16 ms·

Gnome patent troll stripped of patent rights

594 points by reedciccio 4y ago

throw_m239339 4y ago
I mean, to the author, thank you. Can't believe it cost $150,000+ for the open source community to go through that litigation... Dorsey, and all the SV billionaires who made money off open source, perhaps it's time you "contribute back" by financing the fight against patent trolls...
- tebruno99 4y ago
  I understood that it cost Gnome $150k for Gnome to settle and obtain their own exclusive right of usage instead of doing the right thing and fight the patent.
  - throw_m239339 4y ago
    > I understood that it cost Gnome $150k for Gnome to settle and obtain their own exclusive right of usage instead of doing the right thing and fight the patent. That's what I meant by "going through", they obviously couldn't fight it in court, would have cost a lot more...
  - tedivm 4y ago
    They got that for free. What the $150k was spent on seems to be anyone's guess. > https://foundation.gnome.org/2020/05/20/patent-case-against-gnome-resolved/ https://foundation.gnome.org/2020/05/20/patent-case-against-... https://foundation.gnome.org/2020/05/20/patent-case-against-gnome-resolved/ https://foundation.gnome.org/2020/05/20/patent-case-against-...
- smoldesu 4y ago
  I doubt any of them made any significant money off of the GNOME stack, defending it would be pretty... odd. If someone litigated the OpenSearch, Yarn or Homebrew devs, then yeah, I think it would be reasonable to expect Big Tech to step in. But why GNOME? They've long gone their own way, even making a big deal of their "my way or the highway" development stance. If I was $(MULTIMILLIONAIRE_CORP) I would probably just be laughing, so long as my name wasn't Red Hat. Come to think of it, why didn't Red Hat step in here? Afaik, their entire raison d'être is keeping lawyers on retainer for these express purposes. Have the GNOME maintainers really burned that many bridges?
- noizejoy 4y ago
  Not sure why you’re advocating private, rather than company funding (by companies who have benefited greatly from open source). Also don’t understand, how naming one specific individual adds to the quality of the suggestion.
- nullc 4y ago
  > I mean, to the author, thank you. Can't believe it cost $150,000+ for the open source community to go through that litigation... 150k isn't much. Probably doesn't get you through initial motions against a well funded adversary. > Dorsey, and all the SV billionaires who made money off open source, I wouldn't know about his actions in other open source areas, but Dorsey specifically has directly funded defense against patent and vexatious litigation around Bitcoin and against open source developers. https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2022-January/019741.html https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2022... In particular, a billionaire funded party filed a lawsuit against a dozen current and former developers (including myself!) alleging that we owned him some $6 billion dollars in damages for failing to grant him bitcoins that he claims he lost due to a 'hack' (which sounded like something out of a bad movie plot). The plaintiff alleged that the software's MIT license was irrelevant and that the people wrote the software owe a fiduciary duty to make whole users who lost funds through no fault of the developers. ... a conclusion that would probably mark the end of volunteer contributions in open source generally since no sane person would voluntarily subject themselves to unlimited liability due to publishing some free code. Fortunately, at considerable cost we were able to convince the court that they failed to establish that their action had more than a fanciful potential for success and got it dismissed in initial motions (though presumably they'll appeal). It also sounds like the same party intends to launch a multitude of additional lawsuits on other basis including patent infringement (which they've been filing 3-4 patents per week in furtherance of, in an apparent attack via sheer volume), and has already filed defamation lawsuits against several journalists and community members ( https://cswarchive.info/ https://cswarchive.info/ ). Direct defense costs across all parties and actions is in the millions now, without counting the man hours and stress of the defendants, and continuing to grow without a clear end in sight. And all this is just trouble created by a single entity. Support from those who benefit from open source systems is crucial but because of the astronomical cost of defending even laughable lawsuits attackers will continue to have an upper hand without public policy changes. We benefit substantially already from the 2010 SPEECH act, which protects US persons from the UK's abusive libel regime. The EU is apparently considering similar legislation with respect to the UK that if in place would likely have protected at least one of the people currently being sued. But the abuse of lawsuits for coercion and extortion aren't limited to libel or the UK-- rather, attackers will use the easiest path and with that one closed they'll use others.
karmanyaahm 4y ago
Can someone ELI5 what this the RPI patent (US9936086B2) even tried to patent? Their claims look like the description of just any digital camera and a connected web service (Google Photos). [1] https://patents.google.com/patent/US9936086B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US9936086B2/en
- asciimov 4y ago
  I'm not a Lawyer. It looks like it was trying to cover the idea of sharing pictures between devices. Not the process of doing said sharing, but the idea.
- ww520 4y ago
  The claims basically say the system is a device with wireless input and wireless output (think a computer with WiFi in/out connections). The device receives a bunch of photos from the wireless input, filters the photo based on some criteria, and sends the filtered resulting photos to another mobile devices via the wireless output. Shotwell's feature kind of fits the description is that it downloads photos from a WiFi connection, organizes the photos by theme/date/etc (filtering), and shares the photos to FB/Twitter/etc (sending via WiFi). Basically any network connected photo editing/organizing software is in dangerous. The patent obviously lacks innovation and slipped through the approval process. The court agreed and invalidated the patent.
  - danamit 4y ago
    Why patents seem to thrive in some countries more than others?
coolhoody 4y ago
> “offers a number of ways to wirelessly share photos online such as through social media.” How was it possible to patent this in 2018? https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/01/50/f8/a8e7c12c764d15/US9936086.pdf https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/01/50/f8/a8e7c12...
- raverbashing 4y ago
  Seems like the patent office will sign everything that stands still for a certain time, regardless of their merits
  - acomjean 4y ago
    Why wouldn't they? They make their moneyy from Patent Fees. If they stopped granting Patents their revenue stream dries up. They have no incentive not to approve patents. I'm wondering why companies don't sue the Patent office when the patent used against them is invalidated (often some companies are still paying fees because they settled. )
    - mcv 4y ago
      > Why wouldn't they? Because they shouldn't be about making money. They should be about encouraging innovation.
- azinman2 4y ago
  It was filed in 2008, seemed granted in 2018
  - coolhoody 4y ago
    > Filed: 2017
    - mikeyouse 4y ago
      It's an extension of this (granted) patent which was filed in 2008: https://patents.justia.com/patent/8204437 https://patents.justia.com/patent/8204437
cmeacham98 4y ago
There needs to be anti-SLAPP style legislation for patent trolls. I honestly don't understand why there isn't: it seems like an easy PR win for legislators. Who would be against this (except patent trolls)?
- _jal 4y ago
  I suspect lots of large companies that do make things but also hold many, many patents would object. Patents can a potent weapon, especially if you have a lot of them in a specific area. So to answer your question, I would expect opposition from anyone with a big portfolio who wants unencumbered range of motion to use them offensively. So for specific examples from the little corner of the world focused on here, I suspect and easy ones are Qualcomm and IBM. Probably Microsoft, probably Apple, but they've both surprised on some things recently.
  - lstodd 4y ago
