18 ms·

Patent troll claims to own Bluetooth, scores $15.7M verdict against Samsung

83 points by aceperry 12y ago

whizzkid 12y ago
So what these guys are doing is sitting on their chairs, and trying to get money from people/companies that produce something? Not that I am a fan of Samsung or anything, but this feels really wrong. Can't this be stopped? I would understand if these guys had their patent before bluetooth, this is just plain stupid that they can earn money from it, isn't it ?
- strttn 12y ago
  You could argue that companies like Rembrandt are the only way that indie patent holders can hope to compete with the likes of Samsung. Unfortunately the patent game appears to usually be one that is won by whoever has the largest legal budget. It costs huge amounts to create, file and protect patents and any errors will mean that a patent is worthless once the opposition's lawyers get stuck into it. Large companies in patent heavy fields all have teams of lawyers filing patents as quickly as they can and then defending them and attacking others as hard as they can. The little guy doesn't stand a chance. Perhaps a solution could be to have government take the place of a company like Rembrandt so that independent patent filers can get the heft behind them required to support their patent.
  - Kliment 12y ago
    Or how about we kill the parasitic patent industry once and for all? Declare all patents invalid, like the debt amnesties that were common thousands of years ago, and refuse to issue any new ones.
  - pizza234 12y ago
    > You could argue that companies like Rembrandt are the only way that indie patent holders can hope to compete with the likes of Samsung. That's not correct, specifically, it's not realistic for two reasons. First, patents, when related to indie developers, are beneficial only for a small subset - specifically, the google-like ones, who build a product on a single, very specific, idea. Second, an indie developer is not in the same market as Samsung. > Perhaps a solution could be to have government take the place of a company like Rembrandt When it comes to patents/trolling, there are a few "shocking 1-little-tricks" ;-) which are actually simple and effective - it's just that the administration is in bed with the industry, and obviously doesn't want to hurt the interests of the latter. Reducing the term of the patent to a reasoned amount would be one; limiting the amount of allowed applications would be another. One thing that I'm actually wondering (because I haven't seen it discussed) is what would happen if the USPTO would be accountable for the patents it grants, that is, if it could be sued for giving patents which are later proved invalid.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- SixSigma 12y ago
  Taken at face value : Bluetooth 2 is infringing - this version of the Bluetooth Core Specification was released in 2004. > The patents relate to compatibility between different types of modems, and connect to a string of applications going back to 1997 ergo > these guys had their patent before bluetooth [2]
  - easytiger 12y ago
    From reading some of US8023580 (utter horrid thing to read). They have basically laid claim to the mechanism of any electronic device that communicates in any way. Indeed I've read a lot of patents but this one is so inscrutable one could prob use it to claim against rocket technology and a jury wouldn't blink. Getting a jury of people to understand this stuff is ridiculous. > He said he appreciates the fact that Rembrandt has made the effort to get the patents enforced. >“I never could do that,” he said. Because the old fool is being paid to shut up and do as he's told. > Over the course of nine years consulting for Rembrandt, Bremer said he's been paid $670,000. He gets 2.5 percent of all settlements extracted using his patents. Yea. Its a patent troll of the highest order.
    - throwawaykf05 12y ago
      > They have basically laid claim to the mechanism of any electronic device that communicates in any way. Just so we know, could you point out the relevant portions claiming that?
      - xgbi 12y ago
