10 ms·
Newegg nukes "corporate troll" Alcatel in third patent appeal win this year
- brianbreslin 13y agoCan someone put in layman's terms the patent and how it was being applied in this case? They say in the article it was an "old cell phone patent being applied to the internet" but don't explain how/what. thx
- meleva 13y agoIt doesn't look like anyone knew... "Alcatel-Lucent's corporate representative, at the heart of its massive licensing campaign, couldn't even name the technology or the patents it was suing Newegg over."
- yew 13y agoThe patent (US #5649131, there's a link in the article) covers a general scheme for standardized communication between a server and client (the patent refers to 'host' and 'terminal'). Specifically, the server and client agree on a set of defined 'objects' (in this case including text boxes, drop-down menus, and images). The client then displays said objects to the user by following instructions from the server. The claimed innovation seems to be that the server and client talk about the aforementioned objects rather than sending exact descriptions of the client's display back and forth. Alcatel-Lucent intended to apply the patent very broadly - consider a web server as the 'host' and a web browser as the 'terminal', for example.
- jessaustin 13y agoSo that's basically every interactive site ever? It certainly includes AJAX but it probably includes basic HTML over HTTP.
- yew 13y agoMore or less. NewEgg are calling it a patent on menus and they're not far off.
- jere 13y agoI'd say the patent, at least the beginning, is fairly readable. I don't see any way that it could be applied to suing any of these companies though... perhaps that's the point: http://www.google.com/patents/US5649131?dq=5649131&hl=en&sa=X&ei=02SUUa_iMuaLjALM8ICYCg&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAA http://www.google.com/patents/US5649131?dq=5649131&hl=en... From a quick read, it appears to be about a server keeping track of menus and clicks on those menus that happen on some client (e.g. smartphone?) app. That seems like absolute nonsense to me, but I may be getting tripped up by the use of the term "host computer."
- hkmurakami 13y agoNewegg and Rackspace are definitely building a reputation for pushing back against patent trolls and even borderline-legitimate (maybe?) cases like this one. I wonder how we as outsiders can go about assessing the impact of building this reputation (ex: a troll going after various retailers but not Newegg, for instance)
- Zikes 13y agoAs soon as that happens it will validate Newegg's strategy, and only further incentivize other companies to adopt it.
- jamon51 13y agoIt's like feeding the troll...in reverse.
- artursapek 13y agoStarving the troll. :) Nothing lasts forever. I think this immoral money-making tactic is on its way out.
- xradionut 13y agoI doubt it. There's still money to be made shaking people down for IP.
- jessaustin 13y agoMore apt perhaps would be: "curb-stomping the troll, desecrating the remains, and then mailing the whole mess in a bucket to its mother"?
- roc 13y agoOther companies that can afford the first six patent lawsuits necessary to build up a reputation? Maybe. Other companies that can't even afford to win once? Hardly.
- 13y ago
- gcb0 13y agoI'm always torn apart when buying electronics. In one hand newegg kills trolls and I'd love to buy from them... But to get close to amz prices you have to give in to mail rebates and other forms of marketing trolling.
- yock 13y agoPerhaps this is a good demonstration of why buying based on price is not in your long-term best interest?
- hkmurakami 13y agoand yet even when we understand this, it is still very hard to buy the more expensive option. That demonstrates how hard this dilemma is to solve.
- TheRealDunkirk 13y agoAnd within this one microcosm, you've captured the entirety of the problem that we now face with the US government. No one is willing to sacrifice their vote for the greater good or long-term viability. All they care about is THEIR pocketbook, RIGHT NOW. "More stuff" is going to break the federal government, as surely as it has some countries in Europe, and now some of the largest cities in the US. Paying a little more from Newegg over Amazon is an easy call for me to make. I wish more people valued the benefit to society the extra $50 or $100 could bring over the few grande triple-shot mocha frappachinos it represents to them personally.
- hkmurakami 13y agoYou're absolutely right and I admit fault and guilt on all counts. I even made multiple "selfish" votes last fall even though I knew it was bad for the country (ex: voting for that idiotically unfair car insurance price segregation proposition in California). It's as if I'm an addict. I know I have a problem but I can't stop.
- artimaeis 13y ago
- ChuckMcM 13y agoNice, a win for the good guys. I'm glad to see the '131 patent die but it died last year anyway due to its expiration. Sad that it caused pain up to this point. I keep hoping we'll plateau on the silly patents as everything between '92 and '98 starts to expire. The other interesting thing here (and it was evident in Oracle v. Google as well) is that the judiciary is coming up to speed on both the technology aspects of these patents and the general inanity of trying to "obvious" stuff. I really hope this is another sign of the beginning of the end for this abuse of the patent system.
- chasb 13y agoChange from the judiciary takes years and is usually piecemeal at best. And small wins like this undercut the urgency for legislative action. Ugh.
