10 ms·

Abolish The Patent, Vanquish The Troll

442 points by grimey27 13y ago

greghinch 13y ago
I really hope this is successful. I will begrudgingly admit that some patents probably are useful (that's a separate argument), but in the specific case of software, so many were granted at a time when general knowledge was very naive and so were unintentionally made to broad sweeping. Eliminating them is the best course of action. The fact that it will take an independent committee up to 1 year to do so for each one is rather less encouraging.
Avitas 13y ago
This type of behavior is commendable. Cheers Rackspace.
jonathanwallace 13y ago
Nothing makes me want to become a rackspace customer more than posts like this. I adore integrity.
- larrys 13y ago
  I'm also a RS customer but how do you see this as "integrity" as opposed to a regular business decision done with the intent to prevent future problems? (Noting also that there is the PR value of spending money this way as your comment proves!)
  - dublinben 13y ago
    Countless other companies in their position would pay the settlement and sign an NDA. We can never know the extent of this problem unless companies like RackSpace speak up.
    - rayval 13y ago
      Yes, it is also an indicator to me that if I am a RackSpace customer, and other issues come up (could be patents, could be government surveillance, or something else) that will affect me as a developer, Rackspace is more likely to be on my side than against me. Obviously, I expect Rackspace to pursue its own business self-interest, but often there are multiple ways to do that, and not all of them are win-win for both the hosting company and for its customers.
  - trhtrsh 13y ago
    For example, they could offer to buy the patent from the current holder, and finance an attack on their competitors. But they chose a higher road.
  - jonathanwallace 13y ago
    It may be both. And since Rackspace is loudly publicizing that their actions are based on their beliefs, if they were to ever act contrary to their established brand, they'd lose even more than if they were to do nothing at all.
- honzzz 13y ago
  Exactly. And I also try to avoid companies that settle. I totally understand why they do it but still... in my eyes it's like supporting terrorism. I feel it's wrong to give terrorists any money even when it's advantageous to your business or even when you are threatened by them.
  - feralmoan 13y ago
    That's a fine ideology but when trolls are diverting precious resource and focus away from actual innovation over protracted and expensive legal inventions, settling can be a pragmatic choice for just getting on with life. I'd love to be in RackSpace's position of being able to hammer down these worthless parasites.
    - gknoy 13y ago
      Once you settle, other trolls see you as a target. Kipling's Dane-Geld [1] explains this pretty well. "Getting on with life" is not something that paying extortionate patent settlements will always allow you to do. By spending more resources to not only defend themselves, but also destroy the weapon that the patent troll is using, Rackspace is advertising that not only do other trolls risk spending money in court, but they also risk the invalidation of their patents. Anyone trolling is unlikely to want to risk that. 1: http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/dane_geld.html http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/dane_geld.html
  - hkmurakami 13y ago
    IMO it's more like "negotiating with terrorists" than outright support (which is bad enough). The psychology/poli-sci experts have agreed on "don't negotiate terrorists" for a reason, and I think that attitude applies perfectly in this patent troll situation.
chime 13y ago
If IPR for screen-rotation ends up with nullifying the patent, can organizations like EFF start doing that pro-actively for other ridiculous patents like One-Click-Buy and Swipe-to-Unlock? Or does the patent-holder have to be proven as a troll?
- toasterlovin 13y ago
  I would guess that there are asymmetries that make this an untenable approach, long term. First, there is the asymmetry of cost, ie. it probably costs less money to file for and be granted a bogus patent than it costs to invalidate said patent. Secondly, there is the asymmetry of motivation, ie. patent trolls have greater financial motivation to file for bogus patents than other parties have financial motivation to invalidate these patents. These asymmetries are really the root of the problem. What's really needed is a lobbying group to pass legislation that changes the incentive structure, including, in my opinion, abolishing patents. The problem here is that many of the organizations who could fund such a lobbying group (like Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc.) have been coopted by the patent system, because they themselves are patent holders. Actually, its worse than that; they seem convinced that their patents have actual intrinsic value, which kind of makes sense. They spend a lot of money doing research and development, so of course they want to believe that a legal mechanism for preserving the value of that R&D is legitimate. This whole thing is frustrating...
  - rayiner 13y ago
    > Actually, its worse than that; they seem convinced that their patents have actual intrinsic value, which kind of makes sense. They spend a lot of money doing research and development, so of course they want to believe that a legal mechanism for preserving the value of that R&D is legitimate. Is it not? Should Apple, Google, etc, do the industry's R&D for free? Google's self-driving car is patented. Should Kia be allowed to come along and reverse-engineer the firmware and free-ride on their efforts? I'm not being confrontational, I'm genuinely interested to hear your viewpoint.
    - toasterlovin 13y ago
Arjuna 13y ago
On the topic, this is quite an interesting TED talk given by Drew Curtis. "You need to know that the average patent troll defense costs $2M and takes 18 months... when you win." Drew Curtis: How I Beat a Patent Troll https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_lb3D7Ay-M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_lb3D7Ay-M
- drakaal 13y ago
  Drew is exaggeration. I took on Acacia, it cost me nothing more than the travel, and time away from my primary business. Lawyers cost a lot of money, but for something like "the ability to rotate a mobile screen" that rackspace is fighting you don't need a lawyer. Prior art exists for rotating screens on desktops and tablet PCs. Feature parity on Mobile is not innovative. Obviousness is the challenge to a patent and the defense against its infringement. This is not a "risky" case. It is not a case that requires 4 lawyers for a year. It is a case for 1 guy part time for a year. Which if he is $400k a year could be $75k but it doesn't need to be that.
  - umsm 13y ago
    I believe the keyword here is "average". There are probably examples of cases on both ends of the spectrum: cases that dragged on to be very expensive and others that were resolved with a phone call or letter.
    - drakaal 13y ago
      Yes a billion dollar fight would skew the average a lot. Several fights between porn companies and streaming media changed the numbers as they were in the hundreds of millions range at that seriously messed with the average. The typical need not be so high.
arbuge 13y ago
"IPRs can be risky and costly. We know this IPR will cost us more than the $75,000 that Rotatable wanted to extort from us. But we are not just fighting for us; we are fighting for all the app developers who are also in the line of fire." Clearly the patent system is defective and needs to be fixed radically (or patents entirely eliminated in the software space, which I personally believe is preferable). Nevertheless the above suggests a possibility for a shorter-term fix. If companies could proactively band together in some kind of association to fund IPRs for every single troll attack, spreading out the costs of the IPR amongst the member companies, it would seem that this would make life for the trolls much harder. Indeed, simply listing your company membership in such an association on your website might be sufficient to ward them off, same as sticking alarm decals on car windows wards off many would-be car thieves.
