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Apple Ordered to Pay $625M to Patent Troll in FaceTime Lawsuit

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Re: Apple Ordered to Pay $625M to Patent Troll in FaceTime Lawsuit

#11
post #6

I don't understand. If "all four of VirnetX’s patents have been found invalid by the patent office" as Apple claims, why hasn't the case been dismissed?

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/02/jury-apple-must-p...

"East Texas Jury"...

Re: Apple Ordered to Pay $625M to Patent Troll in FaceTime Lawsuit

#13
post #9
post #3

Ugh, disgusting. Think of how much damage that troll will now be able to wreak. With that kind of money it can buy all sorts of other patents and start the whole progress over again.

What we really need are patent co-ops. The problem as I see it is: patents exist to allow innovators to get paid for their inventions (setting aside the USPTO not being able to do its job correctly due to under-funding and granting bad patents), patents therefore have a monetary value, however that monetary value in fact scales with the monetary resources of the company it's held by (i.e. small companies cannot legal…

> The problem as I see it is: patents exist to allow innovators to get paid for their inventions

That is not why patents exist. Patents exist for the good of mankind to convince innovators to share their trade secrets with the public. Paying those innovators is not the goal, it is the means by which the goal is achieved, making the inventions public. You've confused the carrot for the end goal.

Anyone wanting to think about how to fix patents needs to first understand what the goal is, and paying inventors is not the goal.

Re: Apple Ordered to Pay $625M to Patent Troll in FaceTime Lawsuit

#14
post #5

One patent troll has to pay another patent troll.. Good.

Perhaps apple ABUSES patents (that's a different discussion I do not want to get into), but I prefer to reserve the term "patent troll" for those individuals or organizations that do not actually perform invention nor manufacture, sales and marketing of actual products.

That's a little bit too narrow. There are lots of companies out there that manufacture products but derive a large percentage of their revenue from patents. For example, the chips that Qualcomm makes have been described by some as a loss leader to hide and justify their very lucrative patent licensing business.

Re: Apple Ordered to Pay $625M to Patent Troll in FaceTime Lawsuit

#15
post #4

One patent troll has to pay another patent troll.. Good.

That is what I think. It's not a huge problem for Apple. It seems like to stay competitive in this market you have to play the troll's game and Apple has shown many times that it knows the game very well. In the end, it probably balances out. I'd like to see numbers on this. The real issue is small players getting buried under legal fees.

Apple getting trolled sucks for the rest of us too sometimes. FaceTime was going to be an open standard.

Re: Apple Ordered to Pay $625M to Patent Troll in FaceTime Lawsuit

#19
If this is the kind of impetus needed to set off patent reform, all the better. I would argue against the "Troll" label, it is a legal firm doing its job very well. The Troll bashers I assume would prefer the companies to just leave this $ to the infringes? Why? Is it somehow immoral to use the legal system for financial gain? No, it is not, not at all. I'd say good on them for finding the loop holes and driving their $600M lorrie straight through it to the bank. Don't say fuck the trolls, fuck the patent system in the US which Apple has used to the detriment of many young companies too, they are all playing the game.

Re: Apple Ordered to Pay $625M to Patent Troll in FaceTime Lawsuit

#20
I have a modest proposal to get rid of these patent trolls and these ridiculous settlements that typically are decided by a jury of West Texas farmers.

Patents ought to be designated a non-transferrable property. Inventors may create a trust that receives patent revenues, and direct those revenues to any entity they please (their own company, their heirs, another company, a charity, etc.) but would not be able to actually sell the patents to any other company or individual.

Then, patent holding companies would evaporate, and the revenue for ideas would go to those who created the ideas. If a company created many patents, say, Kodak, then goes out of business, it would leave behind a trust that would continue to receive revenue on those patents until they expired. If you choose not to, you can forfeit the patent and then it becomes public domain.

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