8 ms·

Jury finds CBS infringes podcasting patent, awards $1.3M

85 points by palebluedot 12y ago

paulgb 12y ago
EFF's statement https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/09/after-setback-texas-fight-against-podcasting-patent-troll-will-continue https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/09/after-setback-texas-fi...
chmullig 12y ago
God damn it, eastern district of Texas. Please stop ruining America.
- rbanffy 12y ago
  This is probably the simplest way to demonstrate Texas needs more money for its school system.
  - saryant 12y ago
    It's a federal court...
    - beedogs 12y ago
      It was a jury trial.
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
    - nknighthb 12y ago
      So? Federal judges and juries in the eastern district of Texas are from the eastern district of Texas. They don't commute from magic federal land every day. They attended the same schools everyone else did.
      - the_watcher 12y ago
        5 judges on the Eastern District are not from the Eastern district. They are presidentially appointed, and did not attend the schools that everyone else did in many if not most cases. You are correct about the juries.
        rbanffy 12y ago
        ... and the title starts with "Jury finds". Which is kind of my initial point.
- IvyMike 12y ago
  Holy crap: correct me if I'm wrong, but 6000 nationwide patent cases in one year, and one judge had 900 cases in his court, meaning that one judge was responsible for 15 percent of this entire country's patent cases. I hope I screwed that up somehow because that is insane. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/the-year-in-patent-litigation-more-trolling-more-texas/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/the-year-in-paten...
  - thaumasiotes 12y ago
    You hear a lot of complaints about the glacial pace of the courts, but is this guy really deciding 2.5 cases a day? Maybe he could stand to go slower.
    - tehmaco 12y ago
      Closer to 3.5, unless the courts work weekends in the USA.
- gomerclaus 12y ago
  On the plus side, they might end up saving us time on reading. I think everyone on this site could tell where the article was going after the first five words.
- eli 12y ago
  I really don't think Texas is the root problem here. They would just move the cases to whatever the 2nd least crowded district is.
a3n 12y ago
What the hell is wrong with East Texas? Is it the bed and breakfast industry? Do they profit from contingents having to stay local?
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  There's two main current factors (and one older factor) that seem to be cited for ED Texas place in patent litigation: 1. It used to be "rocket docket" where patent cases came to trial quickly, which is generally seen as favoring plaintiffs (since they have likely done more prep before the case is filed); this is no apparently no longer the case, however. 2. It apparently has a jury pool more inclined to large damage awards, and possibly somewhat more plaintiff friendly in terms of finding liability at all (often attributed to age and local culture regarding property rights.) 3. It has judges that are reputed to be less inclined to summary judgement motions from the defense and more inclined to let patent cases go to juries on evidence where other courts would award summary judgement for the defense.
ejr 12y ago
If the jurors in that area of the country have a special incentive to keep these trials going, then that should be grounds to move them elsewhere. Local businesses may be benefitting by having the increase in outside revenue due to the influx of legal teams and such.
downandout 12y ago
This will be appealed until the end of time - all this did was cost CBS more in legal fees. In the intervening years, Personal Audio will use this one win as a stick with which to extort settlements, but that will only be effective against people that can't afford to litigate it. These ultimate winner in appellate court after an extremely questionable verdict is usually the last man standing. Since CBS has vastly more resources than Personal Audio, my guess is that CBS will ultimately emerge the "winner," if you can call spending millions in legal fees "winning".
Oculus 12y ago
The scariest part about these cases is with Trans-Pacific Partnership[1] they set a precedent for not only the United States, but a whole slew of other countries[2]. 1 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership#Intellectual_property_provisions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership#Intel... 2 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership#Members_and_Potential_Members http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership#Membe...
- superzamp 12y ago
  Dammit, I hope this crap will not spread to EU as well trough the Transatlantic Parternship.
fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
