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> Even though there was no evidence of copying—Vringo admitted as much What a ridiculous system we all operate under. You come up with a mathematical formula f

> Even though there was no evidence of copying—Vringo admitted as much What a ridiculous system we all operate under. You come up with a mathematical formula for ranking some text on a page (in this case, what ads to show first), and you could now owe $250M/year to some company you've never heard of because they already bought the rights to that formula. It turns my stomach; sorry that I have nothing of more substance to add to this story.

allochthon 13y ago
I agree. The basis for the plaintiff's suit no doubt consists of rarefied lawyerese, and the plaintiff has probably added no value to the world. But they get many millions. How has the property law been allowed to tie itself up into this knot?
- aquadrop 13y ago
  Yes, I think they got millions for doing nothing is one of the problems. Probably, you should only have right to defend your patent if you're actually using it. Like that's part of your business. And if you don't use it for couple of years, patent goes to public domain.
  - acjohnson55 13y ago
    I think even in the case that the invention is actually being used, patents may not be justified. I mean, suppose Google owned the patent they just got sued on. Would it make sense for them to have the power to freeze other people out of the market, when operating in the market without any statutory monopoly powers is already spectacularly profitable for them?
graving 13y ago
They(and you), did hear of the company that originally got these patents. Here's the very interesting story behind the patents. http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/31/why-google-might-be-going-to-0/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/31/why-google-might-be-going-t... edit: I am rate limited from replying to fpgeeks reply below so I will post my reply here. First, the author is extremely clear that he invested in Vringo, in fact the whole article is about why he did so., so I am not sure why you talk about it as if it is kind of a revelation. Second, the article is very informative about the history of the patents and is highly relevant. Third,which of my comments are pro Vringo, really? Fourth, can I be suspicious that you're short Vringo stock, or do you get a free pass just because you have an older HN account.
- fpgeek 13y ago
  As magicalist notes below, the author of this story is an investor in Vringo. Separately, given the allegations in the Ars comment thread: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/01/court-orders-google-to-pay-1-36-of-adwords-revenue-for-infringing-patents/?comments=1&post=26124477 http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/01/court-orders-goog... I'm more than a bit suspicious of a brand-new account that's posting pro-Vringo comments.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- chavesn 13y ago
  > You can think to yourself: “ugh, patent trolls are disgusting”. But the protection of intellectual property is what America is built on. Smart people invent things. Then they get to protect the intellectual property on what they invents. Other companies can’t steal[1] that technology. "Protection of intellectual property is what America is built on?" Hyperbole much? "Smart people invent things. Then they get to protect [...] what they invents." Oversimplification much? Not exactly a home-run defense of patents by Mr. Altucher. [1]: As admitted by the article, there was no "stealing" here anyway.
  - WalterBright 13y ago
    > But the protection of intellectual property is what America is built on. Is it? I recall the story of how the textile industry in America was built upon designs illegally smuggled out of Britain. Also, the movie, auto, and aviation industries were all hobbled for years under patent lawsuits. It was so bad in the aviation business that development in the US pretty much ground to a standstill and the center for aviation progress switched over to Europe for a decade or two.
    - cmdkeen 13y ago
      Not just that - a young America ignored foreign authors copyright in publishing. Film making took off in Southern California in order to escape the Edison company's protection of its film patents. Intellectual property protection became important to America once it had leapfrogged other nations by ignoring their rights. Which is what makes the current stance on international intellectual property a little hypocritical, especially when it comes to generic drugs in third world countries.
bsdetector 13y ago
Just because the same thing can be invented independently doesn't mean the system is ridiculous. In fact, it's the very fact that the system relies on to create research competition. Being the Vringo is the motivation to invent things before the competition does.
- andrewflnr 13y ago
  You seemed to have missed the part where Vringo bought the patents from Lycos, a company google killed on the open market by, in your terms, doing better research.
  - dclara 13y ago
    The inventor Ken Lang sold to Lycos and bought back. He is the CTO at Vringo. See the comments after the original article.
- andrewfong 13y ago
  Alternatively, it creates a motivation to not even try in the first place. If you've come up with an idea, there's a good chance someone else has as well. Why work on an invention if there's (1) a very good chance that someone else will get there first and (2) this will force you to toss all your work out the window, even if your implementation is better. Moreover, the current system creates a perverse incentive to obfuscate your patent. Although all patents are (eventually) published, there's no requirement that they be published in a manner that's useful (no source code) or discoverable (non-standard jargon). The incentive is not always to make the patent well known until after a party has already invested significant resources into an enterprise, at which point the patent can be used for something pretty close to extortion.
andrewfong 13y ago
The lack of an independent invention defense (or some variation of this) is pretty much 80% of what's wrong with patent law in my opinion. A sampling of the issues an independent invention addresses: * Obviousness. Patents are required to be non-obvious to a "person holding ordinary skill in the art", but obviousness is highly subjective and difficult to assess (especially for a non-technical jury). In contrast, evaluating whether something was independently invented, while not necessarily simple, is a more objective test. * Utility. One of the rationales behind the patent system is that we want to encourage inventors to share their ideas with the world instead of just keeping them secret for as long as possible. While the patent system requires publication of the invention, it doesn't require publication in a manner that's particularly useful. If you could only assert patents against people actually using them, then you would have a strong incentive to make them useful (e.g. source code). * Supply and Demand. The current system grants a flat 20 years to each patented invention, regardless of how difficult or expensive it was to invent. Recognizing independent invention creates the opportunity for a more flexible system. Inventions that are hard to reproduce independently are more valuable to society and should enjoy a longer term than easier ones. The obvious problem with all of the above of course is how feasible it is to assess whether something was invented "independently". I've addressed that to some degree in this blog post (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121011/14171220681/yes-independent-invention-defense-patents-is-completely-feasible.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121011/14171220681/yes-in...), but I admit it's a hard problem. EDIT: Typos
- eru 13y ago
  I mostly agree. Though, you'd get some interesting reverse engineering related problems. Ie look at the patent, come up with a problem that would make this patent obvious, lock some engineers in a sealed room with the problem, and wait for something like the patent to fall out. Was that independent invention, then?
  - andrewfong 13y ago
    Probably not, although you could write the rules in a way that avoids this I think -- e.g. the knowledge of the person who looks at the patent is imparted to the engineers because they're all part of the same organization.