    They "hold many, many patents" (usually worthless) to have an "unencumbered range of motion to use them offensively" against similar entities. If the whole idea of using bullshit patents to defend against someone's threat of some other bullshit patents gets buried at last, then everyone wins because not having to trade "portfolios of bullshit patents" back and forth lowers costs of business for everyone. This was obvious at least 30 years ago, where have you been?
    - _jal 4y ago
      > This was obvious at least 30 years ago, where have you been? Watching things like this happen: https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/11/21363629/qualcomm-win-appeal-antitrust-ftc-lawsuit-frand-patents-chips https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/11/21363629/qualcomm-win-app... What color is the sunrise on the planet you inhabit?
- webmaven 4y ago
  > There needs to be anti-SLAPP style legislation for patent trolls. I honestly don't understand why there isn't: it seems like an easy PR win for legislators. Who would be against this (except patent trolls)? The American Intellectual Property Law Association, for one. It isn't too hard to look up who supported and opposed the Patent Reform Acts of 2005, 2007, and 2009. Wikipedia has pretty good summaries.
marcodiego 4y ago
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
AdmiralAsshat 4y ago
Good on Mr. Smith. But was he in any way involved with the legal defense team for GNOME? The story reads to me like GNOME spent $150k on a legal defense that saved themselves and carved out a little niche for FOSS projects, but otherwise allowed the patent troll to continue profiting from this patent. > Of course, that’s little comfort to the 20+ victims attacked after GNOME with the now-proven-worthless Rothschild ‘086 patent, or the 50+ companies targeted with related patents that haven’t yet been re-examined. Meanwhile, it looks like Mr. Smith basically did what the GNOME defense team should have done from the start and got the patent invalidated, with no funds to speak of.
- tssva 4y ago
  When GNOME was raising the 150k they said they would not settle and would battle until the patent was overturned. People donated based upon this and then GNOME settled. This is why when things like the he said/she said argument with System 76 have come up I am mystified that some people are ready to believe GNOME's take. They have already shown that they are a project whose leadership's word can't be trusted.
  - tedivm 4y ago
    According to the Gnome website they didn't have to pay their lawyers, so I'm wondering where that money went. > GNOME was represented pro-bono by Matt Berkowitz, Kieran Kieckhefer, Joy Wang and Larry Crouch from Shearman & Sterling LLP. https://foundation.gnome.org/2020/05/20/patent-case-against-gnome-resolved/ https://foundation.gnome.org/2020/05/20/patent-case-against-...
    - JamesBarney 4y ago
      There are lots of expenses in a legal case besides just the lawyers, like expert witness, process servers, etc..
    - gralx 4y ago
      I suspect it went into the settlement payment. Wouldn't it be ironic if so many principled advocates of open source and supporters of the GNOME project had their funds paid directly to a patent troll by GNOME themselves?
gjsman-1000 4y ago
How about we make "non-practicing entity" a defense in a patent lawsuit? That, if you can prove that the owner of the patent is an NPE (and doesn't reasonably license or innovate or even try to innovate, only sue or unreasonably license), case tossed...
- AnimalMuppet 4y ago
  Let's say I'm some random individual, and I have a great idea, and I patent it. Let's say it's the patent on interval wipers on cars. But I'm not an auto company, so what I do with it is, I try to license the patent to auto companies. But they say, hey, this guy is a non-practicing entity, so we can invalidate his patent on that grounds alone, so why would we license it? That gets us a world without patent trolls, and without interval wipers (and everything else invented by an individual inventor who wasn't in a position to start a company to implement the idea). Is that a strictly better world?
  - gjsman-1000 4y ago
    It would not compare to my proposal directly because: “I try to license the patent to auto companies” Many patent trolls never even attempt licensing, they just wait to sue or settle. This would not remove all trolls but would be a first step.
    - nceqs3 4y ago
      The suit always comes after they try to license (a.k.a settle) and are denied.
      - Aachen 4y ago
        If you're only suing different parties that independently also discovered your invention, that's a different thing than trying to sell your patent to an entity that is actually going to produce the invention and make use of it. Maybe patents should indeed only be enforceable by those that produce the invention (practicing entities as it was called above, not sure if that's an official term or something they came up with) and if you want royalties then you should put that in the contract when you sell the patent rather than sitting on patents without doing anything useful. That way we can have individual inventors (they are rewarded by what they make from the patent's sale) without also allowing trolls to claim to be inventors (because "NPEs" can't actually sue for infringement). Or perhaps this should be a software thing, I don't know enough about how well this stuff worked for other fields honestly. I've only ever heard bad stories but then I also hang out with open source communities. Edit: I realized one might think this makes the patent useless. If you can't sue for infringement as entity that doesn't produce the invention itself, any company could produce it and ignore you. Correct. However, I'm sure that if EvilCorp ignores your patent sale offer and produces GreatInvention without a license, MegaCompetitor would love to take the GreatInvention patent off your hands and license it to EvilCorp (or not and just block further use by EvilCorp). Thus the inventor can still be rewarded for the sale (incentivizing inventions), the new owner gets benefits of exclusivity for the parent's remaining duration, and it forces the invention to be available on the market (it can't only be locked away uselessly). There's something to say for gjsman-1000's idea, or shall we say, invention
speedgoose 4y ago
Could the Gnome foundation move to France to escape software patents?
- PeterisP 4y ago
  No, because while the foundation could 'escape software patents' the software itself can't, an adverse patent-related USA court decision would then make that software illegal to distribute and use in USA which is probably not satisfactory to the Gnome foundation so they still would have to fight it in court.
Mo3 4y ago
https://foundation.gnome.org/2020/05/20/patent-case-against-gnome-resolved/ https://foundation.gnome.org/2020/05/20/patent-case-against-... > Leigh Rothschild said “I’m pleased that we have managed to settle this issue amicably. I have always supported the innovation of open source software and its developers and encourage its innovation and adoption.” FOR SURE, BUDDY. That sounds like something Putin would say after he gets absolutely decimated by the Ukrainians.
- saddist0 4y ago
  Thanks for highlighting the line for everyone of us here. Unfortunately, please don't make HN comments similar to the Reddit ones... :')
  - Mo3 4y ago
    Hahaha, I definitely didn’t mean to kick off political discussion in here. I’m happy this isn’t Reddit. Just couldn’t help but notice the similarity.
    - muybasado 4y ago
bitwize 4y ago
Man, where was McCoy Smith in the days of the Amiga CD32, which was banned from sale in the USA because of a patent on (I'm not making this up) the XOR bitwise operation?
nonrandomstring 4y ago
> Perhaps it's time for the law to adjust to the point where the stakes for the troll are high Take that further. The stakes should be high against all adjacent patent holders. Ultimately if we want to keep a working patent system it's too much work to rely on piecemeal independent cases like this, albeit a great success. The system has to self-police to be fair, and perhaps the best people to keep trolls and mischievous opportunists on a leash are the bigger players with legitimate patents. They must be fiven a motivated interest in eliminating trolls. If you sell a gun to an unstable crazy who shoots up the neighbourhood then some blame lies with you. While the transfer of patents between concerned partner companies and subsidiaries seems okay, the market for trading patents simply as value assets needs destroying. Ultimately its probably better if we move to a world where a lot of "intellectual property" expires with it's holder and passes into the public domain. To apply a leverage point analysis, it's probably time to reexamine and change the rules about the transferability of patents. Does the purchaser have a legitimate justification to hold the patent? If no, it forfeits.
