Someone should figure out a way how to put these extortionists in prison for protection racket.
By prison you mean jobs in state government, right?
Welcome to Massachusetts.
Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game
31–40 of 285 posts
Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game
#32Long live patents !
Please comment civilly and substantively on Hacker News or not at all.
Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game
#33I'm not a fan of the argument that if Blackbird weren't a NPE it'd be okay because Cloudflare could then aim it's 150 strong patent portfolio cannon back at them. It's basically saying incumbents like Cloudflare don't really want to fix the system, they want to keep the untenable 'cold war' status quo which protects them but burdens new entrants.
Frankly, if it weren't for the stupidity of the patent system, I don't know that Cloudflare would even have the patents. Has Cloudflare ever initiated patent litigation against anyone? The fact is that most patents for things that are "invented" but entirely virtually don't really deserve patent protection. Rarely is there significant research, expense or tooling to implement. Patents on software, processes and most…
Even if the companies only hoard these to defend themselves when they go under their patents get picked up by NPEs. It's like nuclear weapons, MAD kinda works but then a state fails and now you have terrorists with nukes. The answer is disarmament. If you want to enlist the help of the community you should have to pull a Tesla and open your patents or at the very least advocate for the abolishment of software and process patents. By crying foul and appealing to the community Cloudflare, like Blackbird, wants to have it both ways. They continue to advocate for and benefit from the ridiculous status quo but don't want to be subject to it when it inevitably goes awry.
Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game
#34I've noticed a Techcrunch comment that makes this fight about software patents and states that forbiding them would be a good solution. I think that's a very wrong view to take. The software patent fight is worth fighting, but do not conflate the two issues. Abuse by patent trolls or non-practicing entities can happen even without software patents. The law patch that shuts down patent trolls will have no effect on so…
Software patents should have the same requirements as real patents: you have to provide the full knowledge required to create the concept that is patented in them. You want to patent sticky scrolling? Then put the entire source code required for it into the patent. You want to patent your AI tech? Then put the entire code into the patent. Additionally, we should make sure that trade secrets are not protected in any w…
> we should make sure that trade secrets are not protected in any way
That's a little extreme. Trade secrets still need protection from outright theft (e.g. Waymo's allegations against Lewandowski) by those that get them as a part of their job. Similarly, trade secrets acquired through any other illegal act (breaking and entering, hacking, corporate espionage, etc) should also be protected. I agree that trade secrets arrived at through reverse engineering should be okay, but that's very different from saying that they should receive protection in any way.
Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game
#35I've never heard a good argument against this so I'll say it here: Require that the plaintiff in this cases show demonstrable, actual , and quantifiable loss by the activity of the defendant. It seems like such a no-brainer that a business suing for damage to it's business prospects after someone stole their idea would have to actually show how it was damaged. Even allowing very flimsy evidence would do a lot to diss…
Let's say I invent something really useful but also very difficult for an individual to take advantage of, like a new kind of airplane nosecone that shaves 10% off fuel costs for very large airplanes. Now, I'm not in the airplane business, and getting into it would take many, many millions of dollars. Probably the only way for me to make money on this would be to go to Boeing or some similar company and license my pa…
You could still sell your patent to an actual airline, and it could then use that patent exclusively and prevent airlines from doing so. In a sufficiently competitive market that might be enough. Boeing might buy your patent to prevent Airbus from using that tech and therefore gaining an advantage. Or if Boeing ignores your patent and just builds that tech anyway then they would expose themselves to future liability if Airbus later buys your patent.
Or you could sell the patent to an existing supplier of airline parts (and I'm sure there are plenty) which can then commercialize it. Or as a last resort if none of the existing players are interested in buying your patent, you could raise funding and open up a shop that manufacturers and sells nosecones, and then sue everyone for lost sales.
Ultimately I think it's much more useful to protect entities that actually make products and give them incentives to bring innovative products to market than it is to protect entities that simply want to invent things and extract fees from others. To me it would be a perfectly acceptable compromise.
Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game
#36I'm in tech but not in the valley. How accurate is HBO's representation of patent trolls?
Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think many do conflate the two, I think most people just don't see value in software patents. Software is great because it has no cost to copy, so when someone creates a new algorithm it can be put in use everywhere applicable rapidly. This pace of advancement is so awesomely powerful that many do not appreciate how much positive change it can bring or how different the world was just a few years ago. An adva…
Just a nitpick, by definition what does not have protection is not IP.
Trade secrets.
As long as they remain secret they have protection, but the very act of outing them makes them not secret. I am aware of very few successful suits defending trade secrets.
Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game
#38> “[Is Blackbird] doing anything thing that is illegal or unethical?” continues Cheng. “For the most part, it’s unethical. But it’s probably not illegal.”
If it's not illegal, more work needs to be done to make it illegal. Inventors always have avenues, moreso today than ever before.
Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Then put the entire source code required for it into the patent Some do. But patents already have an enablement requirement. This means that they must teach in sufficient detail for a person skilled in the art to carry out the claimed invention. That's what the whole Detailed description of the invention section is. Skip the claims and read the description. You might want the code; me, I want the design doc. That s…
That's a nice thought, but most software patents are written to be as broadly applicable as possible, not to be a good guide to implementation.
In fact, most patents are written to be as broadly applicable as possible. The enablement requirement applies to all patents.
Seaborg patented element 95. That's pretty broad. However, people aren't saying get rid of manufacturing utility patents because folks are patenting elements.
Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game
#40Can I create 5 more HN accounts just to +1 this some more?