- larrys 13y ago
  Wondering about a) antitrust issues with that and b) standing to file the IPR from an entity such as an association. (Question, not a statement to which I know the answer.)
  - freehunter 13y ago
    A way to get around b) would be to have the association merely provide financial help, or possibly have the association be a group of lawyers such as the EFF where they will represent the company who does have standing to sue.
  - arbuge 13y ago
    I don't see the relevance of either. Antitrust deals with breaking up colossal monopolies like AT&T and Standard Oil... not sure how that relates to this in any way. IPRs are a new concept to me, but I don't see why any entity can't challenge the validity of any patent. If there's a problem with that, which I doubt, the company receiving the troll attack could presumably be the challenger, with the association reimbursing its fees.
    - larrys 13y ago
kunai 13y ago
Without a doubt, one of the most honourable deeds that a company can do for the rest of the world. The courage and altruism displayed by Rackspace should serve as a reminder to any company: We cannot afford to let patent trolls win.
larrys 13y ago
"IPRs can be risky and costly. We know this IPR will cost us more than the $75,000 that Rotatable wanted to extort from us. " Would love to have the breakdown of where the legal fees are going to file the inter parties review. To me seems like several hundred hours of legal work involved. (75000/400 approx.) http://www.uspto.gov/aia_implementation/bpai.jsp#heading-1 http://www.uspto.gov/aia_implementation/bpai.jsp#heading-1 (Wondering also whether the IPR stays any legal proceedings that have started or prevents any legal proceedings.)
mandlar 13y ago
I wish the best of luck to Rackspace. As an independent Android developer, I live with the slight fear that one day I'm going to eventually be hit with one of these absurd patent lawsuits. I only program for Android as a hobby aside from my day job as a web programmer. What can an independent/hobbyist developer like myself do when we are eventually challenged with something we can by no means defend ourselves against without loads of money? Reform is needed, soon.
- GotAnyMegadeth 13y ago
  If you are independent, then can't you defend yourself in court?
  - mandlar 13y ago
    It's not that, it's that I wouldn't have sufficient money to do it. Or bankrupt myself in the process.
drakaal 13y ago
Patent trolls suck. But with out patents there is no incentive for innovation. The issue is not that Patents are bad, it is that you can patent a "unique way to swing on the playground" and be awarded a patent. Patent officer often don't know what they are awarding a patent for. This is supposed to be kept in check by the fact that you can fight a patent. I think that if you file a patent, sue someone over it, and lose you should be forced to pay 8X the amount you were suing for. That would severely limit who would try. I also think that patents should only be allowed to be resold twice. This would limit the number of patents which could be used to extort money. Lastly I think you should only be able to sue for patent infringement if you have a product using the patent currently in the market. Those 2 simple rules would remove a lot of trolling.
- cynwoody 13y ago
  > Patent trolls suck. But with out patents there is no incentive for innovation. Tell it to Larry and Sergei. Without patents, where would they be? My guess is, just about where they are now. Plus a compounded increment for not having to pay patent lawyers along the way!
- drakaal 13y ago
  All that said. RackSpace (who I do use for some of my hosting) has several patents. And it is kind of a Pot/Kettle scenario since they have used those on smaller companies in the past.
  - VanL 13y ago
    You are right, we do have some patents. We have never used them against others. Unfortunately, we feel like we need to be prepared for when other patent-holding entities come knocking. We know they will, because they already have. We don't make the mistake of confusing "patents" with "innovation." The majority of what we create, we release under open source licenses, including a patent license. If people and companies want to play nice with us, we will play nice. We believe that we can compete, and win, in the marketplace. We are only preparing ourselves for the challenges of those who don't want to compete in the marketplace. Van (Rackspace VP of IP)
escaped_hn 13y ago
Coming from the company that put a "TM" after every mention of the generic word "Cloud Server" on their website.
- coolj 13y ago
  A trademark is different from a software patent. A trademark addresses specific product branding in a specific market; a software patent -- at least the ones in question -- address a generic process that's not limited to a specific market. Consider the trademark on the Wikipedia name versus a (hypothetical) software patent on "a method for storing and displaying user-generated content."
  - escaped_hn 13y ago
    Ok. If i want to start a cloud server company, can i use the generic word Cloud Server? if i do, will Rackspace sue me? Even if they are different things, seems like they reach the same outcome.
    - coolj 13y ago
      INAL, but my understanding is that you can use a generic phrase like "cloud servers", where both "cloud" and "servers" have pre-established meanings in the space, as long as you don't use the name for a product competing in the same space. E.g., you could call a service providing base images for clouds "Image Marketplace," but not "AWS Marketplace".
amikula 13y ago
To me, this is a strong sign that the patent holder should at least run a substantial risk of getting charged for legal costs if they lose. It might require a bit more due diligence on the part of the patent holder in genuinely enforceable patents, but it would all but eliminate the motivation of patent trolls when they know their patent is dubious. I applaud Rackspace for this act of charity to the community, but it should not be necessary. Let's root for Rackspace, but it's more important to fix the system.
- davidu 13y ago
  That's the goal of the SHIELD act, which will not pass, unfortunately.
- zmmmmm 13y ago
  At some point it should be more than legal costs. Threatening someone with a patent that is manifestly not applicable should be considered a form of fraud in extreme cases, just like it is if I send you a false invoice in the mail demanding payment. We need to raise the risk factor enough that patent trolls can't simply write off their losses against all their successes. They'll keep going as long as the benefits outweigh the risk.
a_p 13y ago
If you cannot understand how people could possible think that software patents are acceptable, I recommend reading this article. [1] Not because it will convince you that software patents are good — it won't. But it will help you understand the thought process of lawyers who do think that there should be some software patents. For example, Goetz writes that he supports "patents where the preferred implementation of an inventive machine process is in software (via a computer program), hardware (via circuitry), or a combination of both software and hardware." [1] http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2010/09/in-defense-of-software-patents-part-2.html http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2010/09/in-defense-of-softwa...
- tomp 13y ago
  Personally, I support software patents. I'm just against idea patents, as opposed to invention patents. Screen rotation is no invention. It's an idea; once you have it, it's trivial to implement. That, IMO, does not afford patent protection. However, certain things can, and should be patents. RSA, for example. It's a non-trivial procedure that was non-trivial to invent and there are not very many alternatives.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    Would you have been okay if Feynman diagrams were patented?