- amelius 4y ago
  The problem is that the people who determine patent law (mostly patent officers/lawyers/judges) benefit from the current system.
  - javajosh 4y ago
    This is at the root of a broader problem with the judicial system, which is that it systematically fails to do its job in a timely manner. But that's okay with the actors, because they bill by the hour. That's not exaggeration or hyperbole; I've never seen a class of people do less for more than attorneys and judges, who go out of their way to be pleasant and accommodating to each other, with total disregard for the matters at hand. And so we have even simple matters drag on for months or years. At the end of the day, "justice" is what we buy with our conformance to society. When nations fight over systems of government, it's really a fight over what justice means. The current system is broken, but it's owned by old, rich, intelligent people who know what power is and how to use it, how to keep it, how to rationalize it. Even the good ones fall, when they see how goodness and self-restraint is rewarded by their peers, lest they lose their power. I do not think there is a realistic path to reform. The US justice system should be replaced, entirely, with something closer to the German system, which is far less concerned with where evidence comes from, for example, and far more concerned with whether its true. Things happen much faster, and most argumentation is done in writing. Attorneys are forbidden from advertising - which used to be the case in the US, too. But of course they got that changed. It's also remarkable how often a German attorney refers to the law - they treat it as a rulebook as for a board game, whereas in the states the judge, in practice, has absolute power over all participants and is free to ignore the law, or invent new law. (Well, they aren't supposed to be, but the process for holding a judge to account is, if you can imagine it, even worse than the rest of the system. Gee whiz, I wonder how that happened?)
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> none is as powerful as challenging the nefarious patents directly Why don't we see this deployed against competitors? I get why the big boys wouldn't want to rock the boat. But hiring a patent lawyer to go through a competitor's patents and challenge the ones they think could be flimsy sounds like a decent way to, at the very least, distract them.
- nullc 4y ago
  "It's a poor atom blaster that won't point both ways.". There are all sorts of competitive attacks that don't happen because they can go both ways. You also don't see companies having their competitors corporate executives followed by PIs and then sending pictures showing their adultery to the tabloids. Besides, if you try and fail you effectively strengthen the patent. Better to wait to try to undermine the patents they specifically try to assert against you-- 75% percent of patents lose claims on re-exam, so the patent holder knows they will likely have their scope narrowed which makes them more likely to agree to license or not enforce at all against a wealthy competitor (e.g. one that could afford to go after their patents preemptively). If the patent has already been re-examined the patent holder would have reason to be more aggressive and less compromising.
AlbertCory 4y ago
The heading is somewhat misleading, in that one might read it as "the troll lost all rights to any patents, ever." If you (correctly) didn't read it that way, you can ignore the rest of this. What they actually lost is that patent. It was reexamined and all its claims were cancelled. Reexamination is a standard tactic against a patent infringement suit, and we did it all the time at Google. A reexamination is a mini-trial, with no jury; just a bunch of patent law experts. It costs less than a full trial but still can be $500,000 or so. A troll will offer to settle for a small amount rather than risk getting their patent cancelled. I think it's fair to call it "irresponsible" if you pay them that ransom, but of course, it's cheaper for you that way.
- jimmydddd 4y ago
  Re "irresponsible." Most business legal matters are about money. Settling can save the company money. It's just a business decision. Those who take it personally often end up spending more time and money than is needed.
  - AlbertCory 4y ago
    > spending more time and money than is needed Needed for what? To make it go away for you, while the troll gets more money to extort everyone else?
  - educaysean 4y ago
    Well obviously it was a "business decision". Are we supposed to be moved by the fact that the ultimate decision was based on greed? Companies can care about their bottom line while serving their community in a responsible manner. Companies going carbon neutral are doing it to improve their image, etc. but the consequences have net benefits for the society. No one's going to call that irresponsible. Feeding the patent troll market with the money that was donated to fight them off? Irresponsible.
    - AlbertCory 4y ago
      Hear. The troll's business model is: 1. Buy patent (after due diligence) 2. Sue lots of easy marks (companies like OP's that will just write a check) 3. Use that money to fund suits against the tougher targets 4. Go for the big payday (a large jury verdict against a major company) Where am I getting this? We had a talk by a former troll when I was in Google Legal. So OP is at #2.
silexia 4y ago
Abolish the patent system and see innovation leap ahead and prices precipitously drop.
- avastmick 4y ago
  I lean towards this sentiment - I think the patent and copyright structures limit innovation. The concept that an idea is worth anything without successful implementation is flawed in my opinion. However, has any research been done on the actual implications of patent and copyright removal? I may be naïve in my thinking.
carlsborg 4y ago
Its crazy that this didnt hit the front page of HN before the verdict. > That prompted over 4,000 Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) community members to rally in defense of the GNOME Foundation, raising over $150,000 to defend against the bogus claim
rdtsc 4y ago
The owner of https://www.corporationwiki.com/p/2rwhc6/rothschild-patent-imaging-llc https://www.corporationwiki.com/p/2rwhc6/rothschild-patent-i... seems to run a whole slew of patent trolling shell companies (40 in total or so). They'll probably just make another shell company and keep going.
parentheses 4y ago
I found it funny that the article refers to the troll with the pronoun “it”
jmyeet 4y ago
> Perhaps it's time for the law to adjust to the point where the stakes for the troll are high enough to make it less appealing as a business? No, that's just polishing the brass on the Titanic. Patents on software just shouldn't exist. At all. We already have established laws where you can't patent maths. An algorithm is just a function. It should be covered by the maths disqualifier. The fact that a smartphone could could contain and potentially violate literally thousands of patents is a complete anathema to the original intent of the system and it should be a huge red flag to the entire idea of software patents.
- thechao 4y ago
  If IP is real property, it should be taxed. The tax system I like for IP works for hire is this: each year you owe 1/4% * N (where N is the age of the IP) in taxes on the IP. Whatever you pay, the "public" (anyone/everyone else) can pay the balance to the USPTO (or LoC) to move that IP in to the public domain. Non-works-for-hire last for some fixed time, or until all the authors/inventors are dead, whichever comes first. A principal distinction between "works-for-hire" and "private works" is that a private owned work gives any of the authors/inventors unilateral rights to rescind contracts without contractual repercussion.
  - robbedpeter 4y ago
    This leads to the notion of being taxed for having a brain. Software patents shouldn't exist. The concept is patently absurd.
    - rhizome 4y ago
      >This leads to the notion of being taxed for having a brain Isn't this the same logic as used in the US against capital gains taxes, that a person is being punished for being successful?
