4 ms·

First, Twitter didn't pay off IBM for trolling here. They outright bought a set of patents in the hope that Twitter's own new portfolio would be enough to disco

First, Twitter didn't pay off IBM for trolling here. They outright bought a set of patents in the hope that Twitter's own new portfolio would be enough to discourage other companies from suing Twitter in the future. Defensive portfolios of garbage patents used to be the key to preventing competitors from suing you with their garbage patents. After the eBay v. MercExchange [0] case in 2006, it's not as dangerous to be sued but defensive portfolios are now much less useful also because you can't threaten to shut down aggressors' businesses with injunctions. The Apple v. Samsung and Microsoft v. Motorola cases also recently demonstrated that vague garbage patents are much more useful in court than technological patents. Juries and judges understand them better and are inclined to award hundreds of times more damages. Second, IBM is the least awful kind of patent troll. They generally ask for small fractions of revenue or investment in companies that have established themselves. The IPO phase is a favorite time for them to ask for a few million from growing companies. The worst kind of trolls -- such as Microsoft's Intellectual Ventures -- ask for much more money from companies and often go after startups. IBM exercises restraint with the idea that they might have an ongoing relationship with companies someday in some other context. And IBM, unlike most trolls, actually does real research. Most of the new ideas in Google Search were first published in an IBM research paper that Larry and Sergei read. IBM didn't patent those ideas, though; they mostly seem to accumulate scattershot patents at random. I think IBM's primary goal is to top the list of prolific grantees every year. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBay_Inc._v._MercExchange,_L.L.C http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBay_Inc._v._MercExchange,_L.L.....

josephlord 13y ago
> The Apple v. Samsung and Microsoft v. Motorola cases also recently demonstrated that vague garbage patents are much more useful in court than technological patents. Juries and judges understand them better and are inclined to award hundreds of times more damages. I don't think that I agree with this part especially if you are equating Standards Essential Patents with "technological patents" and all other patents as "vague garbage patents". If that wasn't what you meant I misunderstood. The reason that SEP are worth less (than other valid patents) and not entitled to injunctions is because commitments were entered into by their owners to enable them to be included in the standard. And some SEPs are pretty low grade too and alternative approaches are often only prevented by the standard itself.
- WildUtah 13y ago
  The reason that SEP are worth less (than other valid patents) and not entitled to injunctions Actually, almost no patents are entitled to injunctions since the eBay decision made courts apply the same standard to patent cases as to other injunction requests, and we all owe many thanks to the Supreme Court for that. some SEPs are pretty low grade too Indeed, the Microsoft v. Motorola patents were particularly lousy. One Motorola patent was on the use of a particular number as a key in an error correcting code. The code itself was prior art but any two devices needed to use the some identical arbitrary key to communicate. It's embarrassing that the PTO allowed that one, but the court is making Microsoft pay for every device shipped now. Fortunately the price is small. The Apple v. Samsung case involved a few Samsung radio channel efficiency patents that the jury found not infringed even though Apple did infringe them. They were probably as invalid as all the utility patents in the case but they failed to be useful probably because they were complicated and juries don't pay much attention to technological patents or discussions of them. Apple's garbage patent about bounce-back was much more effective. Juries can measure that. Now SEP (standards essential) patents are much less useful because judges are not inclined to allow them to be used defensively. And arguably valid patents are slightly more powerful than clearly erroneous ones. But simple garbage patents focused on non-technological UI and superficial means of doing business are much more effective in all litigation than actual technological patents independent of SEP status or validity.
  - josephlord 13y ago
    Fair enough, I have seen plenty of comments on here assuming that SEPs are better patents than others but your view seems clearly much more nuanced. I mostly agree with your actual view and did incorrectly interpret the section I quoted. I'm not sure the bounce back patent is inherently garbage (although it may be invalid due to prior art) but that sort of patent is entirely possible to work around. I'm not saying it is great patent but it does strike me as somewhat inventive, novel (AFAIK). I do understand what you mean about the likelihood of juries putting too much weight on what they understand. I'm not aware of the details of the Samsung radio channel efficiency patents but I wonder why Samsung didn't bring them to (or didn't win with them) at the ITC where there isn't a jury. I'm not actually disagreeing here but it would be something ai would want to understand before completely agreeing with you about the lack of value in true technological patents (I'm in a don't know state rather than disagreement at this point).

josephlord 13y ago

> The Apple v. Samsung and Microsoft v. Motorola cases also recently demonstrated that vague garbage patents are much more useful in court than technological patents. Juries and judges understand them better and are inclined to award hundreds of times more damages. I don't think that I agree with this part especially if you are equating Standards Essential Patents with "technological patents" and all other patents as "vague garbage patents". If that wasn't what you meant I misunderstood. The reason that SEP are worth less (than other valid patents) and not entitled to injunctions is because commitments were entered into by their owners to enable them to be included in the standard. And some SEPs are pretty low grade too and alternative approaches are often only prevented by the standard itself.

WildUtah 13y ago
The reason that SEP are worth less (than other valid patents) and not entitled to injunctions Actually, almost no patents are entitled to injunctions since the eBay decision made courts apply the same standard to patent cases as to other injunction requests, and we all owe many thanks to the Supreme Court for that. some SEPs are pretty low grade too Indeed, the Microsoft v. Motorola patents were particularly lousy. One Motorola patent was on the use of a particular number as a key in an error correcting code. The code itself was prior art but any two devices needed to use the some identical arbitrary key to communicate. It's embarrassing that the PTO allowed that one, but the court is making Microsoft pay for every device shipped now. Fortunately the price is small. The Apple v. Samsung case involved a few Samsung radio channel efficiency patents that the jury found not infringed even though Apple did infringe them. They were probably as invalid as all the utility patents in the case but they failed to be useful probably because they were complicated and juries don't pay much attention to technological patents or discussions of them. Apple's garbage patent about bounce-back was much more effective. Juries can measure that. Now SEP (standards essential) patents are much less useful because judges are not inclined to allow them to be used defensively. And arguably valid patents are slightly more powerful than clearly erroneous ones. But simple garbage patents focused on non-technological UI and superficial means of doing business are much more effective in all litigation than actual technological patents independent of SEP status or validity.
- josephlord 13y ago
  Fair enough, I have seen plenty of comments on here assuming that SEPs are better patents than others but your view seems clearly much more nuanced. I mostly agree with your actual view and did incorrectly interpret the section I quoted. I'm not sure the bounce back patent is inherently garbage (although it may be invalid due to prior art) but that sort of patent is entirely possible to work around. I'm not saying it is great patent but it does strike me as somewhat inventive, novel (AFAIK). I do understand what you mean about the likelihood of juries putting too much weight on what they understand. I'm not aware of the details of the Samsung radio channel efficiency patents but I wonder why Samsung didn't bring them to (or didn't win with them) at the ITC where there isn't a jury. I'm not actually disagreeing here but it would be something ai would want to understand before completely agreeing with you about the lack of value in true technological patents (I'm in a don't know state rather than disagreement at this point).