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To play devil's advocate, there is nothing about being a patent troll inherently illegal. Hotz feels the patent is invalid, but it might not be. Our system does

To play devil's advocate, there is nothing about being a patent troll inherently illegal. Hotz feels the patent is invalid, but it might not be. Our system does not require you to ever build the object patented before extracting fees from it. This is in fact the way the US patent system works. One of the patents is here: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/10454707 https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/10454707 Method, Apparatus and System for Retrofitting a Vehicle. This does in fact describe what Comma does. Looks like it might be infringing! Now Comma must prove this patent cannot be valid.

georgehotz 4y ago
The patent in the complaint doesn't even have anything to do with what we do as a company! It describes a system that calls 911 when it detects a crash (like onstar). Ignore the (very generic) title and read on in the actual patent. https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/10454707 https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/10454707 We write open source ADAS software, and it doesn't have any functionality like that: https://github.com/commaai/openpilot https://github.com/commaai/openpilot But for the purposes of attempting to extract a settlement, it doesn't matter. It will only matter after a long and expensive trial. (I would like to invalidate the patent entirely, which several of their patents already have been. But even if it is valid, it also has to apply to us)
- totse 4y ago
- sebastien_b 4y ago
  Once you’re done crushing this patent troll, go after the USPTO for granting bogus patents in the first place - you shouldn’t have to bear the costs of fixing their fuckups.
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  The disclosures in the patent aren't what they are suing you over. Read the claims. Patents like this often have a lot of stuff shoved into the disclosure so that they can keep the patent application alive to write more patents based on the original disclosure. The claims appear to be written to read on devices like yours: My knowledge of your system is a bit dated, but I thought you had a device that you plugged into a port in the car instead of a manufacturer-installed thing. This is why this patent has a 2007 priority date, but a 2018 application date: they essentially wrote a ridiculously broad disclosure, and kept filing patents based on it. Dataspeed did appear to have tried to invalidate this patent in 2019 (see the IPR documents linked there), and succeeded on all but claim 20. If your device does not have a relay which shuts off its electrical connection within the car, you're probably safe. You could try to invalidate it, but you should read the docs from the IPR to see what Dataspeed did and what you might need to do. My gut-check guess is that claim 20 is probably not going to get invalidated unless you can find some weird after-market car part from before 2007 which does a safety shut-off of a car component.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - gregsadetsky 4y ago
    The DARPA Grand Challenge ran in 2004 and 2005 (i.e. before 2007) and the cars there definitely all had emergency shut off mechanisms. Maybe one of the competitors used an existing (i.e. not custom made) car part for this? ——— Found this from 2004: “A DARPA-provided electronic stop device allowed a remote control shut-down of the vehicle in case of an emergency” Is that a lead? [0] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Reinhold-Behringer/publication/4092514_The_DARPA_grand_challenge_-_development_of_an_autonomous_vehicle/links/00463534fb60fde831000000/The-DARPA-grand-challenge-development-of-an-autonomous-vehicle.pdf?origin=publication_detail https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Reinhold-Behringer/publ...