  - mpyne 13y ago
    RSA is actually kind of a bad example. It's an eminent example of almost-pure number theory ported over to a software domain, and mathematics is explicitly non-patentable. Next you'd be telling me that Fourier transforms should be patentable. I get that it's difficult to incentivize the development of truly difficult abstract ideas, but mathematicians and physicists have been doing exactly that for centuries and they appear to be doing alright.
    - rayiner 13y ago
      > I get that it's difficult to incentivize the development of truly difficult abstract ideas, but mathematicians and physicists have been doing exactly that for centuries and they appear to be doing alright. So I was an aerospace engineering major in undergrad. For my professors, financial support came from: 1) government; 2) tuition and fees from students looking to get jobs at Lockheed, Honeywell, Raytheon, etc. The former is mostly subsidized by the military, while the latter is subsidized directly and indirectly by companies who definitely do leverage patents and trade secrets laws to monetize their developments. So its a "pick your poison" situation.
laureny 13y ago
You don't need to kill patents to kill the troll: modify the law so that the only way patents can be transferred is when the company gets acquired. This makes patents a valuable asset for start ups while completely killing the patent troll business. Patents can be useful, don't throw the baby out with the bath water.
lukifer 13y ago
I've been thinking about the connection between biological signaling and advertising; like colored plumage or a large chest cavity, a multi-million ad campaign is a hard-to-fake signal, and in a way, such campaigns are as much about overt displays of power than the contents of the ad. In that sense, this move is the pinnacle of the best form of advertising. Whether they are acting out of pure altruism or pure strategy (it's probably both), they are demonstrating their values with non-trivial risks and resources, thereby earning genuine trust with current and prospective customers. Awesome.
- charonn0 13y ago
  Right. Even if they are doing it solely to look good, it's heartening to their customers (and potential customers) that they understand that it does make them look good, and why.
- mark212 13y ago
  the signalling isn't primarily to current and prospective customers, it's to other trolls out there. The $75k (negotiable) offer of compromise is on the low end of such demands and the signal to other NPEs thinking about suing Rackspace is Be Prepared for War. That customers think this is a good thing and burnishes Rackspace's reputation for being on the side of developers, etc. is a nice bonus.
  - cwp 13y ago
    Exactly. And further, if you go to war with us and lose, it'll cost you, because we'll go after your patents.
  - hkmurakami 13y ago
    In that light, the strongest anti-patent-troll signaler has got to be Newegg and their legal team: "Then they pop up and say, "Hello, surprise! Give us your money or we will shut you down!" Screw them. Seriously, screw them. You can quote me on that." -- Newegg Chief Legal Officer Lee Cheng http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/how-newegg-crushed-the-shopping-cart-patent-and-saved-online-retail/2/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/how-newegg-crushe...
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- wissler 13y ago
  Specifically: just because you thought of an idea, does not give you any moral prerogative to go stealing other people's real property because 1) you got to the government bureaucrat first and 2) they happened to think of it too. Patents are morally reprehensible. If society is going to have some vaguely patent-like thing, it's going to have to be radically different from what we think of when we think of patents, something far more modest than this insane binding of other people's thoughts for the sake of the childish whine: "but I thought of it first!"
- pi18n 13y ago
  In the short term, I'd like the government to start with RMS's plan--anything done in software is math and cannot be targeted by patents. They (apparatus for performing X patents) are overly broad, most are not non-obvious, and the system is retarding far more innovation than it enables. Especially when we consider the pace and relative lack of cost in software development.
breck 13y ago
I like this approach. I would be mathematically surprised if there exists any patent that cannot be invalidated via prior art. It seems there is a strong correlation between the amount of information online and the probability of there existing easily accessible prior art for any arbitrary patent. In other words, if the amount of information on the web doubles every year, the probability of finding prior art that can invalidate any patent doubles as well. By this point in time, with the amount of information that has been moved online, the probability of having a patent not subject to prior art claims seems astronomically low. As an anecdote, I just saw "The Mother of All Demos" (1968 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfIgzSoTMOs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfIgzSoTMOs), for the first time the other day. That video alone contains dozens of inventions that I thought were relatively recent.
- jacques_chester 13y ago
  The "information" on the web is not doubling. The number of accessible bytes are. Ten million cat videos don't constitute prior art against RSA, for example.
  - noonespecial 13y ago
    No, but it certainly increases the possibility you might see a cat chasing a laser pointer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_exercising_a_cat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_exercising_a_cat
    - jacques_chester 13y ago
      Touché.
xutopia 13y ago
Rackspace is really smart here. By making it a public policy they're showing patent trolls that they're out of luck trying their antics with them.
Proleps 13y ago
> Patent litigation typically costs defendants between $1 million and $5 million just to stay in the fight. A battleground where only the rich can win a fight. There doesn't seem to be any justice left in the American courts :(. The only way to win is to not play their game. It's probably cheaper to buy a shotgun and show up at the doorstep of the person suing you with the message: "I know where you live" :S
- inovator 13y ago
  You got it wrong. "It's probably cheaper to HIRE someone"
davidroberts 13y ago
I totally applaud Rackspace's dedication to the public good. But I think their response is their best move economically too, despite the initial cost. They are basically saying "Troll me, and you risk losing the whole patent." It's like dealing with a playground bully. Once you display a willingness to fight, they go pick on someone less assertive.
- hkmurakami 13y ago
  ditto Newegg "Newegg Crushes Patent Troll in Online 'Shopping Cart' Suit" http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2414778,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2414778,00.asp edit: better article link: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/how-newegg-crushed-the-shopping-cart-patent-and-saved-online-retail/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/how-newegg-crushe...
clayFrance76 13y ago
If you abolish the patent, you would then become like China and Russia and a few of the other countries where lots of STEALING takes place...Hence, a dive in creativity would happen, just like you see in China and Russia for the last 100 or so years since socialism and communism. Also, China, only very very few are rich, definitely less than the USA's 1 percent. And only those in power make the decisions, those little guys ideas are easily walked on by a number of "market competition" methods.
- shmerl 13y ago
