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Google set to face Intellectual Ventures in landmark patent trial
- belgianguy 13y agoIt's for cases like these I miss Groklaw. The reporting that we get now usually is either shilling/biased or too low on details to get a clear picture of what went down, as patents and lawyerese usually result in a vague mess most of the time. I hope Google knocks 'em out, but sadly the US legal system has 'surprised' me a bit too often to feel confident in the outcome.
- zeruch 13y agoI'm with you. Groklaw was such an elegant solution to a messy communication problem. And yes, I want Google to completely clobber that firm (I'd love to see Myhrvhold and his ilk cowed brutally).
- lcovington 13y agoI have to disagree, I find Groklaw extremely biased as well. It just happens that the bias seems to fit with your personal biases as well, so it appears like good coverage. This was especially true during Samsung vs. Apple, or with anything to do with Microsoft, or with defending Motorola's abuse of FRAND patents.
- twinwing 13y agoGroklaw had a clear bias and that could be corrected for. Their clear explanation of legal minutiae such that even a layman could understand it, and their attention to detail is why I follower their coverage. I do not believe there is a completely unbiased source of news, No true Scotsman and all that...
- bertil 13y agoI remember Groklaw actually sorting his technical understanding and personal bias.
- simonb 13y agos/his/her/g
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- youngtaff 13y agoGroklaw may have had a bias but you could always tell where Paula (?) was coming from and she doesn't appear to have taken money from anyone involved in the cases. Other bloggers on the other hand seem very biased, are paid to consult on this stuff and don't disclose who's paying them for what.
- midas007 13y agoI still don't understand the logic of how folding up shop was anything but signaling defeat.
- cromwellian 13y agoFlorian, is that you?
- throwawaykf03 13y agoI'm not sure how accurate Groklaw was during the SCO case, but as someone who understands patents more than the average geek: Groklaw was horrible when it came to patent matters. Let alone the obvious bias and snark, PJ was frequently either deliberately misleading or, if you want to be generous, completely confused. I personally would not be so generous because I saw her use underhanded methods too many times, like quoting things out of context or cherrypicking sentences or even blatantly saying something completely unsupported by the very documents she refered to. And of course, when she could not twist things to match her agenda, she'd make subtle insinuations of corruption. Like the time when a judge refused to rule against Microsoft in some case, "Isn't it weird this judge flew out to take a case that's not in his jurisdiction?" -- conveniently overlooking the fact that the judge in question had 1) more experience in the issues at hand and 2) ruled against Microsoft in a previous case.
- zeruch 13y agoI won't understate this: I want Google to eviscerate IV's entire reason for existence.
- IBM 13y agoI want Google to win if they don't infringe on their patents.
- bertil 13y agoI fully appreciate your intention to moderate the belligerent tone with reason and a Kantian admiration for applying the law as it is. However, I believe that the contention with Intellectual Ventures is that they hold patents that many say were awarded in spite of what was considered at the time (and far more so now) common concepts. It seems that voiding those patents is unreasonably hard with the law as it stands. Therefore, I hope that the judge considers not just the case, but also the industry-wide consequences, and accepts that what is commonly accepted in tech, for the greater good, are close imitation of previous designs. If I could influence the decision, I would gladly point at Haute-cuisine and their original idea-defending mechanisms.
- freehunter 13y agoAs IV is a patent troll, I want Google to win regardless of if they infringe or not, with the judgement being that IV's patents are unenforceable.
- kazagistar 13y agoI don't want software patents at all. Every single patent claim that wins is a tragedy. Infringing on a software patent should not be possible.
- bertil 13y agoI fully understand the sentiment, but let me try to hack your comment, and play the devil’s advocate: * Law works in mysterious ways: a victory for blatant reasons might be expressed with a rationale from the judge that triggers worst outcome. I hate the laws because of that (or rather, lawyers for being so clueless about economic assumptions behind recommendations) but that makes every nuanced decision so much more enjoyable. * A victory from the big, profitable company against a new business model (OK, I might have forgotten a moral decrepitude from one party in that description; thing is: law often does, too) means that jurisprudence might end up appearing a lot more in favor of winners, i.e. against competition and for established monopolies. Might: let's see what gives, but please remember that having a vivid tech scene does rely on a handful of counter-intuitive decisions that were made against allowing Standard Oil to offer cheap gas, against Microsoft for offering a simple, working solution, against Google simplifying their privacy statements. Competition law is counter-intuitive and unsatisfying.