    - pclmulqdq 4y ago
      This is a good start but not fully there. Ideally you would like a bigger published technical description of that electronic stop device, so you can map the device onto the claims to show that a claimed device existed before the patent was filed.
    - barelycompetent 4y ago
      A lead would need to teach significantly more to even be considered. Does the vehicle have (1) an after-market device installed that (2) detects that a first component stopped sending commands to a second component and (3) uses relay switch to disconnect the failed first component from the second component and (4) starts sending commands to the second component on its own that are indistinguishable from those sent by the first component? Technically, the above requirements are needed against claim 20 of '707. Claim 6 requires fewer features. That doesn't help us because: (1) claim 20 is asserted in the complaint [0], and (2) claim 20 was upheld in a previous challenge to its validity (an "IPR"), so it's got some staying power. [0] https://blog.comma.ai/img/20220824085232055.pdf https://blog.comma.ai/img/20220824085232055.pdf
- barelycompetent 4y ago
  You are describing one scenario where this invention could be used ("a system that calls 911 when it detects a crash"). The legal protection provided by this patent is _not_ limited to any specific context or scenario. Let's take '707 claim 6. _Any_ commercial product with each and every one of the following bullet points ("limitations" in lawyer-speak) infringes and must purchase a license to this patent. [1] A vehicle, comprising: [2] a factory-installed first apparatus configured to generate an electrical signal; [3] a factory-installed second apparatus configured to receive the electrical signal; and [4] a retrofit apparatus electrically connected to the factory-installed second apparatus, [5] wherein the retrofit apparatus generates a mimicked electrical signal independently of the electrical signal generated by the factory-installed first apparatus, and [6] wherein the factory-installed second apparatus receives the mimicked electrical signal.
kstrauser 4y ago
The devil doesn't need an advocate. And at any rate, "illegal" is not the same as "immoral". Even if the troll's actions are within the law, in my opinion they're utterly immoral and scummy.
- nathanvanfleet 4y ago
  > The devil doesn't need an advocate. I like that statement. "I'll be the devil's advocate" is right up there with everyone stating they will defend hate speech "to the death" because of free speech. Why not take your time to say you disagree with someone instead?
  - kstrauser 4y ago
    There's a time and place for it, like "devil's advocate: what if we decide we don't trust this vendor's performance and want to delete our data after we've already started using them?" But when it's shorthand for "I'm going to be deliberately contrarian, and ...", then I tire of it.
- caf 4y ago
  The devil doesn't need an advocate. Is this because the devil is a qualified attorney himself?
  - kstrauser 4y ago
    Lawyer joke: He's surround by 'em.
nathanvanfleet 4y ago
I'm not sure he's making a legal claim when he says they're not building anything. I think he's just trying to establish that they are not adding anything to the universe and are just parasites. Companies that are actually adding value are being preyed on by patent trolls. It's a kind of capitalist entropy
llanowarelves 4y ago
You can often use legal fees of going through a case you know you'll lose to crush the other person. The process -- your "day in court" (years of fees and stress) -- is the punishment, turning your "win" into only a Pyrrhic victory.
barelycompetent 4y ago