      - cascom 4y ago
        Ehh - the more typical one is that the person already paid tax on it when they made the money the first time
snvzz 4y ago
When something like this happens, it should automatically reduce the burden for contesting the other patents owned by the same entity.
- Aachen 4y ago
  How hard is spinning up an "entity", though? More like the judge ought to award damages in terms of the time and means required for setting up that fundraiser and all other extra-legal expenses on top of the lawyers whose pro bono work could have been better spent. If the troll, or its parent, has to pay that out of pocket, in addition to losing the patent, maybe that makes an impression.
AlbertCory 4y ago
This discussion comes up regularly. Here's something that would work, maybe, eventually. It IS simple; it's just not easy. You have to realize that lawyers and politicians don't want to fix problems; they want to make a living off them. Who wants to lead this effort (and don't say "you" because I'm retired)? 1. Get someone with legal training to write legislation fixing this situation. Personally, I think just declaring software as not patentable subject matter is the core of the solution, but that's to be decided. 2. Get a Congressman to introduce it into the House or Senate. Let's say it becomes "H.R. 666" or some other number. 3. For every Congressional candidate, ask them "Do you support H.R. 666?" Make it clear that your support depends on a Yes answer. That's a language they can understand. Will this work? Well, it stands a chance. Comments on a thread like this don't have much chance at all of effecting any change.
colburnmh 4y ago
The title is misleading RPI has lost patent claims on the "Rothschild '086", which is the one that they used to sue GNOME. But they still have the right to pursue other patent claims that they have in their portfolio.
codedokode 4y ago
This seems like a loss. Gnome and other companies had to pay money (as I understand) for an invalid patent, a patent lawyer had to pay for re-examination and a patent troll lost nothing except for a patent that was invalid anyway. Are vaguely worded patents legal? For example, if someone in the age of black-and-white TV would patent an idea that "colors can be transmitted wirelessly or by wire, decoded or not decoded by a TV or other electronic or non-electronic device and displayed or not displayed on a screen or other medium". Would this idea without any research count as a valid patent application? Please explain, knowledgable people.
- mplewis 4y ago
  What would make a vaguely worded patent illegal?
  - GoblinSlayer 4y ago
    When it doesn't describe an invention. E.g. a patent on "a device that does something".
- pabs3 4y ago
  GNOME never paid money to the patent troll.
VWWHFSfQ 4y ago
The patent in question that was invalidated [0]: Wireless image distribution system and method Abstract A system and method for distributing at least one digital photographic image is presented, the system and method comprising at least one capturing device and at least one receiving device disposed in a communicative relation with one another via at least one wireless network. In particular, the capturing device is structured to capture the at least one digital photographic image via, for example, a capture assembly, whereas the receiving device is cooperatively structured to receive the digital photographic image via, for example, the at least one wireless network. In addition, the capturing device(s) and receiving device(s) may be disposed in a selectively paired relationship via one or more common pre-defined pairing criteria. Further, the at least one digital photographic image may be filtered via at least one pre-defined transfer criteria disposed on the capturing device and/or receiving device. [0] https://patents.google.com/patent/US9936086B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US9936086B2/en TL;DR some kind of device sends an image to some kind of "paired" companion device wirelessly.
- lostdog 4y ago
  Being a patent examiner must be a real trip. You put your toothpaste on slightly different bristles of your toothbrush than yesterday? NOVEL!! You take a slightly different route backing out of your driveway. NOVEL!! You write a cheque, and use a date that's one day later than any other date that has ever existed before? NOVEL!! You stir your coffee 4 times instead of 3 times? NOVEL!! I only wish I could experience this much novelty in my day-to-day life.
mmcconnell1618 4y ago
If patents exist as a legal form of intellectual property, they should be able to be purchased and exchanged in a commercial market. Authors, composers and other creators of works with intellectual property rights can transfer or sell those rights and there is no obligation for the purchaser to do anything with the work other than own it and collect royalties. In the case of a song or a book, it is simple (in most cases) to know that someone is performing your song or publishing your book without consent. This isn't the case with patents. There is an involved process to determine if a given entity is violating another's patent rights. This friction in determining right from wrong is the mechanism that allows patent trolls to extract a toll from anyone who isn't able or willing to fight the claim. This puts an asymmetric amount of leverage in the hands of the patent trolls. Some mechanism/legislation needs to be put in place to balance the power so that there is a higher cost to the patent owner who brings spurious claims.
linuxhansl 4y ago
Software patents and patents on business processes should not be allowed. Period. An idea has no cost and society does not benefit from granting monopolies on ideas. Note that I am referring specifically to patents, not Copyright. Copyright protects a specific _expression_ of an idea and is an important concept. This is true for both proprietary and open source software. Also other areas where research is an enormous cost factor (for example medical research) patents are essential to protect the cost of such research (or nobody would do it). Edit: Spelling
- nceqs3 4y ago
  Well you are in luck because neither of the types of patents you cited can be patented at all.
  - linuxhansl 4y ago
    Come on. This is not helpful. I am well aware of how these patents are phrased (apparatus, etc, etc) to work around the fact that just software cannot be patented, having been involved with quite a few of them.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
pkaye 4y ago
I had this idea on how to stop prior art being patented. Require the patenting entity put some money in escrow for say one year and if anyone in the public supplies prior art to invalidate that patent, they get the money as a reward.
hitovst 4y ago
Either we build open source, decentralizing, individual empowering, tech, or we work in support of our own enslavement. I know; we all wish it weren't so. It does not matter.
isaacfrond 4y ago
tl;dr; He is a retired attorney and a "firm believer in the patent system” so he filed for re-examination. A random google search gives the costs mere mortals can expect for that (source: https://www.lventre.com/reexam.html https://www.lventre.com/reexam.html) > Ex parte reexaminations. Expect total costs to be $20,000 - $45,000.
- zvr 4y ago
  I'm not sure he will agree with the "retired" part ;-)
supermatt 4y ago
I often come across bogus patents when i come up with small business ideas, but the cost for reexamination is so high as to bar entry into some domains (from $13000). Why are the costs so high to point out a mistake in the decision to grant a patent? Is the reexamination fee reimbursed should the patent be found invalid?
coreDNA123 4y ago
Leigh Rothschild, the troll in chief : https://www.linkedin.com/in/leigh-rothschild-bab450b/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/leigh-rothschild-bab450b/ Every once in a wile I get baffled by how american justice system is broken, lacks common sense and cannot be reformed. Aren't the judge able to spot such abusive and predatory patent trolls that attacks only small and weak companies that have no means to defend themselves? Here where I live each time I discuss US justice system I get reminded of this probably false story of the woman that sued and won against a microwave company because they didn't state in the manual that you cant dry your pet in the microwave, and killed her dog or whatever. Such inhuman system rewards just stupidity and greed.