A lot of complaints about East Texas in here. I've had a few myself since I grew up there. That being said, this isn't the only example of gaming the patent/courts system. Blaming the jurors for being prototypical dumb hicks that some of them are is fun but misses the point. The real problem is that a tech patent case wound up there to begin with. There is definitely no interesting podcasting or other telecomm technology being invented there (Longview); and that isn't the fault of the jurors. These companies set up sham offices in the area to pretend that they belong in the Ninth Circuit court. Fix the courts and you'll improve the situation a bit. Of course, the company was predicated on a sham to begin with, so I'm not sure how you fix that.
- mrcsparker 12y ago
  I grew up in Houston. East Texas is very different from the rest of Texas. The accent, food, culture are all much more stereotypically southern than north, west, central, or south Texas. Even the BBQ is different - you put sauce on everything. That being said, my comment offers no real information. I just thought that it would be fun to post.
- thinkcomp 12y ago
  Texas is in the Fifth Circuit, and it's actually the Eastern District of Texas that uninformed patent lawyers target, not the Fifth Circuit overall. See http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/df/US_Court_of_Appeals_and_District_Court_map.svg/1280px-US_Court_of_Appeals_and_District_Court_map.svg.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/df/US_....
  - fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
    My mistake. Thanks!
- cpitman 12y ago
  This American Life actually did a pretty good story on patents. I'm pretty sure part of it explained the historical reason for why the ninth circuit gets so many patent cases: patent cases are lower priority on dockets, so if plaintiffs ever wanted their cases heard they needed to find a court that had less higher priority cases to hear.
venomsnake 12y ago
So we don't do jury trials in criminal cases where the jury can get the crime (96% pleas), but when it is about complex and bullshit IP laws, where even very savvy person will be confused - fire away. Something is very wrong with that system.
- MichaelApproved 12y ago
  Most criminal cases plea out because sentences have increased dramatically over the last few decades. You can plea down to a small sentence or take your chances with 15-20 years in prison, if you're convicted. Prosecutors know this and pump up a case with as many charges as possible so you won't be tempted to take it to trial. You can argue that juries aren't savvy enough to judge a complicated IP case and I'd agree with you but that's what the appeals court is there for. If the jury got it wrong, you can appeal to judges who, presumably, have a better understanding.
  - AnthonyMouse 12y ago
    > You can argue that juries aren't savvy enough to judge a complicated IP case and I'd agree with you but that's what the appeals court is there for. If the jury got it wrong, you can appeal to judges who, presumably, have a better understanding. The appellate court for patent cases is the Federal Circuit, which is full of former patent lawyers who don't really understand software and like validating ridiculous software patents. After that you can only appeal to the Supreme Court, and only if they take the case and you haven't been bankrupted yet.
  - rayiner 12y ago
    Most criminal cases plead out because the accused are guilty.
    - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 12y ago
      How do you know that?
      - 12y ago
mmanfrin 12y ago
What a kangaroo court case. > The company made the argument that the "podcasting" patent actually covered "episodic content" transmitted over the Internet, including video content. The patent refers to a "compilation file," which Personal Audio lawyers say correlates to the HTML webpage that CBS hosts its content at.
sgloutnikov 12y ago
Wonder if this trial is partially why the Adam Carolla trial settlement had a quiet period until Sep. 30?
- corobo 12y ago
  More than likely. Can't wait to hear why Carolla settled - wasn't his rallying based on defeating the patent troll rather than just getting the troll to go away? Using money donated by listeners to _defeat_ the troll.. :(
  - smackfu 12y ago
    From this CBS case, you can see that even a large company with bottomless legal pockets can lose a ridiculous patent case. Who's to say that Carolla would have won?
chollida1 12y ago
I think 1.3 million ends up being an interesting number. The number is small enough that CBS might consider just paying it. However, they are a huge company with alot of lawyers at their disposal. They could chose to fight this without the financial burden that alot of smaller players like Adam Corolla would have had. > Now that its patent has been validated against CBS, Personal Audio will be allowed to move forward with trials against NBC and Fox. This is also interesting. The enemy of my enemy is my friend may come into play here as I'm sure FOX and NBC don't want to go to court. I can see them helping CBS in an appeal with what I think is called an amicus breif/curiae on CBS behalf.