  If you abolish the patent, you would then become like China and Russia and a few of the other countries where lots of STEALING takes place...Hence, a dive in creativity would happen, You have no way of proving this connection. Practice even shows completely the opposite - absence of software patents increases creativity. "Stealing" is using the patents to extort money. Or should I rather call it robbing to sound more appropriate? So abolishing software patents will reduce robbing.
- geoka9 13y ago
  Soviet Russia was pretty inventive in high tech. As a matter of fact, they did have patents in the Soviet Union, although those were more like a commendation badge, not a monopoly to reap the benefits; but it seemed to work.
charlesjshort 13y ago
I've worked as a patent prosecutor for a top ranked patent prosecution firm; and I know first hand that most patents are 'pencil patents' worthless subtle distinctions that are allowed because 'obvious' arguments do not stand up. However, some innovations, maybe 1 in 1000, are really worthy. And if the inventor did not have some way to protect their research - google or microsoft or anyone else could usurp the idea from the average joe who spent a lot of research and effort to resolve the invention. just my 2 cents.
- Kliment 13y ago
  It's much more likely that google or microsoft would absolutely annihilate the average joe with a countersuit rather than license anything from them. They hold a much bigger patent portfolio and can afford to pump money into a case for several years. There is absolutely nothing that makes patents attractive to the "lone inventor" type. The innovations may be worthy, but patents do nothing to help there.
joshaidan 13y ago
This sounds like it could be a good PR move for Rackspace. I've heard from quite a few developers who, for whatever reason, have a negative opinion of Rackspace. Does this action change your opinion of them? But perhaps it ultimate comes down to their service, the products they offer, and price.
- jakejake 13y ago
  Just curious why you've found that people don't like rackspace? We've used them for a while without any major complaints.
hkmurakami 13y ago
>Patent trolls then follow each filing with a settlement demand “at a price far lower than the cost to defend the litigation.” (Id. at 1326.) This allows trolls to use the high cost of litigation as a club against operating companies. This smells like another ugly practice by "rightsholders". Namely, the RIAA/MPAA litigation against individuals.
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  It's a common pattern in almost any litigation, not specific to IP rightsholders.
  - hkmurakami 13y ago
    I guess you're right. Even when "people" sue companies, they typically just settle out of court.
white_devil 13y ago
I wonder if there are any active patent trolls outside of the US, or is it just not viable.
CopyrightX 13y ago
Patent and copyright laws are both in serious need of radical reform in the US and globally. Thank you Rackspace for not caving in to the patent trolls, but as you wrote, it has become a never-ending game of "whack-a-troll". That's because with existing legislation, the patent troll business model is financially very sound if also inherently corrosive to society as a whole. "The dynamics of local vs. global optimization" is jargon from the team-building and process-design communities that applies here: a successful business strategy for the patent trolls is a huge failure for the community as a whole. This could also be considered a perverse incentive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive There are perverse incentives in both copyright and patent law that undermine the original Constitutional goals of "promot[ing] the Progress of Science and useful Arts..." that are especially powerful in our age of ever-increasing innovation where digital computers and The Internet have created a radically different "landscape" than that which existed when the first such laws were drafted. Ideally, thoughtful legislative reforms would prevent such perverse incentives in the future so that both copyright and patent law would once again be aligned to serve the common good rather than the good of a few. Large and democratic communities (such as those Joel Spolsky helped create) full of good questions and answers could go a long way towards helping to craft such thoughtful legislative reforms. See Ask Patents http://patents.stackexchange.com http://patents.stackexchange.com for such a community on patents, and http://goo.gl/5YDHa http://goo.gl/5YDHa for such a proposed community on copyright. Anyone who feels strongly about these issues, please go get involved by "Follow"ing the proposed CopyrightX community and submitting 5 Example Questions. With enough voting and other participation, the CopyrightX community proposal can graduate to an actual community like Ask Patents. And with two vibrant communities full of good questions and answers related to IP law, perhaps future legislation will be free of perverse incentives, and we can once again rely on our laws to serve ALL of our best interests. In the interim, thanks again Rackspace for being willing to continue the costly game of "whack-a-troll" on behalf of all of us.
wojonstech 13y ago
These sort of things are scary to me, I am planning on starting a business, using money from my own pocket and the fact that random companies are going to sue me just cuz they they can makes me not want to start one which just lowers then innovation that takes place.
rayiner 13y ago
Why should reexaminations be so expensive? I think this is an area where Google could really be useful. With their database and search algorithms, it'd be doable for them to put together a service to do prior art searches. Maybe use text analysis to summarize prior patents into English (since they're written in a fairly structured way to begin with). It doesn't need to be advanced AI. Anything they came up with would certainly be better than whatever process the USPTO uses now.
forgottenpaswrd 13y ago
Question to the Rackspace guys: Why don't you make a kickstarter project to pay for the IPR? As you said, other companies are interested in sharing the cost, as trolls go after them too. Why not sharing the cost too?. Companies that are affected by trolls are acting like independent entities, witch makes them extremely vulnerable to big companies and capitalized trolls. You need to unite! Small and medium business are most of America's or European business, but if you act alone and divided you will be easily defeated(divide and conquer)
timedoctor 13y ago
When I read the title I thought they were talking about abolishing patents altogether, which I think is not such a bad idea. At least for software patents I definitely think they should be eliminated. Eliminating this one patent is pretty useless. Admirable in a certain sense, but there are thousands of other ridiculous patents. You can't fix the entire system one patent at a time.
hexagonc 13y ago
I'm not a lawyer but this patent troll litigation would seem to be a textbook case for estoppel by acquiescence. [1] These patent trolls are deliberately waiting until the patents are firmly established norms in the industry so that finding alternatives are that much harder. Furthermore, the trolls wrongly allow time to go by so that they can claim a higher damage reward than they otherwise would have. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel_by_acquiescence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel_by_acquiescence
5hredder 13y ago
There's an unsettling trend in startups today on IP protection. A lot of incubators/accelerators seem to think that having a protectable IP = innovation. By placing more focus on patents rather than on real innovation, we are far from acting as a catalyst to promote innovation in developing countries like India. Intellectual monopolies in the developed world prohibit SMEs in developing countries from growing to the point where they are able to compete in global markets with the western IP heavyweights. It is imperative that developing countries like India and China place careful thought before committing to restrictive FTAs that are specifically designed to keep them at a lower level of technological development.