594 points by reedciccio 4y ago

I mean, to the author, thank you. Can't believe it cost $150,000+ for the open source community to go through that litigation... Dorsey, and all the SV billionaires who made money off open source, perhaps it's time you "contribute back" by financing the fight against patent trolls...

tebruno99 4y ago
I understood that it cost Gnome $150k for Gnome to settle and obtain their own exclusive right of usage instead of doing the right thing and fight the patent.
- throw_m239339 4y ago
  > I understood that it cost Gnome $150k for Gnome to settle and obtain their own exclusive right of usage instead of doing the right thing and fight the patent. That's what I meant by "going through", they obviously couldn't fight it in court, would have cost a lot more...
- tedivm 4y ago
  They got that for free. What the $150k was spent on seems to be anyone's guess. > https://foundation.gnome.org/2020/05/20/patent-case-against-gnome-resolved/ https://foundation.gnome.org/2020/05/20/patent-case-against-... https://foundation.gnome.org/2020/05/20/patent-case-against-gnome-resolved/ https://foundation.gnome.org/2020/05/20/patent-case-against-...
smoldesu 4y ago
I doubt any of them made any significant money off of the GNOME stack, defending it would be pretty... odd. If someone litigated the OpenSearch, Yarn or Homebrew devs, then yeah, I think it would be reasonable to expect Big Tech to step in. But why GNOME? They've long gone their own way, even making a big deal of their "my way or the highway" development stance. If I was $(MULTIMILLIONAIRE_CORP) I would probably just be laughing, so long as my name wasn't Red Hat. Come to think of it, why didn't Red Hat step in here? Afaik, their entire raison d'être is keeping lawyers on retainer for these express purposes. Have the GNOME maintainers really burned that many bridges?
noizejoy 4y ago
Not sure why you’re advocating private, rather than company funding (by companies who have benefited greatly from open source). Also don’t understand, how naming one specific individual adds to the quality of the suggestion.
nullc 4y ago
> I mean, to the author, thank you. Can't believe it cost $150,000+ for the open source community to go through that litigation... 150k isn't much. Probably doesn't get you through initial motions against a well funded adversary. > Dorsey, and all the SV billionaires who made money off open source, I wouldn't know about his actions in other open source areas, but Dorsey specifically has directly funded defense against patent and vexatious litigation around Bitcoin and against open source developers. https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2022-January/019741.html https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2022... In particular, a billionaire funded party filed a lawsuit against a dozen current and former developers (including myself!) alleging that we owned him some $6 billion dollars in damages for failing to grant him bitcoins that he claims he lost due to a 'hack' (which sounded like something out of a bad movie plot). The plaintiff alleged that the software's MIT license was irrelevant and that the people wrote the software owe a fiduciary duty to make whole users who lost funds through no fault of the developers. ... a conclusion that would probably mark the end of volunteer contributions in open source generally since no sane person would voluntarily subject themselves to unlimited liability due to publishing some free code. Fortunately, at considerable cost we were able to convince the court that they failed to establish that their action had more than a fanciful potential for success and got it dismissed in initial motions (though presumably they'll appeal). It also sounds like the same party intends to launch a multitude of additional lawsuits on other basis including patent infringement (which they've been filing 3-4 patents per week in furtherance of, in an apparent attack via sheer volume), and has already filed defamation lawsuits against several journalists and community members ( https://cswarchive.info/ https://cswarchive.info/ ). Direct defense costs across all parties and actions is in the millions now, without counting the man hours and stress of the defendants, and continuing to grow without a clear end in sight. And all this is just trouble created by a single entity. Support from those who benefit from open source systems is crucial but because of the astronomical cost of defending even laughable lawsuits attackers will continue to have an upper hand without public policy changes. We benefit substantially already from the 2010 SPEECH act, which protects US persons from the UK's abusive libel regime. The EU is apparently considering similar legislation with respect to the UK that if in place would likely have protected at least one of the people currently being sued. But the abuse of lawsuits for coercion and extortion aren't limited to libel or the UK-- rather, attackers will use the easiest path and with that one closed they'll use others.

karmanyaahm 4y ago

Can someone ELI5 what this the RPI patent (US9936086B2) even tried to patent? Their claims look like the description of just any digital camera and a connected web service (Google Photos). [1] https://patents.google.com/patent/US9936086B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US9936086B2/en

asciimov 4y ago
I'm not a Lawyer. It looks like it was trying to cover the idea of sharing pictures between devices. Not the process of doing said sharing, but the idea.
ww520 4y ago
The claims basically say the system is a device with wireless input and wireless output (think a computer with WiFi in/out connections). The device receives a bunch of photos from the wireless input, filters the photo based on some criteria, and sends the filtered resulting photos to another mobile devices via the wireless output. Shotwell's feature kind of fits the description is that it downloads photos from a WiFi connection, organizes the photos by theme/date/etc (filtering), and shares the photos to FB/Twitter/etc (sending via WiFi). Basically any network connected photo editing/organizing software is in dangerous. The patent obviously lacks innovation and slipped through the approval process. The court agreed and invalidated the patent.
- danamit 4y ago
  Why patents seem to thrive in some countries more than others?

coolhoody 4y ago

> “offers a number of ways to wirelessly share photos online such as through social media.” How was it possible to patent this in 2018? https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/01/50/f8/a8e7c12c764d15/US9936086.pdf https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/01/50/f8/a8e7c12...

raverbashing 4y ago
Seems like the patent office will sign everything that stands still for a certain time, regardless of their merits
- acomjean 4y ago
  Why wouldn't they? They make their moneyy from Patent Fees. If they stopped granting Patents their revenue stream dries up. They have no incentive not to approve patents. I'm wondering why companies don't sue the Patent office when the patent used against them is invalidated (often some companies are still paying fees because they settled. )
  - mcv 4y ago
    > Why wouldn't they? Because they shouldn't be about making money. They should be about encouraging innovation.
azinman2 4y ago
It was filed in 2008, seemed granted in 2018
- coolhoody 4y ago
  > Filed: 2017
  - mikeyouse 4y ago
    It's an extension of this (granted) patent which was filed in 2008: https://patents.justia.com/patent/8204437 https://patents.justia.com/patent/8204437

cmeacham98 4y ago

There needs to be anti-SLAPP style legislation for patent trolls. I honestly don't understand why there isn't: it seems like an easy PR win for legislators. Who would be against this (except patent trolls)?