allochthon 13y ago

I agree. The basis for the plaintiff's suit no doubt consists of rarefied lawyerese, and the plaintiff has probably added no value to the world. But they get many millions. How has the property law been allowed to tie itself up into this knot?

aquadrop 13y ago
Yes, I think they got millions for doing nothing is one of the problems. Probably, you should only have right to defend your patent if you're actually using it. Like that's part of your business. And if you don't use it for couple of years, patent goes to public domain.
- acjohnson55 13y ago
  I think even in the case that the invention is actually being used, patents may not be justified. I mean, suppose Google owned the patent they just got sued on. Would it make sense for them to have the power to freeze other people out of the market, when operating in the market without any statutory monopoly powers is already spectacularly profitable for them?

graving 13y ago

They(and you), did hear of the company that originally got these patents. Here's the very interesting story behind the patents. http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/31/why-google-might-be-going-to-0/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/31/why-google-might-be-going-t... edit: I am rate limited from replying to fpgeeks reply below so I will post my reply here. First, the author is extremely clear that he invested in Vringo, in fact the whole article is about why he did so., so I am not sure why you talk about it as if it is kind of a revelation. Second, the article is very informative about the history of the patents and is highly relevant. Third,which of my comments are pro Vringo, really? Fourth, can I be suspicious that you're short Vringo stock, or do you get a free pass just because you have an older HN account.

