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Could someone explain to me why it was decided that Sable will release the patents to the public?
by vladde 2y ago
Could someone explain to me why it was decided that Sable will release the patents to the public?
- ISL 2y agoWith the verdict in-hand, Sable was probably voluntold by Cloudflare. If Cloudflare thought they had a shot at recovering costs, $225k and a patent-portfolio could be substantially less than whatever Cloudflare (or their insurance) had paid in defense-costs.
- lccerina 2y agoThey had those patents only to sue other companies and get money, now some of those patents were invalidated by prior art and to Sable are essentially toilet paper. The action is unlikely to be goodwill, more likely admitting defeat and closing the patent troll company.
- usrusr 2y agoCould a part of the motivation perhaps be quick, clean liquidation, before any of the companies who settled before cloudflare chose resistance might try to claw back some of the settlement?
- pclmulqdq 2y agoAs I read this, all but one of Sable's patent claims got invalidated in an IPR (a patent proceeding), and the last one got invalidated by a jury at trial. When your patents have no claims left, you aren't doing anything by releasing the patents to the public. It's been defanged anyway.
- psunavy03 2y agoSo they can't use them to sue anyone else ever again. Basically they're hosed.
- thrtythreeforty 2y agoCloudflare has negotiating power. They would prefer to give up some of the legal cost recoup in exchange for the public crucifixion of the trolling firm. It's intentionally painting a very scary picture of what happens when you sue Cloudflare, as a deterrent.
- pclmulqdq 2y agoThis has nothing to do with that. It's an optics win for cloudflare, but those patents are now worthless enough that Sable doesn't need them any more.
- epolanski 2y agoDeterrence. Cloud flare wanted to send a message to other potential patent trolls that they would not go for money damage but into invalidating their patents too.