- ChuckMcM 13y agoPatience chasb, patience. Legislative action is not always the desired outcome, pushing for legislative action on Copyright reform got us DMCA, a mixed blessing at best. Legislative action informed by judicial review of key concepts and organizing principles makes for better laws in my experience. Time will tell of course. Change does happen.
- dasil003 13y ago> "Alcatel Lucent, meanwhile, they drag out some random VP—who happens to be a decorated Navy veteran, who happens to be handsome and has a beautiful wife and kids—but the guy didn't know what patents were being asserted. What a joke." This is pathetic. You have a billion dollar company try to play legal hardball and they don't even do the most basic coaching of your executive team. They must have been getting really comfortable in East Texas to fuck up this bad.
- raverbashing 13y agoIt's not that they are good at it, but it's the others are really bad. I've said it once and I'll say it again, say the word 'patent' and most executives (and their corporate legal representation) will shudder and think you're in the right. They have no idea of what the state of patents are, what can be done about them, and that the people suing you are most likely doing it for a quick buck.
- rayiner 13y agoIts interesting to observe that Alcatel Lucent is the successor to certain ATT R&D operations, most notably Bell Labs.
- 1123581321 13y agoAt this point, the "Bell" part of AL's Bell Labs is little more than the name and the patents. It's mostly ALs's telecom-related research.
- jtome 13y agoDoes anyone remember when plan 9 was released (I certainly don't, I'm too young) under a pseudo-open source license that contained a clause to the effect of "If you sue lucent in an ip case you lose your right to use plan 9". Imagine if people had actually adopted plan 9, since unlike real NPEs, victims could probably sue alcatel for infringing on patents of their own, although this doesn't seem to be the case yet.
- jbrowning 13y agoA question for any lawyers out there: if you licensed a patent that is later invalidated, are you entitled to a refund of your licensing fee?
- jfb 13y agoI would imagine that it would vary from license contract to license contract, but I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- buro9 13y ago> "There's bad news and there's good news," said Cheng in an interview with Ars. "The good news is, we won this case on every point. The bad news is, we're running out of lawsuits. There are fewer trolls for us to fight. I've spent a lot of time over the last seven years figuring out what to do with these guys. There are strategies I think would be really neat and effective that I literally can't execute. I can't make good law because I don't have any appellate cases left. They [the trolls] are dismissing cases against us before any dispositive motions." - Lee Cheng . That's a great quote.
- fuzzywalrus 13y agoAll I could think was: "Come at me bro!"
- hkmurakami 13y agoobsoleting oneself - the mark of the hacker ethos? :)
- sliverstorm 13y agoNo, the "bad news" is not him humble-bragging about obsoleting himself. It's the fact that he doesn't have the opportunity to establish precedents with wins in court because he's out of cases and the trolls won't let it go to court.
- larrys 13y ago"establish precedents with wins in court " That's great for him personally. It won't help newegg sell any more product or make it a better company. If I was a stockholder in that company that wouldn't fly with me. It's similar (but not the same) as an ad agency doing a campaign to win an aware for their personal glory as opposed to what is best for the client. Edit: By "sell any more product" I mean in a meaningful way. Newegg has thousands of customers. The amount that even knows about this and the amount that care isn't significant enough to move the needle. You can always make a case that doing something will increase sales or have a benefit. Would you spend money on advertising in significant dollars without analysis or oversight of the benefits?
- stephen 13y agoNewegg's anti-troll stance is exactly why I bought 2 weeks ago I bought the majority of my desktop components from them, without even pricing checking on amazon/etc.
- hkmurakami 13y agoI have to admit that I feel a bit ashamed that I split my orders between Amazon and Newegg based on price last month when building my machine :(
- umsm 13y agoI dont, as I've had a bad customer service experience with Newegg. But it was only once, and they did budge once I contacted google "trusted" stores team.
- Amadou 13y agoNewegg still benefits simply from you doing business with them. Presumably they are not using a loss-leader strategy - so every sale is still profitable. There are a lot of vendors out there, it isn't generally feasible to price shop all of them for orders of more than one or two items. So the fact that they are merely on your list of vendors to consider is a win for them.
- lifeguard 13y agoIndeed, dollars are votes.
- noonespecial 13y agoI did as well. I needed a few small rack servers and their name was on my mind. I wasn't spending my own money so it was just a case of "Newegg's fighting the good fight these days, have a cookie". It was only about $5k but if there's many people who think like me then it adds up.
- greenlander 13y agoNow if someone would only kill off Rambus, a true scourage to our industry would be eliminated.
- omegant 13y agoYeah! I feel like when in saving private Ryan the panzer at the last scene is blown by a mustang. Give'em hell!
- Osiris 13y agoWith trolls being such a problem, why haven't companies formed alliances to defend each other against lawsuits? Wouldn't the tech world be better off if suing one company meant taking on most of the industry?
- Guvante 13y agoBecause the only way to do that is put yourself in the crosshairs. If 3 of the 20 companies are being sued, the other 17 could ask for a summary judgement and allow everyone to pool resources, but then 17 companies had to put the result of the lawsuit on their own heads too. You are correct that it would be better for the system as a whole, but each individual is better off not participating.