georgehotz 4y ago

The patent in the complaint doesn't even have anything to do with what we do as a company! It describes a system that calls 911 when it detects a crash (like onstar). Ignore the (very generic) title and read on in the actual patent. https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/10454707 https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/10454707 We write open source ADAS software, and it doesn't have any functionality like that: https://github.com/commaai/openpilot https://github.com/commaai/openpilot But for the purposes of attempting to extract a settlement, it doesn't matter. It will only matter after a long and expensive trial. (I would like to invalidate the patent entirely, which several of their patents already have been. But even if it is valid, it also has to apply to us)

totse 4y ago
sebastien_b 4y ago
Once you’re done crushing this patent troll, go after the USPTO for granting bogus patents in the first place - you shouldn’t have to bear the costs of fixing their fuckups.
pclmulqdq 4y ago
The disclosures in the patent aren't what they are suing you over. Read the claims. Patents like this often have a lot of stuff shoved into the disclosure so that they can keep the patent application alive to write more patents based on the original disclosure. The claims appear to be written to read on devices like yours: My knowledge of your system is a bit dated, but I thought you had a device that you plugged into a port in the car instead of a manufacturer-installed thing. This is why this patent has a 2007 priority date, but a 2018 application date: they essentially wrote a ridiculously broad disclosure, and kept filing patents based on it. Dataspeed did appear to have tried to invalidate this patent in 2019 (see the IPR documents linked there), and succeeded on all but claim 20. If your device does not have a relay which shuts off its electrical connection within the car, you're probably safe. You could try to invalidate it, but you should read the docs from the IPR to see what Dataspeed did and what you might need to do. My gut-check guess is that claim 20 is probably not going to get invalidated unless you can find some weird after-market car part from before 2007 which does a safety shut-off of a car component.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- gregsadetsky 4y ago
  The DARPA Grand Challenge ran in 2004 and 2005 (i.e. before 2007) and the cars there definitely all had emergency shut off mechanisms. Maybe one of the competitors used an existing (i.e. not custom made) car part for this? ——— Found this from 2004: “A DARPA-provided electronic stop device allowed a remote control shut-down of the vehicle in case of an emergency” Is that a lead? [0] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Reinhold-Behringer/publication/4092514_The_DARPA_grand_challenge_-_development_of_an_autonomous_vehicle/links/00463534fb60fde831000000/The-DARPA-grand-challenge-development-of-an-autonomous-vehicle.pdf?origin=publication_detail https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Reinhold-Behringer/publ...
  - pclmulqdq 4y ago
    This is a good start but not fully there. Ideally you would like a bigger published technical description of that electronic stop device, so you can map the device onto the claims to show that a claimed device existed before the patent was filed.
  - barelycompetent 4y ago
    A lead would need to teach significantly more to even be considered. Does the vehicle have (1) an after-market device installed that (2) detects that a first component stopped sending commands to a second component and (3) uses relay switch to disconnect the failed first component from the second component and (4) starts sending commands to the second component on its own that are indistinguishable from those sent by the first component? Technically, the above requirements are needed against claim 20 of '707. Claim 6 requires fewer features. That doesn't help us because: (1) claim 20 is asserted in the complaint [0], and (2) claim 20 was upheld in a previous challenge to its validity (an "IPR"), so it's got some staying power. [0] https://blog.comma.ai/img/20220824085232055.pdf https://blog.comma.ai/img/20220824085232055.pdf
barelycompetent 4y ago
You are describing one scenario where this invention could be used ("a system that calls 911 when it detects a crash"). The legal protection provided by this patent is _not_ limited to any specific context or scenario. Let's take '707 claim 6. _Any_ commercial product with each and every one of the following bullet points ("limitations" in lawyer-speak) infringes and must purchase a license to this patent. [1] A vehicle, comprising: [2] a factory-installed first apparatus configured to generate an electrical signal; [3] a factory-installed second apparatus configured to receive the electrical signal; and [4] a retrofit apparatus electrically connected to the factory-installed second apparatus, [5] wherein the retrofit apparatus generates a mimicked electrical signal independently of the electrical signal generated by the factory-installed first apparatus, and [6] wherein the factory-installed second apparatus receives the mimicked electrical signal.

kstrauser 4y ago

The devil doesn't need an advocate. And at any rate, "illegal" is not the same as "immoral". Even if the troll's actions are within the law, in my opinion they're utterly immoral and scummy.

nathanvanfleet 4y ago
> The devil doesn't need an advocate. I like that statement. "I'll be the devil's advocate" is right up there with everyone stating they will defend hate speech "to the death" because of free speech. Why not take your time to say you disagree with someone instead?
- kstrauser 4y ago
  There's a time and place for it, like "devil's advocate: what if we decide we don't trust this vendor's performance and want to delete our data after we've already started using them?" But when it's shorthand for "I'm going to be deliberately contrarian, and ...", then I tire of it.
caf 4y ago
The devil doesn't need an advocate. Is this because the devil is a qualified attorney himself?
- kstrauser 4y ago
  Lawyer joke: He's surround by 'em.

nathanvanfleet 4y ago

I'm not sure he's making a legal claim when he says they're not building anything. I think he's just trying to establish that they are not adding anything to the universe and are just parasites. Companies that are actually adding value are being preyed on by patent trolls. It's a kind of capitalist entropy

llanowarelves 4y ago

You can often use legal fees of going through a case you know you'll lose to crush the other person. The process -- your "day in court" (years of fees and stress) -- is the punishment, turning your "win" into only a Pyrrhic victory.

barelycompetent 4y ago