442 points by grimey27 13y ago

I really hope this is successful. I will begrudgingly admit that some patents probably are useful (that's a separate argument), but in the specific case of software, so many were granted at a time when general knowledge was very naive and so were unintentionally made to broad sweeping. Eliminating them is the best course of action. The fact that it will take an independent committee up to 1 year to do so for each one is rather less encouraging.

Avitas 13y ago

This type of behavior is commendable. Cheers Rackspace.

jonathanwallace 13y ago

Nothing makes me want to become a rackspace customer more than posts like this. I adore integrity.

larrys 13y ago
I'm also a RS customer but how do you see this as "integrity" as opposed to a regular business decision done with the intent to prevent future problems? (Noting also that there is the PR value of spending money this way as your comment proves!)
- dublinben 13y ago
  Countless other companies in their position would pay the settlement and sign an NDA. We can never know the extent of this problem unless companies like RackSpace speak up.
  - rayval 13y ago
    Yes, it is also an indicator to me that if I am a RackSpace customer, and other issues come up (could be patents, could be government surveillance, or something else) that will affect me as a developer, Rackspace is more likely to be on my side than against me. Obviously, I expect Rackspace to pursue its own business self-interest, but often there are multiple ways to do that, and not all of them are win-win for both the hosting company and for its customers.
- trhtrsh 13y ago
  For example, they could offer to buy the patent from the current holder, and finance an attack on their competitors. But they chose a higher road.
- jonathanwallace 13y ago
  It may be both. And since Rackspace is loudly publicizing that their actions are based on their beliefs, if they were to ever act contrary to their established brand, they'd lose even more than if they were to do nothing at all.
honzzz 13y ago
Exactly. And I also try to avoid companies that settle. I totally understand why they do it but still... in my eyes it's like supporting terrorism. I feel it's wrong to give terrorists any money even when it's advantageous to your business or even when you are threatened by them.
- feralmoan 13y ago
  That's a fine ideology but when trolls are diverting precious resource and focus away from actual innovation over protracted and expensive legal inventions, settling can be a pragmatic choice for just getting on with life. I'd love to be in RackSpace's position of being able to hammer down these worthless parasites.
  - gknoy 13y ago
    Once you settle, other trolls see you as a target. Kipling's Dane-Geld [1] explains this pretty well. "Getting on with life" is not something that paying extortionate patent settlements will always allow you to do. By spending more resources to not only defend themselves, but also destroy the weapon that the patent troll is using, Rackspace is advertising that not only do other trolls risk spending money in court, but they also risk the invalidation of their patents. Anyone trolling is unlikely to want to risk that. 1: http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/dane_geld.html http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/dane_geld.html
- hkmurakami 13y ago
  IMO it's more like "negotiating with terrorists" than outright support (which is bad enough). The psychology/poli-sci experts have agreed on "don't negotiate terrorists" for a reason, and I think that attitude applies perfectly in this patent troll situation.

chime 13y ago

If IPR for screen-rotation ends up with nullifying the patent, can organizations like EFF start doing that pro-actively for other ridiculous patents like One-Click-Buy and Swipe-to-Unlock? Or does the patent-holder have to be proven as a troll?

toasterlovin 13y ago
I would guess that there are asymmetries that make this an untenable approach, long term. First, there is the asymmetry of cost, ie. it probably costs less money to file for and be granted a bogus patent than it costs to invalidate said patent. Secondly, there is the asymmetry of motivation, ie. patent trolls have greater financial motivation to file for bogus patents than other parties have financial motivation to invalidate these patents. These asymmetries are really the root of the problem. What's really needed is a lobbying group to pass legislation that changes the incentive structure, including, in my opinion, abolishing patents. The problem here is that many of the organizations who could fund such a lobbying group (like Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc.) have been coopted by the patent system, because they themselves are patent holders. Actually, its worse than that; they seem convinced that their patents have actual intrinsic value, which kind of makes sense. They spend a lot of money doing research and development, so of course they want to believe that a legal mechanism for preserving the value of that R&D is legitimate. This whole thing is frustrating...
- rayiner 13y ago
  > Actually, its worse than that; they seem convinced that their patents have actual intrinsic value, which kind of makes sense. They spend a lot of money doing research and development, so of course they want to believe that a legal mechanism for preserving the value of that R&D is legitimate. Is it not? Should Apple, Google, etc, do the industry's R&D for free? Google's self-driving car is patented. Should Kia be allowed to come along and reverse-engineer the firmware and free-ride on their efforts? I'm not being confrontational, I'm genuinely interested to hear your viewpoint.
  - toasterlovin 13y ago

Arjuna 13y ago

On the topic, this is quite an interesting TED talk given by Drew Curtis. "You need to know that the average patent troll defense costs $2M and takes 18 months... when you win." Drew Curtis: How I Beat a Patent Troll https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_lb3D7Ay-M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_lb3D7Ay-M

drakaal 13y ago
Drew is exaggeration. I took on Acacia, it cost me nothing more than the travel, and time away from my primary business. Lawyers cost a lot of money, but for something like "the ability to rotate a mobile screen" that rackspace is fighting you don't need a lawyer. Prior art exists for rotating screens on desktops and tablet PCs. Feature parity on Mobile is not innovative. Obviousness is the challenge to a patent and the defense against its infringement. This is not a "risky" case. It is not a case that requires 4 lawyers for a year. It is a case for 1 guy part time for a year. Which if he is $400k a year could be $75k but it doesn't need to be that.
- umsm 13y ago
  I believe the keyword here is "average". There are probably examples of cases on both ends of the spectrum: cases that dragged on to be very expensive and others that were resolved with a phone call or letter.
  - drakaal 13y ago
    Yes a billion dollar fight would skew the average a lot. Several fights between porn companies and streaming media changed the numbers as they were in the hundreds of millions range at that seriously messed with the average. The typical need not be so high.