_jal 4y ago
I suspect lots of large companies that do make things but also hold many, many patents would object. Patents can a potent weapon, especially if you have a lot of them in a specific area. So to answer your question, I would expect opposition from anyone with a big portfolio who wants unencumbered range of motion to use them offensively. So for specific examples from the little corner of the world focused on here, I suspect and easy ones are Qualcomm and IBM. Probably Microsoft, probably Apple, but they've both surprised on some things recently.
- lstodd 4y ago
  They "hold many, many patents" (usually worthless) to have an "unencumbered range of motion to use them offensively" against similar entities. If the whole idea of using bullshit patents to defend against someone's threat of some other bullshit patents gets buried at last, then everyone wins because not having to trade "portfolios of bullshit patents" back and forth lowers costs of business for everyone. This was obvious at least 30 years ago, where have you been?
  - _jal 4y ago
    > This was obvious at least 30 years ago, where have you been? Watching things like this happen: https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/11/21363629/qualcomm-win-appeal-antitrust-ftc-lawsuit-frand-patents-chips https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/11/21363629/qualcomm-win-app... What color is the sunrise on the planet you inhabit?
webmaven 4y ago
> There needs to be anti-SLAPP style legislation for patent trolls. I honestly don't understand why there isn't: it seems like an easy PR win for legislators. Who would be against this (except patent trolls)? The American Intellectual Property Law Association, for one. It isn't too hard to look up who supported and opposed the Patent Reform Acts of 2005, 2007, and 2009. Wikipedia has pretty good summaries.

marcodiego 4y ago

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

AdmiralAsshat 4y ago

Good on Mr. Smith. But was he in any way involved with the legal defense team for GNOME? The story reads to me like GNOME spent $150k on a legal defense that saved themselves and carved out a little niche for FOSS projects, but otherwise allowed the patent troll to continue profiting from this patent. > Of course, that’s little comfort to the 20+ victims attacked after GNOME with the now-proven-worthless Rothschild ‘086 patent, or the 50+ companies targeted with related patents that haven’t yet been re-examined. Meanwhile, it looks like Mr. Smith basically did what the GNOME defense team should have done from the start and got the patent invalidated, with no funds to speak of.

tssva 4y ago
When GNOME was raising the 150k they said they would not settle and would battle until the patent was overturned. People donated based upon this and then GNOME settled. This is why when things like the he said/she said argument with System 76 have come up I am mystified that some people are ready to believe GNOME's take. They have already shown that they are a project whose leadership's word can't be trusted.
- tedivm 4y ago
  According to the Gnome website they didn't have to pay their lawyers, so I'm wondering where that money went. > GNOME was represented pro-bono by Matt Berkowitz, Kieran Kieckhefer, Joy Wang and Larry Crouch from Shearman & Sterling LLP. https://foundation.gnome.org/2020/05/20/patent-case-against-gnome-resolved/ https://foundation.gnome.org/2020/05/20/patent-case-against-...
  - JamesBarney 4y ago
    There are lots of expenses in a legal case besides just the lawyers, like expert witness, process servers, etc..
  - gralx 4y ago
    I suspect it went into the settlement payment. Wouldn't it be ironic if so many principled advocates of open source and supporters of the GNOME project had their funds paid directly to a patent troll by GNOME themselves?

gjsman-1000 4y ago

How about we make "non-practicing entity" a defense in a patent lawsuit? That, if you can prove that the owner of the patent is an NPE (and doesn't reasonably license or innovate or even try to innovate, only sue or unreasonably license), case tossed...

AnimalMuppet 4y ago
Let's say I'm some random individual, and I have a great idea, and I patent it. Let's say it's the patent on interval wipers on cars. But I'm not an auto company, so what I do with it is, I try to license the patent to auto companies. But they say, hey, this guy is a non-practicing entity, so we can invalidate his patent on that grounds alone, so why would we license it? That gets us a world without patent trolls, and without interval wipers (and everything else invented by an individual inventor who wasn't in a position to start a company to implement the idea). Is that a strictly better world?
- gjsman-1000 4y ago
  It would not compare to my proposal directly because: “I try to license the patent to auto companies” Many patent trolls never even attempt licensing, they just wait to sue or settle. This would not remove all trolls but would be a first step.
  - nceqs3 4y ago
    The suit always comes after they try to license (a.k.a settle) and are denied.
    - Aachen 4y ago
      If you're only suing different parties that independently also discovered your invention, that's a different thing than trying to sell your patent to an entity that is actually going to produce the invention and make use of it. Maybe patents should indeed only be enforceable by those that produce the invention (practicing entities as it was called above, not sure if that's an official term or something they came up with) and if you want royalties then you should put that in the contract when you sell the patent rather than sitting on patents without doing anything useful. That way we can have individual inventors (they are rewarded by what they make from the patent's sale) without also allowing trolls to claim to be inventors (because "NPEs" can't actually sue for infringement). Or perhaps this should be a software thing, I don't know enough about how well this stuff worked for other fields honestly. I've only ever heard bad stories but then I also hang out with open source communities. Edit: I realized one might think this makes the patent useless. If you can't sue for infringement as entity that doesn't produce the invention itself, any company could produce it and ignore you. Correct. However, I'm sure that if EvilCorp ignores your patent sale offer and produces GreatInvention without a license, MegaCompetitor would love to take the GreatInvention patent off your hands and license it to EvilCorp (or not and just block further use by EvilCorp). Thus the inventor can still be rewarded for the sale (incentivizing inventions), the new owner gets benefits of exclusivity for the parent's remaining duration, and it forces the invention to be available on the market (it can't only be locked away uselessly). There's something to say for gjsman-1000's idea, or shall we say, invention

speedgoose 4y ago

Could the Gnome foundation move to France to escape software patents?

PeterisP 4y ago
No, because while the foundation could 'escape software patents' the software itself can't, an adverse patent-related USA court decision would then make that software illegal to distribute and use in USA which is probably not satisfactory to the Gnome foundation so they still would have to fight it in court.

Mo3 4y ago

https://foundation.gnome.org/2020/05/20/patent-case-against-gnome-resolved/ https://foundation.gnome.org/2020/05/20/patent-case-against-... > Leigh Rothschild said “I’m pleased that we have managed to settle this issue amicably. I have always supported the innovation of open source software and its developers and encourage its innovation and adoption.” FOR SURE, BUDDY. That sounds like something Putin would say after he gets absolutely decimated by the Ukrainians.

saddist0 4y ago
Thanks for highlighting the line for everyone of us here. Unfortunately, please don't make HN comments similar to the Reddit ones... :')
- Mo3 4y ago
  Hahaha, I definitely didn’t mean to kick off political discussion in here. I’m happy this isn’t Reddit. Just couldn’t help but notice the similarity.
  - muybasado 4y ago

bitwize 4y ago

Man, where was McCoy Smith in the days of the Amiga CD32, which was banned from sale in the USA because of a patent on (I'm not making this up) the XOR bitwise operation?