85 points by palebluedot 12y ago

EFF's statement https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/09/after-setback-texas-fight-against-podcasting-patent-troll-will-continue https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/09/after-setback-texas-fi...

chmullig 12y ago

God damn it, eastern district of Texas. Please stop ruining America.

rbanffy 12y ago
This is probably the simplest way to demonstrate Texas needs more money for its school system.
- saryant 12y ago
  It's a federal court...
  - beedogs 12y ago
    It was a jury trial.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
  - nknighthb 12y ago
    So? Federal judges and juries in the eastern district of Texas are from the eastern district of Texas. They don't commute from magic federal land every day. They attended the same schools everyone else did.
    - the_watcher 12y ago
      5 judges on the Eastern District are not from the Eastern district. They are presidentially appointed, and did not attend the schools that everyone else did in many if not most cases. You are correct about the juries.
      - rbanffy 12y ago
        ... and the title starts with "Jury finds". Which is kind of my initial point.
IvyMike 12y ago
Holy crap: correct me if I'm wrong, but 6000 nationwide patent cases in one year, and one judge had 900 cases in his court, meaning that one judge was responsible for 15 percent of this entire country's patent cases. I hope I screwed that up somehow because that is insane. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/the-year-in-patent-litigation-more-trolling-more-texas/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/the-year-in-paten...
- thaumasiotes 12y ago
  You hear a lot of complaints about the glacial pace of the courts, but is this guy really deciding 2.5 cases a day? Maybe he could stand to go slower.
  - tehmaco 12y ago
    Closer to 3.5, unless the courts work weekends in the USA.
gomerclaus 12y ago
On the plus side, they might end up saving us time on reading. I think everyone on this site could tell where the article was going after the first five words.
eli 12y ago
I really don't think Texas is the root problem here. They would just move the cases to whatever the 2nd least crowded district is.

a3n 12y ago

What the hell is wrong with East Texas? Is it the bed and breakfast industry? Do they profit from contingents having to stay local?

dragonwriter 12y ago
There's two main current factors (and one older factor) that seem to be cited for ED Texas place in patent litigation: 1. It used to be "rocket docket" where patent cases came to trial quickly, which is generally seen as favoring plaintiffs (since they have likely done more prep before the case is filed); this is no apparently no longer the case, however. 2. It apparently has a jury pool more inclined to large damage awards, and possibly somewhat more plaintiff friendly in terms of finding liability at all (often attributed to age and local culture regarding property rights.) 3. It has judges that are reputed to be less inclined to summary judgement motions from the defense and more inclined to let patent cases go to juries on evidence where other courts would award summary judgement for the defense.

ejr 12y ago

If the jurors in that area of the country have a special incentive to keep these trials going, then that should be grounds to move them elsewhere. Local businesses may be benefitting by having the increase in outside revenue due to the influx of legal teams and such.

downandout 12y ago

This will be appealed until the end of time - all this did was cost CBS more in legal fees. In the intervening years, Personal Audio will use this one win as a stick with which to extort settlements, but that will only be effective against people that can't afford to litigate it. These ultimate winner in appellate court after an extremely questionable verdict is usually the last man standing. Since CBS has vastly more resources than Personal Audio, my guess is that CBS will ultimately emerge the "winner," if you can call spending millions in legal fees "winning".

Oculus 12y ago

The scariest part about these cases is with Trans-Pacific Partnership[1] they set a precedent for not only the United States, but a whole slew of other countries[2]. 1 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership#Intellectual_property_provisions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership#Intel... 2 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership#Members_and_Potential_Members http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership#Membe...

superzamp 12y ago
Dammit, I hope this crap will not spread to EU as well trough the Transatlantic Parternship.