arbuge 13y ago

"IPRs can be risky and costly. We know this IPR will cost us more than the $75,000 that Rotatable wanted to extort from us. But we are not just fighting for us; we are fighting for all the app developers who are also in the line of fire." Clearly the patent system is defective and needs to be fixed radically (or patents entirely eliminated in the software space, which I personally believe is preferable). Nevertheless the above suggests a possibility for a shorter-term fix. If companies could proactively band together in some kind of association to fund IPRs for every single troll attack, spreading out the costs of the IPR amongst the member companies, it would seem that this would make life for the trolls much harder. Indeed, simply listing your company membership in such an association on your website might be sufficient to ward them off, same as sticking alarm decals on car windows wards off many would-be car thieves.

larrys 13y ago
Wondering about a) antitrust issues with that and b) standing to file the IPR from an entity such as an association. (Question, not a statement to which I know the answer.)
- freehunter 13y ago
  A way to get around b) would be to have the association merely provide financial help, or possibly have the association be a group of lawyers such as the EFF where they will represent the company who does have standing to sue.
- arbuge 13y ago
  I don't see the relevance of either. Antitrust deals with breaking up colossal monopolies like AT&T and Standard Oil... not sure how that relates to this in any way. IPRs are a new concept to me, but I don't see why any entity can't challenge the validity of any patent. If there's a problem with that, which I doubt, the company receiving the troll attack could presumably be the challenger, with the association reimbursing its fees.
  - larrys 13y ago

kunai 13y ago

Without a doubt, one of the most honourable deeds that a company can do for the rest of the world. The courage and altruism displayed by Rackspace should serve as a reminder to any company: We cannot afford to let patent trolls win.

larrys 13y ago

"IPRs can be risky and costly. We know this IPR will cost us more than the $75,000 that Rotatable wanted to extort from us. " Would love to have the breakdown of where the legal fees are going to file the inter parties review. To me seems like several hundred hours of legal work involved. (75000/400 approx.) http://www.uspto.gov/aia_implementation/bpai.jsp#heading-1 http://www.uspto.gov/aia_implementation/bpai.jsp#heading-1 (Wondering also whether the IPR stays any legal proceedings that have started or prevents any legal proceedings.)

mandlar 13y ago

I wish the best of luck to Rackspace. As an independent Android developer, I live with the slight fear that one day I'm going to eventually be hit with one of these absurd patent lawsuits. I only program for Android as a hobby aside from my day job as a web programmer. What can an independent/hobbyist developer like myself do when we are eventually challenged with something we can by no means defend ourselves against without loads of money? Reform is needed, soon.

GotAnyMegadeth 13y ago
If you are independent, then can't you defend yourself in court?
- mandlar 13y ago
  It's not that, it's that I wouldn't have sufficient money to do it. Or bankrupt myself in the process.

drakaal 13y ago

Patent trolls suck. But with out patents there is no incentive for innovation. The issue is not that Patents are bad, it is that you can patent a "unique way to swing on the playground" and be awarded a patent. Patent officer often don't know what they are awarding a patent for. This is supposed to be kept in check by the fact that you can fight a patent. I think that if you file a patent, sue someone over it, and lose you should be forced to pay 8X the amount you were suing for. That would severely limit who would try. I also think that patents should only be allowed to be resold twice. This would limit the number of patents which could be used to extort money. Lastly I think you should only be able to sue for patent infringement if you have a product using the patent currently in the market. Those 2 simple rules would remove a lot of trolling.

cynwoody 13y ago
> Patent trolls suck. But with out patents there is no incentive for innovation. Tell it to Larry and Sergei. Without patents, where would they be? My guess is, just about where they are now. Plus a compounded increment for not having to pay patent lawyers along the way!
drakaal 13y ago
All that said. RackSpace (who I do use for some of my hosting) has several patents. And it is kind of a Pot/Kettle scenario since they have used those on smaller companies in the past.
- VanL 13y ago
  You are right, we do have some patents. We have never used them against others. Unfortunately, we feel like we need to be prepared for when other patent-holding entities come knocking. We know they will, because they already have. We don't make the mistake of confusing "patents" with "innovation." The majority of what we create, we release under open source licenses, including a patent license. If people and companies want to play nice with us, we will play nice. We believe that we can compete, and win, in the marketplace. We are only preparing ourselves for the challenges of those who don't want to compete in the marketplace. Van (Rackspace VP of IP)

escaped_hn 13y ago

Coming from the company that put a "TM" after every mention of the generic word "Cloud Server" on their website.

coolj 13y ago
A trademark is different from a software patent. A trademark addresses specific product branding in a specific market; a software patent -- at least the ones in question -- address a generic process that's not limited to a specific market. Consider the trademark on the Wikipedia name versus a (hypothetical) software patent on "a method for storing and displaying user-generated content."
- escaped_hn 13y ago
  Ok. If i want to start a cloud server company, can i use the generic word Cloud Server? if i do, will Rackspace sue me? Even if they are different things, seems like they reach the same outcome.
  - coolj 13y ago
    INAL, but my understanding is that you can use a generic phrase like "cloud servers", where both "cloud" and "servers" have pre-established meanings in the space, as long as you don't use the name for a product competing in the same space. E.g., you could call a service providing base images for clouds "Image Marketplace," but not "AWS Marketplace".

amikula 13y ago

To me, this is a strong sign that the patent holder should at least run a substantial risk of getting charged for legal costs if they lose. It might require a bit more due diligence on the part of the patent holder in genuinely enforceable patents, but it would all but eliminate the motivation of patent trolls when they know their patent is dubious. I applaud Rackspace for this act of charity to the community, but it should not be necessary. Let's root for Rackspace, but it's more important to fix the system.

davidu 13y ago
That's the goal of the SHIELD act, which will not pass, unfortunately.
zmmmmm 13y ago
At some point it should be more than legal costs. Threatening someone with a patent that is manifestly not applicable should be considered a form of fraud in extreme cases, just like it is if I send you a false invoice in the mail demanding payment. We need to raise the risk factor enough that patent trolls can't simply write off their losses against all their successes. They'll keep going as long as the benefits outweigh the risk.

a_p 13y ago

If you cannot understand how people could possible think that software patents are acceptable, I recommend reading this article. [1] Not because it will convince you that software patents are good — it won't. But it will help you understand the thought process of lawyers who do think that there should be some software patents. For example, Goetz writes that he supports "patents where the preferred implementation of an inventive machine process is in software (via a computer program), hardware (via circuitry), or a combination of both software and hardware." [1] http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2010/09/in-defense-of-software-patents-part-2.html http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2010/09/in-defense-of-softwa...