- thorntonbf 13y agoHopefully this will provide some motivation to other companies that have been faced with similar threats by trolls and have caved. It doesn't take a lot of wins to start turning the tide in our favor. The trolls will certainly be back after they regroup - and their tactic may shift to coming after increasingly smaller companies that can't afford to go to court in the first place, much less actually stand up a fight. Nonetheless, any movement in the right direction is a good thing as far as I'm concerned. Way to go Newegg!
- pyre 13y agoGoing after increasingly smaller companies also means attempting to get increasingly smaller amounts of money from a larger number of defendants. Eventually this will become untenable, at least for larger operations like Alcatel-Lucent, because there is still an overhead of running such an operation.
- Xcelerate 13y agoAlcatel sure has fallen. My father worked for them in France in the mid-90s. He said at the time, they were one of the best run and most exciting companies in the world. They had research labs in all sorts of things all over the place. Eventually, new management was established and Alcatel began falling apart, and then they merged to form Alcatel-Lucent in 2006. I don't think anyone even knows who they are anymore.
- hkmurakami 13y agoEven Lucent was one of the tech darlings of the first .com bubble. How fan they have fallen...
- jessaustin 13y agoYeah, but no one ever accused Lucent of being "one of the best-run... in the world". I worked there, and I saw management do some jaw-droppingly stupid things.
- wissler 13y agoUnfortunately that just makes a bigger target of the smaller businesses who can't afford such a vigorous defense.
- mk3 13y agoIt seems the only one way to battle against patent trolls is to forbid them to use their patent infringement card if they do not use it themselves.
- famousactress 13y agoI'll be making a point to make a couple purchases at newegg that I probably would have gone to amazon for.
- chenster 13y agoNewegg just won my heart for what they did!
- unreal37 13y agoThank God for Newegg having a backbone to stand up for what is right. Let the market deliver to them their just rewards - customer loyalty and increased profits!
- _lex 13y agoNewegg's strategy here is basically applied game theory, where they loudly and publicly state that they will never pay licensing fees to trolls, and then they loudly and publicly show that to be the case. Worse, they're actually winning their court cases, and destroying the value of their opponent's patent portfolio. Nobody in their right mind would waste time trying to troll them now - unless they have a really rock-solid case, which is unknowable before litigation.
- darxius 13y agoSad to see they're Bell Labs patents. We owe a lot of innovation from the work done there. Dammit, and to think I was going to work for Alcatel. edit: wow, spelling.
- ChikkaChiChi 13y agoNewegg is winning the hearts and minds of the "Tech Influencers" here. People like us who follow the news and understand the importance of supporting endeavors like this are more likely to recommend and influence the buying decisions of others. You go from being a customer, to an evangelist.
- SwellJoe 13y agoWhen I ran a hardware oriented business, I spent tens of thousands of dollars every year at Newegg. Since moving exclusively to software, I buy a lot less hardware. But, I know where I'm buying my computers and electronics from now on. My livelihood depends on not being targeted by trolls, and companies that fight back against trolls help me avoid the damned near certain destruction of my company that a patent troll could cause me (I'd, ethically, be compelled to fight...but I simply don't have the resources to win such a fight).
- quackerhacker 13y agoI always laugh a little when I hear a professional use the term "troll." It really reminds of video games. Tra la la la. Excerpt from the article: "There are fewer trolls for us to fight."
- specialp 13y agoNew York City has taken a similar approach. They have now started fighting many more lawsuits even though the settlement amount would be less than the cost of defense. The problem with settling is that it emboldens others to come in as they can threaten a costly fight, while knowing that the city is not going to do that and make easy money. So while it may save money in the beginning, settling gets more people to sue you. Now that lawyers know that their bluff may be called and they may have to fight in court, they will be much more selective of what cases they take in to fight. Of course it can sometimes backfire as in Research in Motion's case, but you cannot always give in to threats. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/26/nyregion/new-york-to-stem-civil-rights-suits-is-now-reluctant-to-settle.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/26/nyregion/new-york-to-stem-...
- JakeSc 13y agoThe patent in question is pretty absurd. If I understand it correctly, Alcatel patented the concept of using an ID to reference an object: "referencing... an object that is to be displayed on the terminal display with a particular identifier" If I understand it correctly, I've violated this patent hundreds of times. But in Alcatel's defense, they patented it a couple years before I started using IDs.
- thomasjames 13y agoThis just highlights how much it pains me that Bell Labs is now in the hands of a foreign firm like Alcatel, which has also been quick to hijack its history.
- Kliment 13y agoWhat does the "foreign" have to do with it?
- thomasjames 13y agoBell Labs was one of the country's greatest resources and the model of what a corporate research facility should be. It was a decidedly domestic phenomenon, and also could work on sensitive topics freely. Its now being foreign has everything to do with it, which is why they had to spin off a small segment to continue with government contracts.