- reuven 13y agoIn case anyone missed it, This American Life had two great shows about patent trolls, including Intellectual Ventures: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/w... http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/496/when-patents-attack-part-two http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/496/w... I always knew that patent trolls were a problem, and that the US patent system had big issues, but these shows made it oh-so-clear just how bad things are.
- throwawaykf03 13y agoEvery time someone links to those episodes I feel compelled to chime in and note that they (well, the first one, at least) are a terrible piece of reporting about patents. 1. Read through the transcript of the first episode. Note that the word "claims" shows up not even once. 1. a) If you don't know why that's a problem, you're in no shape to judge the patent system either. 2. All the patents at the M-CAM guy says are "on the same thing" are actually not. I know because I read them all. 3. There is no such thing as "a patent on toast". It's a downright shame that the authors didn't think to double check that with someone who, y'know, real understands how patents work. But oh look, amongst other things, M-CAM sells "patent risk management" services! No, not a conflict of interest there at all. 4. They talk to engineers (like many you'll find on HN) to get their views on patents. And like most here, none of them seems to understand how patents work. (Again, see point 1. a) above.) What do you expect will happen when you ask a Blub programmer his views on Haskell? 5. In the first episode, they insinuate that IV doesn't pay inventors like they claim. In the second episode, turns out that they do pay quite well, but oh look! that inventor is totally a schmuck for ripping off his coinventors! (Is he really the kind of inventor that IV is paying?!)
- nickff 13y ago>"3. There is no such thing as "a patent on toast". It's a downright shame that the authors didn't think to double check that with someone who, y'know, real understands how patents work. But oh look, amongst other things, M-CAM sells "patent risk management" services! No, not a conflict of interest there at all." Bread refreshing method US 6080436 A http://www.google.ca/patents/US6080436 http://www.google.ca/patents/US6080436
- WalterBright 13y agoBefore 1990, people weren't suing each other over software patents. And the software industry did just fine - it was a period of huge innovation and rapid progress. We know what the software development landscape looks like both with and without patents. It looks much better without.
- DanBC 13y agoLotus was suing people for look and feel in 1987. They'd have used patents if possible. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Software#.22Look_and_feel.22_lawsuits https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Software#.22Look_and_f... See also http://btlj.org/data/articles/vol1/pinheiro.pdf http://btlj.org/data/articles/vol1/pinheiro.pdf
- WalterBright 13y agoRight, those were copyright claims, not patent claims. Apple also sued Microsoft over look & feel, again a copyright claim. Ironically, Lotus 123 was more or less a clone of VisiCalc's ideas. Lotus 123 would never have been able to exist if software patents had been there at the time.
- throwawaykf03 13y agoThose were copyright claims, true, but that doesn't change the fact that companies still sought to protect what they felt were their innovations. There were many other cases involving many other companies, such as Sega vs Accolade. The only thing that has changed is companies have realized patents are a better means to that end because copyright does not, in their eyes, afford sufficient protection. >Lotus 123 would never have been able to exist if software patents had been there at the time. It's impossible to say that without considering what patents they'd have been able to secure in the first place, and even then it's almost certain they'd have existed. Software patents exist today and there is no shortage of clones in the market, even for products that had been heavily patented.