tomp 13y ago
Personally, I support software patents. I'm just against idea patents, as opposed to invention patents. Screen rotation is no invention. It's an idea; once you have it, it's trivial to implement. That, IMO, does not afford patent protection. However, certain things can, and should be patents. RSA, for example. It's a non-trivial procedure that was non-trivial to invent and there are not very many alternatives.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  Would you have been okay if Feynman diagrams were patented?
- mpyne 13y ago
  RSA is actually kind of a bad example. It's an eminent example of almost-pure number theory ported over to a software domain, and mathematics is explicitly non-patentable. Next you'd be telling me that Fourier transforms should be patentable. I get that it's difficult to incentivize the development of truly difficult abstract ideas, but mathematicians and physicists have been doing exactly that for centuries and they appear to be doing alright.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    > I get that it's difficult to incentivize the development of truly difficult abstract ideas, but mathematicians and physicists have been doing exactly that for centuries and they appear to be doing alright. So I was an aerospace engineering major in undergrad. For my professors, financial support came from: 1) government; 2) tuition and fees from students looking to get jobs at Lockheed, Honeywell, Raytheon, etc. The former is mostly subsidized by the military, while the latter is subsidized directly and indirectly by companies who definitely do leverage patents and trade secrets laws to monetize their developments. So its a "pick your poison" situation.

laureny 13y ago

You don't need to kill patents to kill the troll: modify the law so that the only way patents can be transferred is when the company gets acquired. This makes patents a valuable asset for start ups while completely killing the patent troll business. Patents can be useful, don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

lukifer 13y ago

I've been thinking about the connection between biological signaling and advertising; like colored plumage or a large chest cavity, a multi-million ad campaign is a hard-to-fake signal, and in a way, such campaigns are as much about overt displays of power than the contents of the ad. In that sense, this move is the pinnacle of the best form of advertising. Whether they are acting out of pure altruism or pure strategy (it's probably both), they are demonstrating their values with non-trivial risks and resources, thereby earning genuine trust with current and prospective customers. Awesome.

charonn0 13y ago
Right. Even if they are doing it solely to look good, it's heartening to their customers (and potential customers) that they understand that it does make them look good, and why.
mark212 13y ago
the signalling isn't primarily to current and prospective customers, it's to other trolls out there. The $75k (negotiable) offer of compromise is on the low end of such demands and the signal to other NPEs thinking about suing Rackspace is Be Prepared for War. That customers think this is a good thing and burnishes Rackspace's reputation for being on the side of developers, etc. is a nice bonus.
- cwp 13y ago
  Exactly. And further, if you go to war with us and lose, it'll cost you, because we'll go after your patents.
- hkmurakami 13y ago
  In that light, the strongest anti-patent-troll signaler has got to be Newegg and their legal team: "Then they pop up and say, "Hello, surprise! Give us your money or we will shut you down!" Screw them. Seriously, screw them. You can quote me on that." -- Newegg Chief Legal Officer Lee Cheng http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/how-newegg-crushed-the-shopping-cart-patent-and-saved-online-retail/2/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/how-newegg-crushe...

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wissler 13y ago
Specifically: just because you thought of an idea, does not give you any moral prerogative to go stealing other people's real property because 1) you got to the government bureaucrat first and 2) they happened to think of it too. Patents are morally reprehensible. If society is going to have some vaguely patent-like thing, it's going to have to be radically different from what we think of when we think of patents, something far more modest than this insane binding of other people's thoughts for the sake of the childish whine: "but I thought of it first!"
pi18n 13y ago
In the short term, I'd like the government to start with RMS's plan--anything done in software is math and cannot be targeted by patents. They (apparatus for performing X patents) are overly broad, most are not non-obvious, and the system is retarding far more innovation than it enables. Especially when we consider the pace and relative lack of cost in software development.

breck 13y ago

I like this approach. I would be mathematically surprised if there exists any patent that cannot be invalidated via prior art. It seems there is a strong correlation between the amount of information online and the probability of there existing easily accessible prior art for any arbitrary patent. In other words, if the amount of information on the web doubles every year, the probability of finding prior art that can invalidate any patent doubles as well. By this point in time, with the amount of information that has been moved online, the probability of having a patent not subject to prior art claims seems astronomically low. As an anecdote, I just saw "The Mother of All Demos" (1968 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfIgzSoTMOs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfIgzSoTMOs), for the first time the other day. That video alone contains dozens of inventions that I thought were relatively recent.

jacques_chester 13y ago
The "information" on the web is not doubling. The number of accessible bytes are. Ten million cat videos don't constitute prior art against RSA, for example.
- noonespecial 13y ago
  No, but it certainly increases the possibility you might see a cat chasing a laser pointer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_exercising_a_cat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_exercising_a_cat
  - jacques_chester 13y ago
    Touché.

xutopia 13y ago

Rackspace is really smart here. By making it a public policy they're showing patent trolls that they're out of luck trying their antics with them.

Proleps 13y ago

> Patent litigation typically costs defendants between $1 million and $5 million just to stay in the fight. A battleground where only the rich can win a fight. There doesn't seem to be any justice left in the American courts :(. The only way to win is to not play their game. It's probably cheaper to buy a shotgun and show up at the doorstep of the person suing you with the message: "I know where you live" :S

inovator 13y ago
You got it wrong. "It's probably cheaper to HIRE someone"

davidroberts 13y ago

I totally applaud Rackspace's dedication to the public good. But I think their response is their best move economically too, despite the initial cost. They are basically saying "Troll me, and you risk losing the whole patent." It's like dealing with a playground bully. Once you display a willingness to fight, they go pick on someone less assertive.

hkmurakami 13y ago
ditto Newegg "Newegg Crushes Patent Troll in Online 'Shopping Cart' Suit" http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2414778,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2414778,00.asp edit: better article link: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/how-newegg-crushed-the-shopping-cart-patent-and-saved-online-retail/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/how-newegg-crushe...

clayFrance76 13y ago

If you abolish the patent, you would then become like China and Russia and a few of the other countries where lots of STEALING takes place...Hence, a dive in creativity would happen, just like you see in China and Russia for the last 100 or so years since socialism and communism. Also, China, only very very few are rich, definitely less than the USA's 1 percent. And only those in power make the decisions, those little guys ideas are easily walked on by a number of "market competition" methods.