        Well, just read the synopsis: >A device may be capable of communicating using at least two type types of modulation methods. The device may include a transceiver capable of acting as a master according to a master/slave relationship in which communication from a slave to a master occurs in response to communication from the master to the slave. The master transceiver may send transmissions discrete transmissions structured with a first portion and a payload portion. Information in the first portion may be modulated according to a first modulation method and indicate an impending change to a second modulation method, which is used for transmitting the payload portion. This could be valid for any form of communication with more than one modulation system (Wifi, BT, DVB television, any recent communication system). I'm pretty sure that the modulation of the monitoring systems in a rocket will switch between transmission modes when the rocket reaches some upper layers of the atmosphere.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
  "So what these guys are doing is sitting on their chairs, and trying to get money from people/companies that produce something?" How's this different than any other sort of capitalist?
  - pdonis 12y ago
    > How's this different than any other sort of capitalist? Other sorts of capitalists founded companies that produce something.
TorKlingberg 12y ago
The telecom industry is unfortunately very patent heavy. It holds back startups from entering, and the standardization groups become a game of trying to push in things covered by your own patents while dodging others.
- throwawaykf05 12y ago
  There is a paper by a Qualcomm engineer that talks about how standards are set and how patents play a role in it, specifically in the context of 3GPP. It is a pretty complex process involving attending meetings and casting votes, and many participants do not contribute any technology. Surprisingly, patents seem to be an afterthought. But then Qualcomm makes a billion or so every year in royalties, so that's something to keep in mind. Will link the article if I can find it.
  - aceperry 12y ago
    I would love to see that paper.
    - throwawaykf05 12y ago
      Found it! http://www.law.northwestern.edu/research-faculty/searlecenter/events/entrepreneur/documents/Gupta_standard-setting-process-3gpp.pdf http://www.law.northwestern.edu/research-faculty/searlecente...
- rayiner 12y ago
  I used to work in wireless R&D (at a startup). It's frightfully expensive, and we would have never be able to do a whole stack with original technology, so we licensed and built on top of WiMAX. I'm not sure why we should've been allowed to build on all that technology for free. Patents are a huge boon to standardization in capital-intensive industries like that. Getting your patent in the spec is what creates the incentive to contribute to this joint venture that's going to be opened up. Otherwise you're doing R&D for your competitors for free.
  - 12y ago
throwawaykf05 12y ago
Sigh, par for the course for any patent-related reporting on Ars. 1. The headline is pure clickbait, and is obvious from the article itself. From a quick glance, the patents concern a specific feature of Bluetooth 2.0 that enable selecting different modulation schemes, one with a higher data rate, based on a header. Whether that's novel or non-obvious depends on the prior art, which isn't discussed in TFA. In any case, it's a far cry from a claim on "owning Bluetooth". 2. The article and comments paint the plaintiff as a troll. But nobody asks, let alone bothers to answer, what somebody should do if they devise such type of an improvement to existing systems. "They are trolls because they make no products", is the argument. Well, what product would you build in this situation? Wireless communications are heavily regulated and standardized. Build an entire new protocol and standard around a single improvement? And then get people to build chips for that? Who's going to adopt your standard when there are powerful network (literally) effects in place? And how does that help when this improvement could be applied to any other protocol? Others can simply adopt this improvement in their own products and completely ignore yours. I haven't seen anybody attempt to answer these questions. It doesn't take much thought to call someone a troll, though. 