries. Facebook and Amazon sell stuff with batteries in them. Perhaps the trolls think they can extract a few hundred million from Oculus and Fire tablets. Come to think of it, Tesla probably has some cash laying around, and I think their cars can move and also contain batteries. Why should they be allowed to freeload? Similarly, ICE cars use lead acid batteries, don't they? This patent could be a gold mine, and we owe it all to RIM for inventing the rechargeable battery in the mid 1990's! I wonder when the current patent on charging rechargeable batteries expires. I wonder who the PTO will issue the next iteration to, and if they're publicly held...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Jiro 5y ago>There's no way they'll recoup their $600M investment by going after companies that sell low volume, low margin devices. Patent trolls sometimes sue people without money in order to get precedents that can be used against people with money.
- 5y ago
- harles 5y agoAt $600m and most the way to being expired, I don’t think it makes economic sense to only target small players. A patent troll could also find novel ways in which a court might view these patents as applicable that Google and Apple missed.
- culturestate 5y ago> A patent troll could also find novel ways in which a court might view these patents as applicable that Google and Apple missed. BlackBerry has been licensing these patents for years; all of the usual suspects have already either agreed to terms or been sued by this point.
- bastardoperator 5y agoMaybe the patent trolls got played?
- culturestate 5y agoWell, the new owners will continue collecting the same royalties that BlackBerry was getting until the patents expire; I'm not sure how much it is for this specific pool, but probably up to a few tens of millions of dollars per year. On top of that, they can always leverage the IP against smaller existing players or new entrants and use it to bump up rates for the rest of their portfolio.
- dmix 5y agoThere's always room for financial and legal engineering. I mean that's what a big chunk of Wall St does for a living.
- kingcharles 5y agoThis is a good point. $600m is nothing for Apple or Google. Could they have legally bought them without getting into a monopoly mess, though?
- 908B64B197 5y agoMaybe BlackBerry tried to charge too much (because they know Apple or Google have deep pockets) and Apple or Google decided it would cost them less to litigate or pay the troll. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if BlackBerry had more lawyers than engineers at this point.
- prepend 5y agoI think they couldn’t monetize because of the reputational damage of trying to extract over them. So it would just be defensive. Thus my thinking that they looked it and didn’t think they needed defending.
- yread 5y agoAt least it's not a trebuchet, that would be terrifying
- herodoturtle 5y agoSee, this right here, is the problem with HN. In my failed attempt to retort with a witty pun on Ballistas, I ended up spending close to half an hour exploring a rather deep rabbit hole on the evolution of medieval siege weapons.
- saithir 5y agoThe catapult still invokes visions of "throwing shit at the wall until something sticks", so it is still not the worst name :)
- andjd 5y agoThe company buying the patents is new with no history. Do any of the parties involved in financing the deal have a history of being litigious over patents? If the patents are generating royalties, this could just be a boring financial move where RIM gets a lump-sum cash infusion in exchange for a predictable, but finite, revenue stream. There are many non-practicing entities that don't abuse their patents. ARM is an example.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- rhino369 5y agoYou don't buy 600 million dollars of patents as an NPE without planning to shop around licenses with an implied threat of litigation. You don't have to be scumbags about it, but you are going to have to press your claims to make money back. I'd argue ARM isn't really an NPE. They actually sell useful designs that are actually implemented right? It's customers are paying for a design, architecture and software--not the freedom from being sued.
- The-Bus 5y agoThey may already have recurring revenue that justifies this price.
- netcan 5y agoBeing litigious and earning revenue from non-practicing patent ownership are fairly intertwined. Being a new company with no history is, likely, strategic. Patent wars between practicing entities tend to be multi-front. Each side brings its own war chest of patents claims. Settlements tend to be more of a cease fire than a permanent end. They agree to stop suing each other. Being non practicing means that a patent war can't interfere with your more important interests. Being clean slate means that whoever you sue can't return fire by going after the rest of your patent portfolio. "Patent trolling" isn't black or white definitionally, but it has earned its bad name. It's an ugly game of dirty tricks.
- 5y ago
- stjohnswarts 5y agoGood point I wonder why they didn't just buy up Blackberry, they had to have seen this coming?
- paxys 5y agoPatent trolls usually go after the smaller players, not companies like Apple and Google who have enough money, lawyers and their own library of patents to defend themselves.
- silexia 5y agoPatent trolls are looking at your employer or your business. They will sue and take whatever money they can get, which will come out of your pocket. Abolish the patent system and let human innovation leap forward.