nonrandomstring 4y ago

> Perhaps it's time for the law to adjust to the point where the stakes for the troll are high Take that further. The stakes should be high against all adjacent patent holders. Ultimately if we want to keep a working patent system it's too much work to rely on piecemeal independent cases like this, albeit a great success. The system has to self-police to be fair, and perhaps the best people to keep trolls and mischievous opportunists on a leash are the bigger players with legitimate patents. They must be fiven a motivated interest in eliminating trolls. If you sell a gun to an unstable crazy who shoots up the neighbourhood then some blame lies with you. While the transfer of patents between concerned partner companies and subsidiaries seems okay, the market for trading patents simply as value assets needs destroying. Ultimately its probably better if we move to a world where a lot of "intellectual property" expires with it's holder and passes into the public domain. To apply a leverage point analysis, it's probably time to reexamine and change the rules about the transferability of patents. Does the purchaser have a legitimate justification to hold the patent? If no, it forfeits.

amelius 4y ago
The problem is that the people who determine patent law (mostly patent officers/lawyers/judges) benefit from the current system.
- javajosh 4y ago
  This is at the root of a broader problem with the judicial system, which is that it systematically fails to do its job in a timely manner. But that's okay with the actors, because they bill by the hour. That's not exaggeration or hyperbole; I've never seen a class of people do less for more than attorneys and judges, who go out of their way to be pleasant and accommodating to each other, with total disregard for the matters at hand. And so we have even simple matters drag on for months or years. At the end of the day, "justice" is what we buy with our conformance to society. When nations fight over systems of government, it's really a fight over what justice means. The current system is broken, but it's owned by old, rich, intelligent people who know what power is and how to use it, how to keep it, how to rationalize it. Even the good ones fall, when they see how goodness and self-restraint is rewarded by their peers, lest they lose their power. I do not think there is a realistic path to reform. The US justice system should be replaced, entirely, with something closer to the German system, which is far less concerned with where evidence comes from, for example, and far more concerned with whether its true. Things happen much faster, and most argumentation is done in writing. Attorneys are forbidden from advertising - which used to be the case in the US, too. But of course they got that changed. It's also remarkable how often a German attorney refers to the law - they treat it as a rulebook as for a board game, whereas in the states the judge, in practice, has absolute power over all participants and is free to ignore the law, or invent new law. (Well, they aren't supposed to be, but the process for holding a judge to account is, if you can imagine it, even worse than the rest of the system. Gee whiz, I wonder how that happened?)

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

> none is as powerful as challenging the nefarious patents directly Why don't we see this deployed against competitors? I get why the big boys wouldn't want to rock the boat. But hiring a patent lawyer to go through a competitor's patents and challenge the ones they think could be flimsy sounds like a decent way to, at the very least, distract them.

nullc 4y ago
"It's a poor atom blaster that won't point both ways.". There are all sorts of competitive attacks that don't happen because they can go both ways. You also don't see companies having their competitors corporate executives followed by PIs and then sending pictures showing their adultery to the tabloids. Besides, if you try and fail you effectively strengthen the patent. Better to wait to try to undermine the patents they specifically try to assert against you-- 75% percent of patents lose claims on re-exam, so the patent holder knows they will likely have their scope narrowed which makes them more likely to agree to license or not enforce at all against a wealthy competitor (e.g. one that could afford to go after their patents preemptively). If the patent has already been re-examined the patent holder would have reason to be more aggressive and less compromising.

AlbertCory 4y ago

The heading is somewhat misleading, in that one might read it as "the troll lost all rights to any patents, ever." If you (correctly) didn't read it that way, you can ignore the rest of this. What they actually lost is that patent. It was reexamined and all its claims were cancelled. Reexamination is a standard tactic against a patent infringement suit, and we did it all the time at Google. A reexamination is a mini-trial, with no jury; just a bunch of patent law experts. It costs less than a full trial but still can be $500,000 or so. A troll will offer to settle for a small amount rather than risk getting their patent cancelled. I think it's fair to call it "irresponsible" if you pay them that ransom, but of course, it's cheaper for you that way.

jimmydddd 4y ago
Re "irresponsible." Most business legal matters are about money. Settling can save the company money. It's just a business decision. Those who take it personally often end up spending more time and money than is needed.
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  > spending more time and money than is needed Needed for what? To make it go away for you, while the troll gets more money to extort everyone else?
- educaysean 4y ago
  Well obviously it was a "business decision". Are we supposed to be moved by the fact that the ultimate decision was based on greed? Companies can care about their bottom line while serving their community in a responsible manner. Companies going carbon neutral are doing it to improve their image, etc. but the consequences have net benefits for the society. No one's going to call that irresponsible. Feeding the patent troll market with the money that was donated to fight them off? Irresponsible.
  - AlbertCory 4y ago
    Hear. The troll's business model is: 1. Buy patent (after due diligence) 2. Sue lots of easy marks (companies like OP's that will just write a check) 3. Use that money to fund suits against the tougher targets 4. Go for the big payday (a large jury verdict against a major company) Where am I getting this? We had a talk by a former troll when I was in Google Legal. So OP is at #2.

silexia 4y ago

Abolish the patent system and see innovation leap ahead and prices precipitously drop.

avastmick 4y ago
I lean towards this sentiment - I think the patent and copyright structures limit innovation. The concept that an idea is worth anything without successful implementation is flawed in my opinion. However, has any research been done on the actual implications of patent and copyright removal? I may be naïve in my thinking.

carlsborg 4y ago

Its crazy that this didnt hit the front page of HN before the verdict. > That prompted over 4,000 Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) community members to rally in defense of the GNOME Foundation, raising over $150,000 to defend against the bogus claim

rdtsc 4y ago

The owner of https://www.corporationwiki.com/p/2rwhc6/rothschild-patent-imaging-llc https://www.corporationwiki.com/p/2rwhc6/rothschild-patent-i... seems to run a whole slew of patent trolling shell companies (40 in total or so). They'll probably just make another shell company and keep going.

parentheses 4y ago

I found it funny that the article refers to the troll with the pronoun “it”

jmyeet 4y ago

> Perhaps it's time for the law to adjust to the point where the stakes for the troll are high enough to make it less appealing as a business? No, that's just polishing the brass on the Titanic. Patents on software just shouldn't exist. At all. We already have established laws where you can't patent maths. An algorithm is just a function. It should be covered by the maths disqualifier. The fact that a smartphone could could contain and potentially violate literally thousands of patents is a complete anathema to the original intent of the system and it should be a huge red flag to the entire idea of software patents.

thechao 4y ago
If IP is real property, it should be taxed. The tax system I like for IP works for hire is this: each year you owe 1/4% * N (where N is the age of the IP) in taxes on the IP. Whatever you pay, the "public" (anyone/everyone else) can pay the balance to the USPTO (or LoC) to move that IP in to the public domain. Non-works-for-hire last for some fixed time, or until all the authors/inventors are dead, whichever comes first. A principal distinction between "works-for-hire" and "private works" is that a private owned work gives any of the authors/inventors unilateral rights to rescind contracts without contractual repercussion.
- robbedpeter 4y ago
  This leads to the notion of being taxed for having a brain. Software patents shouldn't exist. The concept is patently absurd.
  - rhizome 4y ago
    >This leads to the notion of being taxed for having a brain Isn't this the same logic as used in the US against capital gains taxes, that a person is being punished for being successful?
    - cascom 4y ago
      Ehh - the more typical one is that the person already paid tax on it when they made the money the first time

snvzz 4y ago

When something like this happens, it should automatically reduce the burden for contesting the other patents owned by the same entity.

