4 ms·

The only saving grace of the patent system has been that when a legitimate company launches a patent lawsuit, it's possible to retaliate, so there is the possib

The only saving grace of the patent system has been that when a legitimate company launches a patent lawsuit, it's possible to retaliate, so there is the possibility that the tech giants would realize that futility of the war, and settle/call truces. That doesn't work with trolls.

pdwetz 14y ago
I wish I had a link handy, but the massive lawsuits firing back and forth between phone tech companies (apple, google, samsung, etc.) would argue against the Mutually Assured Destruction cold war theory for patents.
- jivatmanx 14y ago
  I think that Apple/Google/Samsung each still think that they can somehow "Win" the patent war. It should eventually become blindingly obvious to all of them that they can't.
  - belorn 14y ago
    Once rolling, there is no stop to the war until there is a winner declared by media.
    - ihsw 14y ago
      The article states that Samsung lost a lawsuit in the US against Apple, however it fails to mention other high-profile results of Apple v. Samsung legal rulings -- namely where Apple had to publicly apologize in the UK and issue a prominently-featured statement as such on their UK website. Other nations have ruled in favor of Apple, and vice versa, which further adds to the confusion of who is a victor.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  The real problem here starts when the big guys realize they are all untouchable, and start fighting proxy patent wars with each other by brutalizing small defenseless companies.
mtgx 14y ago
And even that mainly works in big corporation vs big corporation battles. If a big corporation goes after a small company, the small one can only hope to win the lawsuit, and that's if they can even afford the lawsuit. Otherwise they'll just have to pay the full asking price of the "trollish" BigCo.
jcromartie 14y ago
I never realized that before: since the trolls don't make anything, they could never infringe. Wow. Shouldn't there be a requirement to have an actual stake (i.e. sales lost) in order to file a lawsuit?
- jivatmanx 14y ago
  While (AverageReward > AverageLegalCosts) { Troll.FileLawsuit() }
  - amorphid 14y ago
    trolls = Attorney.where(is_troll: true) trolls.each { disbar }
- jfc 14y ago
  There is the legal concept of standing, in which a plaintiff has to demonstrate sufficient harm to bring a lawsuit. Don't know what the "trolls" are doing to meet this requirement. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_%28law%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_%28law%29 *Not legal advice, or any type of advice.
  - btilly 14y ago
    If you own a patent, and someone is infringing on your patent without paying you licensing fees that you would normally require from them, this is legally a form of theft and you have standing to sue them. Standing is not, therefore, a problem for this kind of lawsuit. (I am not a lawyer, nor is this legal advice.)
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - dangrossman 14y ago
    The harm is straightforward -- the lost patent licensing fees the infringer would have had to pay to use the patented invention. An inventor who has no money to take his invention to market licensing it to someone that does is part of how the patent system is supposed to work, so the fact that trolls also don't take their own inventions to market isn't anomalous in that regard.
knowtheory 14y ago
But that's not even the case. If you look at the way things like Intellectual Ventures (This American Life had a nice show on the subject: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/w... ), the modus operandi is to sell off, or even lease off a patent to a 3rd party that operates nominally at arms length, and use that shell or shadow organization to go after people. With that as a recourse, it'd be easy for anyone to essentially create an army of privateers out there raiding your competitors (okay maybe a navy would have been a better metaphor).

pdwetz 14y ago

I wish I had a link handy, but the massive lawsuits firing back and forth between phone tech companies (apple, google, samsung, etc.) would argue against the Mutually Assured Destruction cold war theory for patents.

jivatmanx 14y ago
I think that Apple/Google/Samsung each still think that they can somehow "Win" the patent war. It should eventually become blindingly obvious to all of them that they can't.
- belorn 14y ago
  Once rolling, there is no stop to the war until there is a winner declared by media.
  - ihsw 14y ago
    The article states that Samsung lost a lawsuit in the US against Apple, however it fails to mention other high-profile results of Apple v. Samsung legal rulings -- namely where Apple had to publicly apologize in the UK and issue a prominently-featured statement as such on their UK website. Other nations have ruled in favor of Apple, and vice versa, which further adds to the confusion of who is a victor.
jlgreco 14y ago
The real problem here starts when the big guys realize they are all untouchable, and start fighting proxy patent wars with each other by brutalizing small defenseless companies.

mtgx 14y ago

And even that mainly works in big corporation vs big corporation battles. If a big corporation goes after a small company, the small one can only hope to win the lawsuit, and that's if they can even afford the lawsuit. Otherwise they'll just have to pay the full asking price of the "trollish" BigCo.

jcromartie 14y ago

I never realized that before: since the trolls don't make anything, they could never infringe. Wow. Shouldn't there be a requirement to have an actual stake (i.e. sales lost) in order to file a lawsuit?

jivatmanx 14y ago
While (AverageReward > AverageLegalCosts) { Troll.FileLawsuit() }
- amorphid 14y ago
  trolls = Attorney.where(is_troll: true) trolls.each { disbar }
jfc 14y ago
There is the legal concept of standing, in which a plaintiff has to demonstrate sufficient harm to bring a lawsuit. Don't know what the "trolls" are doing to meet this requirement. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_%28law%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_%28law%29 *Not legal advice, or any type of advice.
- btilly 14y ago
  If you own a patent, and someone is infringing on your patent without paying you licensing fees that you would normally require from them, this is legally a form of theft and you have standing to sue them. Standing is not, therefore, a problem for this kind of lawsuit. (I am not a lawyer, nor is this legal advice.)
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- dangrossman 14y ago
  The harm is straightforward -- the lost patent licensing fees the infringer would have had to pay to use the patented invention. An inventor who has no money to take his invention to market licensing it to someone that does is part of how the patent system is supposed to work, so the fact that trolls also don't take their own inventions to market isn't anomalous in that regard.

knowtheory 14y ago

But that's not even the case. If you look at the way things like Intellectual Ventures (This American Life had a nice show on the subject: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/w... ), the modus operandi is to sell off, or even lease off a patent to a 3rd party that operates nominally at arms length, and use that shell or shadow organization to go after people. With that as a recourse, it'd be easy for anyone to essentially create an army of privateers out there raiding your competitors (okay maybe a navy would have been a better metaphor).