3. HNer DannyBee, a patent lawyer, had once (jokingly?) suggested that defendants may start faring well in ED Texas if they, say, built a stadium in Marshall. Looks like somebody at Samsung is thinking along the same lines. Though it didn't help in this case, I guess it may help in the longer term, especially given that Samsung is not an American company, something jurors may be consciously or subconsciously biased against.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- forthefuture 12y ago
  2. I think generally if you want to use your patent you call people and offer them the use of your technology (there must be some standard business practices for this). Then at least you can be reasonable that you claim they stole it from you. Doing nothing until someone else figures out the same thing and then saying they owe you is just unreasonable. I don't know the specifics of this case but that's how I'd classify a patent troll vs someone who did their best to improve the world with an invention.
chrsw 12y ago
If companies spent more time on their Bluetooth stack implementations and less money on the legal wrangling, BT wouldn't be so shitty.
- throwawaykf05 12y ago
  Many think that the spec itself is crappy, so there's not much an implementation can do to fix that. Witness, for instance, the number of hardware vendors like Logitech that eschew Bluetooth in favor of their own proprietary wireless protocols.
  - chrsw 12y ago
    I have no doubt the spec is crap, but some implementations are better (read: somewhat less problematic) than others. Which leads me to believe there is some degree of freedom with respect to quality here.
    - aceperry 12y ago
      I fully agree with you there. I'm working on some BT stuff, and find it to be lacking, mainly the software stack. The spec looks ok for a wireless interface, the quality of the stacks are all over the place.
wingerlang 12y ago
I hear about these patent trolls a lot but I never really got an understanding of what kind of people and companies these are. First of all, I know they are scummy and yada yada. But they must be very smart, setting up shell companies and having deep (?) knowledge of the various tech stuff they are pursuing, it's not within the average persons knowledge to do things like these. How do they get the patents? Do they validly have patents, 100% generic or not, before something similar comes up. Or do they somehow "craft" it towards the victim. Is there some known person who is a patent troll? Is it knowlegable normal people workin in the scene while doing these things "behind" the scenes or is it some proper company/office that delegates stuff to their "shells"? It must require a huge amount of work to fight these mega corporations, even if they give up quickly. I find them faschinating in the same way as any high level scam artist since it requires some finess.
- berberous 12y ago
  Check out ex-Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold [0] of Intellectual Ventures [1] infamy. He's also famous for his epic modernist cuisine cooking bible [2]. I also highly recommend the This American Life two-part podcast on patent trolls [3] [4]. You can read Nathan's attempted justification of his patent troll activities here [5]. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Myhrvold http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Myhrvold [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_Ventures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_Ventures [2] http://www.amazon.com/Modernist-Cuisine-The-Science-Cooking/dp/0982761007# http://www.amazon.com/Modernist-Cuisine-The-Science-Cooking/... [3] http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/w... [4] http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/496/when-patents-attack-part-two http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/496/w... [5] https://hbr.org/2010/03/the-big-idea-funding-eureka https://hbr.org/2010/03/the-big-idea-funding-eureka
  - wingerlang 12y ago
    Thanks, I will have a look.
  - michael_h 12y ago