fnordfnordfnord 12y ago

A lot of complaints about East Texas in here. I've had a few myself since I grew up there. That being said, this isn't the only example of gaming the patent/courts system. Blaming the jurors for being prototypical dumb hicks that some of them are is fun but misses the point. The real problem is that a tech patent case wound up there to begin with. There is definitely no interesting podcasting or other telecomm technology being invented there (Longview); and that isn't the fault of the jurors. These companies set up sham offices in the area to pretend that they belong in the Ninth Circuit court. Fix the courts and you'll improve the situation a bit. Of course, the company was predicated on a sham to begin with, so I'm not sure how you fix that.

mrcsparker 12y ago
I grew up in Houston. East Texas is very different from the rest of Texas. The accent, food, culture are all much more stereotypically southern than north, west, central, or south Texas. Even the BBQ is different - you put sauce on everything. That being said, my comment offers no real information. I just thought that it would be fun to post.
thinkcomp 12y ago
Texas is in the Fifth Circuit, and it's actually the Eastern District of Texas that uninformed patent lawyers target, not the Fifth Circuit overall. See http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/df/US_Court_of_Appeals_and_District_Court_map.svg/1280px-US_Court_of_Appeals_and_District_Court_map.svg.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/df/US_....
- fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
  My mistake. Thanks!
cpitman 12y ago
This American Life actually did a pretty good story on patents. I'm pretty sure part of it explained the historical reason for why the ninth circuit gets so many patent cases: patent cases are lower priority on dockets, so if plaintiffs ever wanted their cases heard they needed to find a court that had less higher priority cases to hear.

venomsnake 12y ago

So we don't do jury trials in criminal cases where the jury can get the crime (96% pleas), but when it is about complex and bullshit IP laws, where even very savvy person will be confused - fire away. Something is very wrong with that system.

MichaelApproved 12y ago
Most criminal cases plea out because sentences have increased dramatically over the last few decades. You can plea down to a small sentence or take your chances with 15-20 years in prison, if you're convicted. Prosecutors know this and pump up a case with as many charges as possible so you won't be tempted to take it to trial. You can argue that juries aren't savvy enough to judge a complicated IP case and I'd agree with you but that's what the appeals court is there for. If the jury got it wrong, you can appeal to judges who, presumably, have a better understanding.
- AnthonyMouse 12y ago
  > You can argue that juries aren't savvy enough to judge a complicated IP case and I'd agree with you but that's what the appeals court is there for. If the jury got it wrong, you can appeal to judges who, presumably, have a better understanding. The appellate court for patent cases is the Federal Circuit, which is full of former patent lawyers who don't really understand software and like validating ridiculous software patents. After that you can only appeal to the Supreme Court, and only if they take the case and you haven't been bankrupted yet.
- rayiner 12y ago
  Most criminal cases plead out because the accused are guilty.
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 12y ago
    How do you know that?
    - 12y ago

mmanfrin 12y ago

What a kangaroo court case. > The company made the argument that the "podcasting" patent actually covered "episodic content" transmitted over the Internet, including video content. The patent refers to a "compilation file," which Personal Audio lawyers say correlates to the HTML webpage that CBS hosts its content at.

sgloutnikov 12y ago

Wonder if this trial is partially why the Adam Carolla trial settlement had a quiet period until Sep. 30?

corobo 12y ago
More than likely. Can't wait to hear why Carolla settled - wasn't his rallying based on defeating the patent troll rather than just getting the troll to go away? Using money donated by listeners to _defeat_ the troll.. :(
- smackfu 12y ago
  From this CBS case, you can see that even a large company with bottomless legal pockets can lose a ridiculous patent case. Who's to say that Carolla would have won?

chollida1 12y ago

I think 1.3 million ends up being an interesting number. The number is small enough that CBS might consider just paying it. However, they are a huge company with alot of lawyers at their disposal. They could chose to fight this without the financial burden that alot of smaller players like Adam Corolla would have had. > Now that its patent has been validated against CBS, Personal Audio will be allowed to move forward with trials against NBC and Fox. This is also interesting. The enemy of my enemy is my friend may come into play here as I'm sure FOX and NBC don't want to go to court. I can see them helping CBS in an appeal with what I think is called an amicus breif/curiae on CBS behalf.