shmerl 13y ago
If you abolish the patent, you would then become like China and Russia and a few of the other countries where lots of STEALING takes place...Hence, a dive in creativity would happen, You have no way of proving this connection. Practice even shows completely the opposite - absence of software patents increases creativity. "Stealing" is using the patents to extort money. Or should I rather call it robbing to sound more appropriate? So abolishing software patents will reduce robbing.
geoka9 13y ago
Soviet Russia was pretty inventive in high tech. As a matter of fact, they did have patents in the Soviet Union, although those were more like a commendation badge, not a monopoly to reap the benefits; but it seemed to work.

charlesjshort 13y ago

I've worked as a patent prosecutor for a top ranked patent prosecution firm; and I know first hand that most patents are 'pencil patents' worthless subtle distinctions that are allowed because 'obvious' arguments do not stand up. However, some innovations, maybe 1 in 1000, are really worthy. And if the inventor did not have some way to protect their research - google or microsoft or anyone else could usurp the idea from the average joe who spent a lot of research and effort to resolve the invention. just my 2 cents.

Kliment 13y ago
It's much more likely that google or microsoft would absolutely annihilate the average joe with a countersuit rather than license anything from them. They hold a much bigger patent portfolio and can afford to pump money into a case for several years. There is absolutely nothing that makes patents attractive to the "lone inventor" type. The innovations may be worthy, but patents do nothing to help there.

joshaidan 13y ago

This sounds like it could be a good PR move for Rackspace. I've heard from quite a few developers who, for whatever reason, have a negative opinion of Rackspace. Does this action change your opinion of them? But perhaps it ultimate comes down to their service, the products they offer, and price.

jakejake 13y ago
Just curious why you've found that people don't like rackspace? We've used them for a while without any major complaints.

hkmurakami 13y ago

>Patent trolls then follow each filing with a settlement demand “at a price far lower than the cost to defend the litigation.” (Id. at 1326.) This allows trolls to use the high cost of litigation as a club against operating companies. This smells like another ugly practice by "rightsholders". Namely, the RIAA/MPAA litigation against individuals.

anigbrowl 13y ago
It's a common pattern in almost any litigation, not specific to IP rightsholders.
- hkmurakami 13y ago
  I guess you're right. Even when "people" sue companies, they typically just settle out of court.

white_devil 13y ago

I wonder if there are any active patent trolls outside of the US, or is it just not viable.

CopyrightX 13y ago

Patent and copyright laws are both in serious need of radical reform in the US and globally. Thank you Rackspace for not caving in to the patent trolls, but as you wrote, it has become a never-ending game of "whack-a-troll". That's because with existing legislation, the patent troll business model is financially very sound if also inherently corrosive to society as a whole. "The dynamics of local vs. global optimization" is jargon from the team-building and process-design communities that applies here: a successful business strategy for the patent trolls is a huge failure for the community as a whole. This could also be considered a perverse incentive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive There are perverse incentives in both copyright and patent law that undermine the original Constitutional goals of "promot[ing] the Progress of Science and useful Arts..." that are especially powerful in our age of ever-increasing innovation where digital computers and The Internet have created a radically different "landscape" than that which existed when the first such laws were drafted. Ideally, thoughtful legislative reforms would prevent such perverse incentives in the future so that both copyright and patent law would once again be aligned to serve the common good rather than the good of a few. Large and democratic communities (such as those Joel Spolsky helped create) full of good questions and answers could go a long way towards helping to craft such thoughtful legislative reforms. See Ask Patents http://patents.stackexchange.com http://patents.stackexchange.com for such a community on patents, and http://goo.gl/5YDHa http://goo.gl/5YDHa for such a proposed community on copyright. Anyone who feels strongly about these issues, please go get involved by "Follow"ing the proposed CopyrightX community and submitting 5 Example Questions. With enough voting and other participation, the CopyrightX community proposal can graduate to an actual community like Ask Patents. And with two vibrant communities full of good questions and answers related to IP law, perhaps future legislation will be free of perverse incentives, and we can once again rely on our laws to serve ALL of our best interests. In the interim, thanks again Rackspace for being willing to continue the costly game of "whack-a-troll" on behalf of all of us.

wojonstech 13y ago

These sort of things are scary to me, I am planning on starting a business, using money from my own pocket and the fact that random companies are going to sue me just cuz they they can makes me not want to start one which just lowers then innovation that takes place.

rayiner 13y ago

Why should reexaminations be so expensive? I think this is an area where Google could really be useful. With their database and search algorithms, it'd be doable for them to put together a service to do prior art searches. Maybe use text analysis to summarize prior patents into English (since they're written in a fairly structured way to begin with). It doesn't need to be advanced AI. Anything they came up with would certainly be better than whatever process the USPTO uses now.

forgottenpaswrd 13y ago

Question to the Rackspace guys: Why don't you make a kickstarter project to pay for the IPR? As you said, other companies are interested in sharing the cost, as trolls go after them too. Why not sharing the cost too?. Companies that are affected by trolls are acting like independent entities, witch makes them extremely vulnerable to big companies and capitalized trolls. You need to unite! Small and medium business are most of America's or European business, but if you act alone and divided you will be easily defeated(divide and conquer)

timedoctor 13y ago

When I read the title I thought they were talking about abolishing patents altogether, which I think is not such a bad idea. At least for software patents I definitely think they should be eliminated. Eliminating this one patent is pretty useless. Admirable in a certain sense, but there are thousands of other ridiculous patents. You can't fix the entire system one patent at a time.

hexagonc 13y ago

I'm not a lawyer but this patent troll litigation would seem to be a textbook case for estoppel by acquiescence. [1] These patent trolls are deliberately waiting until the patents are firmly established norms in the industry so that finding alternatives are that much harder. Furthermore, the trolls wrongly allow time to go by so that they can claim a higher damage reward than they otherwise would have. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel_by_acquiescence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel_by_acquiescence

5hredder 13y ago

There's an unsettling trend in startups today on IP protection. A lot of incubators/accelerators seem to think that having a protectable IP = innovation. By placing more focus on patents rather than on real innovation, we are far from acting as a catalyst to promote innovation in developing countries like India. Intellectual monopolies in the developed world prohibit SMEs in developing countries from growing to the point where they are able to compete in global markets with the western IP heavyweights. It is imperative that developing countries like India and China place careful thought before committing to restrictive FTAs that are specifically designed to keep them at a lower level of technological development.