83 points by aceperry 12y ago

So what these guys are doing is sitting on their chairs, and trying to get money from people/companies that produce something? Not that I am a fan of Samsung or anything, but this feels really wrong. Can't this be stopped? I would understand if these guys had their patent before bluetooth, this is just plain stupid that they can earn money from it, isn't it ?

strttn 12y ago
You could argue that companies like Rembrandt are the only way that indie patent holders can hope to compete with the likes of Samsung. Unfortunately the patent game appears to usually be one that is won by whoever has the largest legal budget. It costs huge amounts to create, file and protect patents and any errors will mean that a patent is worthless once the opposition's lawyers get stuck into it. Large companies in patent heavy fields all have teams of lawyers filing patents as quickly as they can and then defending them and attacking others as hard as they can. The little guy doesn't stand a chance. Perhaps a solution could be to have government take the place of a company like Rembrandt so that independent patent filers can get the heft behind them required to support their patent.
- Kliment 12y ago
  Or how about we kill the parasitic patent industry once and for all? Declare all patents invalid, like the debt amnesties that were common thousands of years ago, and refuse to issue any new ones.
- pizza234 12y ago
  > You could argue that companies like Rembrandt are the only way that indie patent holders can hope to compete with the likes of Samsung. That's not correct, specifically, it's not realistic for two reasons. First, patents, when related to indie developers, are beneficial only for a small subset - specifically, the google-like ones, who build a product on a single, very specific, idea. Second, an indie developer is not in the same market as Samsung. > Perhaps a solution could be to have government take the place of a company like Rembrandt When it comes to patents/trolling, there are a few "shocking 1-little-tricks" ;-) which are actually simple and effective - it's just that the administration is in bed with the industry, and obviously doesn't want to hurt the interests of the latter. Reducing the term of the patent to a reasoned amount would be one; limiting the amount of allowed applications would be another. One thing that I'm actually wondering (because I haven't seen it discussed) is what would happen if the USPTO would be accountable for the patents it grants, that is, if it could be sued for giving patents which are later proved invalid.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
SixSigma 12y ago
Taken at face value : Bluetooth 2 is infringing - this version of the Bluetooth Core Specification was released in 2004. > The patents relate to compatibility between different types of modems, and connect to a string of applications going back to 1997 ergo > these guys had their patent before bluetooth [2]
- easytiger 12y ago
  From reading some of US8023580 (utter horrid thing to read). They have basically laid claim to the mechanism of any electronic device that communicates in any way. Indeed I've read a lot of patents but this one is so inscrutable one could prob use it to claim against rocket technology and a jury wouldn't blink. Getting a jury of people to understand this stuff is ridiculous. > He said he appreciates the fact that Rembrandt has made the effort to get the patents enforced. >“I never could do that,” he said. Because the old fool is being paid to shut up and do as he's told. > Over the course of nine years consulting for Rembrandt, Bremer said he's been paid $670,000. He gets 2.5 percent of all settlements extracted using his patents. Yea. Its a patent troll of the highest order.
  - throwawaykf05 12y ago
    > They have basically laid claim to the mechanism of any electronic device that communicates in any way. Just so we know, could you point out the relevant portions claiming that?
    - xgbi 12y ago
      Well, just read the synopsis: >A device may be capable of communicating using at least two type types of modulation methods. The device may include a transceiver capable of acting as a master according to a master/slave relationship in which communication from a slave to a master occurs in response to communication from the master to the slave. The master transceiver may send transmissions discrete transmissions structured with a first portion and a payload portion. Information in the first portion may be modulated according to a first modulation method and indicate an impending change to a second modulation method, which is used for transmitting the payload portion. This could be valid for any form of communication with more than one modulation system (Wifi, BT, DVB television, any recent communication system). I'm pretty sure that the modulation of the monitoring systems in a rocket will switch between transmission modes when the rocket reaches some upper layers of the atmosphere.
GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
"So what these guys are doing is sitting on their chairs, and trying to get money from people/companies that produce something?" How's this different than any other sort of capitalist?
- pdonis 12y ago
  > How's this different than any other sort of capitalist? Other sorts of capitalists founded companies that produce something.

TorKlingberg 12y ago

The telecom industry is unfortunately very patent heavy. It holds back startups from entering, and the standardization groups become a game of trying to push in things covered by your own patents while dodging others.

throwawaykf05 12y ago
There is a paper by a Qualcomm engineer that talks about how standards are set and how patents play a role in it, specifically in the context of 3GPP. It is a pretty complex process involving attending meetings and casting votes, and many participants do not contribute any technology. Surprisingly, patents seem to be an afterthought. But then Qualcomm makes a billion or so every year in royalties, so that's something to keep in mind. Will link the article if I can find it.
- aceperry 12y ago
  I would love to see that paper.
  - throwawaykf05 12y ago
    Found it! http://www.law.northwestern.edu/research-faculty/searlecenter/events/entrepreneur/documents/Gupta_standard-setting-process-3gpp.pdf http://www.law.northwestern.edu/research-faculty/searlecente...
rayiner 12y ago
I used to work in wireless R&D (at a startup). It's frightfully expensive, and we would have never be able to do a whole stack with original technology, so we licensed and built on top of WiMAX. I'm not sure why we should've been allowed to build on all that technology for free. Patents are a huge boon to standardization in capital-intensive industries like that. Getting your patent in the spec is what creates the incentive to contribute to this joint venture that's going to be opened up. Otherwise you're doing R&D for your competitors for free.
- 12y ago