Aachen 4y ago
How hard is spinning up an "entity", though? More like the judge ought to award damages in terms of the time and means required for setting up that fundraiser and all other extra-legal expenses on top of the lawyers whose pro bono work could have been better spent. If the troll, or its parent, has to pay that out of pocket, in addition to losing the patent, maybe that makes an impression.

AlbertCory 4y ago

This discussion comes up regularly. Here's something that would work, maybe, eventually. It IS simple; it's just not easy. You have to realize that lawyers and politicians don't want to fix problems; they want to make a living off them. Who wants to lead this effort (and don't say "you" because I'm retired)? 1. Get someone with legal training to write legislation fixing this situation. Personally, I think just declaring software as not patentable subject matter is the core of the solution, but that's to be decided. 2. Get a Congressman to introduce it into the House or Senate. Let's say it becomes "H.R. 666" or some other number. 3. For every Congressional candidate, ask them "Do you support H.R. 666?" Make it clear that your support depends on a Yes answer. That's a language they can understand. Will this work? Well, it stands a chance. Comments on a thread like this don't have much chance at all of effecting any change.

colburnmh 4y ago

The title is misleading RPI has lost patent claims on the "Rothschild '086", which is the one that they used to sue GNOME. But they still have the right to pursue other patent claims that they have in their portfolio.

codedokode 4y ago

This seems like a loss. Gnome and other companies had to pay money (as I understand) for an invalid patent, a patent lawyer had to pay for re-examination and a patent troll lost nothing except for a patent that was invalid anyway. Are vaguely worded patents legal? For example, if someone in the age of black-and-white TV would patent an idea that "colors can be transmitted wirelessly or by wire, decoded or not decoded by a TV or other electronic or non-electronic device and displayed or not displayed on a screen or other medium". Would this idea without any research count as a valid patent application? Please explain, knowledgable people.

mplewis 4y ago
What would make a vaguely worded patent illegal?
- GoblinSlayer 4y ago
  When it doesn't describe an invention. E.g. a patent on "a device that does something".
pabs3 4y ago
GNOME never paid money to the patent troll.

VWWHFSfQ 4y ago

The patent in question that was invalidated [0]: Wireless image distribution system and method Abstract A system and method for distributing at least one digital photographic image is presented, the system and method comprising at least one capturing device and at least one receiving device disposed in a communicative relation with one another via at least one wireless network. In particular, the capturing device is structured to capture the at least one digital photographic image via, for example, a capture assembly, whereas the receiving device is cooperatively structured to receive the digital photographic image via, for example, the at least one wireless network. In addition, the capturing device(s) and receiving device(s) may be disposed in a selectively paired relationship via one or more common pre-defined pairing criteria. Further, the at least one digital photographic image may be filtered via at least one pre-defined transfer criteria disposed on the capturing device and/or receiving device. [0] https://patents.google.com/patent/US9936086B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US9936086B2/en TL;DR some kind of device sends an image to some kind of "paired" companion device wirelessly.

lostdog 4y ago
Being a patent examiner must be a real trip. You put your toothpaste on slightly different bristles of your toothbrush than yesterday? NOVEL!! You take a slightly different route backing out of your driveway. NOVEL!! You write a cheque, and use a date that's one day later than any other date that has ever existed before? NOVEL!! You stir your coffee 4 times instead of 3 times? NOVEL!! I only wish I could experience this much novelty in my day-to-day life.

mmcconnell1618 4y ago

If patents exist as a legal form of intellectual property, they should be able to be purchased and exchanged in a commercial market. Authors, composers and other creators of works with intellectual property rights can transfer or sell those rights and there is no obligation for the purchaser to do anything with the work other than own it and collect royalties. In the case of a song or a book, it is simple (in most cases) to know that someone is performing your song or publishing your book without consent. This isn't the case with patents. There is an involved process to determine if a given entity is violating another's patent rights. This friction in determining right from wrong is the mechanism that allows patent trolls to extract a toll from anyone who isn't able or willing to fight the claim. This puts an asymmetric amount of leverage in the hands of the patent trolls. Some mechanism/legislation needs to be put in place to balance the power so that there is a higher cost to the patent owner who brings spurious claims.

linuxhansl 4y ago

Software patents and patents on business processes should not be allowed. Period. An idea has no cost and society does not benefit from granting monopolies on ideas. Note that I am referring specifically to patents, not Copyright. Copyright protects a specific _expression_ of an idea and is an important concept. This is true for both proprietary and open source software. Also other areas where research is an enormous cost factor (for example medical research) patents are essential to protect the cost of such research (or nobody would do it). Edit: Spelling

nceqs3 4y ago
Well you are in luck because neither of the types of patents you cited can be patented at all.
- linuxhansl 4y ago
  Come on. This is not helpful. I am well aware of how these patents are phrased (apparatus, etc, etc) to work around the fact that just software cannot be patented, having been involved with quite a few of them.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

pkaye 4y ago

I had this idea on how to stop prior art being patented. Require the patenting entity put some money in escrow for say one year and if anyone in the public supplies prior art to invalidate that patent, they get the money as a reward.

hitovst 4y ago

Either we build open source, decentralizing, individual empowering, tech, or we work in support of our own enslavement. I know; we all wish it weren't so. It does not matter.

isaacfrond 4y ago

tl;dr; He is a retired attorney and a "firm believer in the patent system” so he filed for re-examination. A random google search gives the costs mere mortals can expect for that (source: https://www.lventre.com/reexam.html https://www.lventre.com/reexam.html) > Ex parte reexaminations. Expect total costs to be $20,000 - $45,000.

zvr 4y ago
I'm not sure he will agree with the "retired" part ;-)

supermatt 4y ago

I often come across bogus patents when i come up with small business ideas, but the cost for reexamination is so high as to bar entry into some domains (from $13000). Why are the costs so high to point out a mistake in the decision to grant a patent? Is the reexamination fee reimbursed should the patent be found invalid?

coreDNA123 4y ago

Leigh Rothschild, the troll in chief : https://www.linkedin.com/in/leigh-rothschild-bab450b/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/leigh-rothschild-bab450b/ Every once in a wile I get baffled by how american justice system is broken, lacks common sense and cannot be reformed. Aren't the judge able to spot such abusive and predatory patent trolls that attacks only small and weak companies that have no means to defend themselves? Here where I live each time I discuss US justice system I get reminded of this probably false story of the woman that sued and won against a microwave company because they didn't state in the manual that you cant dry your pet in the microwave, and killed her dog or whatever. Such inhuman system rewards just stupidity and greed.