fpgeek 13y ago
As magicalist notes below, the author of this story is an investor in Vringo. Separately, given the allegations in the Ars comment thread: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/01/court-orders-google-to-pay-1-36-of-adwords-revenue-for-infringing-patents/?comments=1&post=26124477 http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/01/court-orders-goog... I'm more than a bit suspicious of a brand-new account that's posting pro-Vringo comments.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
chavesn 13y ago
> You can think to yourself: “ugh, patent trolls are disgusting”. But the protection of intellectual property is what America is built on. Smart people invent things. Then they get to protect the intellectual property on what they invents. Other companies can’t steal[1] that technology. "Protection of intellectual property is what America is built on?" Hyperbole much? "Smart people invent things. Then they get to protect [...] what they invents." Oversimplification much? Not exactly a home-run defense of patents by Mr. Altucher. [1]: As admitted by the article, there was no "stealing" here anyway.
- WalterBright 13y ago
  > But the protection of intellectual property is what America is built on. Is it? I recall the story of how the textile industry in America was built upon designs illegally smuggled out of Britain. Also, the movie, auto, and aviation industries were all hobbled for years under patent lawsuits. It was so bad in the aviation business that development in the US pretty much ground to a standstill and the center for aviation progress switched over to Europe for a decade or two.
  - cmdkeen 13y ago
    Not just that - a young America ignored foreign authors copyright in publishing. Film making took off in Southern California in order to escape the Edison company's protection of its film patents. Intellectual property protection became important to America once it had leapfrogged other nations by ignoring their rights. Which is what makes the current stance on international intellectual property a little hypocritical, especially when it comes to generic drugs in third world countries.

bsdetector 13y ago

Just because the same thing can be invented independently doesn't mean the system is ridiculous. In fact, it's the very fact that the system relies on to create research competition. Being the Vringo is the motivation to invent things before the competition does.

andrewflnr 13y ago
You seemed to have missed the part where Vringo bought the patents from Lycos, a company google killed on the open market by, in your terms, doing better research.
- dclara 13y ago
  The inventor Ken Lang sold to Lycos and bought back. He is the CTO at Vringo. See the comments after the original article.
andrewfong 13y ago
Alternatively, it creates a motivation to not even try in the first place. If you've come up with an idea, there's a good chance someone else has as well. Why work on an invention if there's (1) a very good chance that someone else will get there first and (2) this will force you to toss all your work out the window, even if your implementation is better. Moreover, the current system creates a perverse incentive to obfuscate your patent. Although all patents are (eventually) published, there's no requirement that they be published in a manner that's useful (no source code) or discoverable (non-standard jargon). The incentive is not always to make the patent well known until after a party has already invested significant resources into an enterprise, at which point the patent can be used for something pretty close to extortion.

andrewfong 13y ago

The lack of an independent invention defense (or some variation of this) is pretty much 80% of what's wrong with patent law in my opinion. A sampling of the issues an independent invention addresses: * Obviousness. Patents are required to be non-obvious to a "person holding ordinary skill in the art", but obviousness is highly subjective and difficult to assess (especially for a non-technical jury). In contrast, evaluating whether something was independently invented, while not necessarily simple, is a more objective test. * Utility. One of the rationales behind the patent system is that we want to encourage inventors to share their ideas with the world instead of just keeping them secret for as long as possible. While the patent system requires publication of the invention, it doesn't require publication in a manner that's particularly useful. If you could only assert patents against people actually using them, then you would have a strong incentive to make them useful (e.g. source code). * Supply and Demand. The current system grants a flat 20 years to each patented invention, regardless of how difficult or expensive it was to invent. Recognizing independent invention creates the opportunity for a more flexible system. Inventions that are hard to reproduce independently are more valuable to society and should enjoy a longer term than easier ones. The obvious problem with all of the above of course is how feasible it is to assess whether something was invented "independently". I've addressed that to some degree in this blog post (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121011/14171220681/yes-independent-invention-defense-patents-is-completely-feasible.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121011/14171220681/yes-in...), but I admit it's a hard problem. EDIT: Typos

eru 13y ago
I mostly agree. Though, you'd get some interesting reverse engineering related problems. Ie look at the patent, come up with a problem that would make this patent obvious, lock some engineers in a sealed room with the problem, and wait for something like the patent to fall out. Was that independent invention, then?
- andrewfong 13y ago
  Probably not, although you could write the rules in a way that avoids this I think -- e.g. the knowledge of the person who looks at the patent is imparted to the engineers because they're all part of the same organization.