throwawaykf05 12y ago

Sigh, par for the course for any patent-related reporting on Ars. 1. The headline is pure clickbait, and is obvious from the article itself. From a quick glance, the patents concern a specific feature of Bluetooth 2.0 that enable selecting different modulation schemes, one with a higher data rate, based on a header. Whether that's novel or non-obvious depends on the prior art, which isn't discussed in TFA. In any case, it's a far cry from a claim on "owning Bluetooth". 2. The article and comments paint the plaintiff as a troll. But nobody asks, let alone bothers to answer, what somebody should do if they devise such type of an improvement to existing systems. "They are trolls because they make no products", is the argument. Well, what product would you build in this situation? Wireless communications are heavily regulated and standardized. Build an entire new protocol and standard around a single improvement? And then get people to build chips for that? Who's going to adopt your standard when there are powerful network (literally) effects in place? And how does that help when this improvement could be applied to any other protocol? Others can simply adopt this improvement in their own products and completely ignore yours. I haven't seen anybody attempt to answer these questions. It doesn't take much thought to call someone a troll, though. 3. HNer DannyBee, a patent lawyer, had once (jokingly?) suggested that defendants may start faring well in ED Texas if they, say, built a stadium in Marshall. Looks like somebody at Samsung is thinking along the same lines. Though it didn't help in this case, I guess it may help in the longer term, especially given that Samsung is not an American company, something jurors may be consciously or subconsciously biased against.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
forthefuture 12y ago
2. I think generally if you want to use your patent you call people and offer them the use of your technology (there must be some standard business practices for this). Then at least you can be reasonable that you claim they stole it from you. Doing nothing until someone else figures out the same thing and then saying they owe you is just unreasonable. I don't know the specifics of this case but that's how I'd classify a patent troll vs someone who did their best to improve the world with an invention.

chrsw 12y ago

If companies spent more time on their Bluetooth stack implementations and less money on the legal wrangling, BT wouldn't be so shitty.

throwawaykf05 12y ago
Many think that the spec itself is crappy, so there's not much an implementation can do to fix that. Witness, for instance, the number of hardware vendors like Logitech that eschew Bluetooth in favor of their own proprietary wireless protocols.
- chrsw 12y ago
  I have no doubt the spec is crap, but some implementations are better (read: somewhat less problematic) than others. Which leads me to believe there is some degree of freedom with respect to quality here.
  - aceperry 12y ago
    I fully agree with you there. I'm working on some BT stuff, and find it to be lacking, mainly the software stack. The spec looks ok for a wireless interface, the quality of the stacks are all over the place.

wingerlang 12y ago

I hear about these patent trolls a lot but I never really got an understanding of what kind of people and companies these are. First of all, I know they are scummy and yada yada. But they must be very smart, setting up shell companies and having deep (?) knowledge of the various tech stuff they are pursuing, it's not within the average persons knowledge to do things like these. How do they get the patents? Do they validly have patents, 100% generic or not, before something similar comes up. Or do they somehow "craft" it towards the victim. Is there some known person who is a patent troll? Is it knowlegable normal people workin in the scene while doing these things "behind" the scenes or is it some proper company/office that delegates stuff to their "shells"? It must require a huge amount of work to fight these mega corporations, even if they give up quickly. I find them faschinating in the same way as any high level scam artist since it requires some finess.

berberous 12y ago
Check out ex-Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold [0] of Intellectual Ventures [1] infamy. He's also famous for his epic modernist cuisine cooking bible [2]. I also highly recommend the This American Life two-part podcast on patent trolls [3] [4]. You can read Nathan's attempted justification of his patent troll activities here [5]. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Myhrvold http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Myhrvold [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_Ventures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_Ventures [2] http://www.amazon.com/Modernist-Cuisine-The-Science-Cooking/dp/0982761007# http://www.amazon.com/Modernist-Cuisine-The-Science-Cooking/... [3] http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/w... [4] http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/496/when-patents-attack-part-two http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/496/w... [5] https://hbr.org/2010/03/the-big-idea-funding-eureka https://hbr.org/2010/03/the-big-idea-funding-eureka
- wingerlang 12y ago
  Thanks, I will have a look.
- michael_h 12y ago