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- stuart78 13y agoThis is a big test for IV, but I am uncertain that it will individually change the course of affairs for the general patent question. The second This American Life episode cited by Reuven includes a good indication of why. These cases seem often to be examined not on underlying principle, but on the direct evidence. The 'network update' patent from TAL was busted not because the patent itself was found to be ambiguous or over-broad but because its authorship was incorrectly assigned to only one of its 'inventors'. Super narrow and no principle other than "check your application more carefully next time". In my opinion, this is how it should be. Courts should enforce the law, not change it (excepting the Supreme Court's right to reject the unconstitutional). For that, we need to work through Congress to modernize the definition of patents in respect to software. These cases play an important role in that process, which is to create a body of guidance on how software patents are being used and how they are being challenged, for statutory reform and/or legal appeal. [[As is probably obvious, I am not a lawyer, so I apologize for any legal inaccuracies in the above]]
- reader5000 13y agoCourts are to interpret the law. The legislature says "all horses are animals." The courts have to answer "what about baby horses? dead horses? are things that are not horses also animals or can only horses be animals? is a zebra a horse? what about a horse embryo? who can decide what is a horse or not? etc etc." The courts have to answer these questions in such a way as to make life as least shitty as possible. So yes, the validity of shitty patents is totally up for the courts, but of course the legislature can weigh in any time.
- erkkie 13y agocommon law vs civil law - https://www.law.berkeley.edu/library/robbins/CommonLawCivilLawTraditions.html https://www.law.berkeley.edu/library/robbins/CommonLawCivilL... It's mostly how you describe (for better or worse) in countries following civil law, the US follows common law.
- ubernostrum 13y agoThe problem is that the current mess is not due to changes in law, but to changes in court decisions. The courts should clean up their mess.
- reader5000 13y agoSoftware patents: taking very broad, simple, and obvious ideas, expressing those ideas in technical language to impress the patent examiners, suing everybody who independently discovers and uses the idea.
- WildUtah 13y agoThe suit in question (11-908 in Delaware federal district court [0]) was filed in October of 2011. It is coming to trial in 2014 and the participants have probably spent well over a million dollars each getting to this point. That alone tells you all you need to know about the chances that a startup company has in getting justice or even just surviving against a garbage patent abuser in court. Google did not own Motorola when the case was filed and Google is not a named defendant, contrary to the deliberately misleading headline. The Reuters article doesn't say anything about what the six patents claim or even give their numbers. Those numbers are 7,810,144 (the '144 patent), 6,412,953 (the '953 patent), 7,409,450, 7,120,462, 6,557,054, and 6,658,464. The Reuters article does mention that the accused devices are older Moto phones and accessories. Newer devices than 2011 are, of course, not in the original complaint and usually are not added at this late stage. The '144 patent is for a "File Transfer System for Direct Transfer Between Computers" -- describing a subset of SMS or IRC style messaging -- filed in 1997 and repeatedly rejected until the PTO folded under seven continued amended petitions in 2010. There is no limit to the patent amendments an applicant can make and no such thing as a final rejection at the PTO. Applicants are encouraged to reword claims to cover technology invented by others since the original application. [1] If you'd like to be infuriated about how the patent system abuses software and computer networks, read the linked [0] opinion starting on page 14 where claim construction begins. The '953 patent was filed in 1998 vaguely describing long established LCD backlighting practice. The '054 patent, "Method and System for Distributing Updates by Presenting Directory of Software Available for User Installation That Is Not Already Installed on User Station," was filed in 2000. The '464 patent, "User Station Software That Controls Transport, Storage, and Presentation of Content from a Remote Source," is like iBooks or Archie and filed in 1994. The '450 patent, "Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) Packet-Centric Wireless Point to Multi-Point (PTMP) Transmission System Architecture," was filed in 1998. It describes the use of any QoS scheme that includes packet inspection over a wireless network. The '462 patent, "Portable Computing, Communication and Entertainment Device with Central Processor Carried in a Detachable Handset," filed in 1999 describes handheld computers with a docking station. It does not describe how to build such a device, of course, just that one could exist. [0] Summary judgement motion here explains most of the issues http://www.ded.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/opinions/slr/2014/january/11-908.pdf http://www.ded.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/opinions/slr... [1] http://www.patenthawk.com/blog_docs/2004_Continuations_Lemley&Moore.pdf http://www.patenthawk.com/blog_docs/2004_Continuations_Lemle...