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Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game

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Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game

#131

Post by zbobet2012 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #98
Bartweiss wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an interesting point. Obviously these firms don't have much power over their ex-attorneys, but a culture that opposed this sort of thing might be a disincentive to strike out as a troll (what if you want to go back to respectable practice some day?). And, more dramatically, a firm that wanted to clear its name could easily volunteer some hours to fighting trolls - that's the sort of thing that could make an i…

There's also the plain-and-simple risk that lawyers at a firm I've handed the keys to know a lot about my company. That they may use this to profit against me, in a personal capacity, is all kinds of wrong. It's akin to an investment firm, doing confidential diligence on Company X, having an employee, who may or may not have been on the diligence team, run out and start a hedge fund that shorts Company X. It's not, b…

The scenario you described involving diligence and shorting would almost automatically merit an investigation from the SEC. I think it might actually merit an automatic "fine" under short swing profit rules.

Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game

#132

Post by greedy_buffer »

tracker1 wrote: post #65

I think that this is absolutely brilliant. I've been against the patent of generalistic ideas, and basic processes for a very long time. Anything in software should not really be patentable, unless there is a concrete implementation of an invention, it's not an invention, it's a set of instructions. Let software work under trade secrets, but not patents. Anyone can implement something they think through. It's usually…

Interestingly, Blackbird has a patent portfolio that is not exclusive to software, although Cloudflare intends to invalidate them all.

Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game

#133

Post by freehunter »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #107
lightedman wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That didn't happen when Disney ripped off Kimba the White Lion and made The Lion King.

It also didn't happen when Terry Brooks reskinned the lord of the rings as "The Sword of Shannara".

Or when EL James rewrote Twilight without the vampires and called it 50 Shades of Grey.

Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game

#134

Post by kuschku »

curun1r wrote: post #130
kuschku wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet, the waymo case exists, and waymo hasn’t patented or published anything, and probably won’t ever publish it.

That's false. The Waymo-Uber case contains patent claims, though 3 of the 4 were dropped at the judge's suggestion. So it seems that Google has patented quite a few aspects of their self-driving vehicles. The article I found didn't list the patent they're still pursuing against Uber, but here's the 3 patents Google decided not to pursue: https://www.google.com/patents/US8836922 https://www.google.com/patents/US928546…

Good, now link me the source code and 3D definition files required to replicate that without any further work.

That’s what should be provided with patents, as I said in the original comment.

Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game

#135

Post by azernik »

seibelj wrote: post #123
cortesoft wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly are they supposed to do about that, though? They left the firm?

Lawyers I know are extremely risk adverse. It starts with law school, where it is the default, safe path for a lot of people who think "I want to be really important and make money" but have a degree in English, philosophy, etc. and don't know how to translate that into a high powered job without more schooling. Then the grind of law school, where they all obsess over class rank, who gets the best internship, who get…

If you've left Big Law, you are already off the risk-averse path. These are very seniority-focused places, which will not hire you back after you've left the Big Law system (with the exception of a few high-prestige postings, like a court clerkship). i.e. these lawyers will probably never again work at Latham anyway.

Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game

#136

Post by JumpCrisscross »

zbobet2012 wrote: post #131
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also the plain-and-simple risk that lawyers at a firm I've handed the keys to know a lot about my company. That they may use this to profit against me, in a personal capacity, is all kinds of wrong. It's akin to an investment firm, doing confidential diligence on Company X, having an employee, who may or may not have been on the diligence team, run out and start a hedge fund that shorts Company X. It's not, b…

The scenario you described involving diligence and shorting would almost automatically merit an investigation from the SEC. I think it might actually merit an automatic "fine" under short swing profit rules.

It would, from the SEC. There is no analog for lawyers.

Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game

#137

Post by slaymaker1907 »

MatthewWilkes wrote: post #126
Hermel wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure that if you rewrote Harry Potter from scratch with new names and wording (redoing the implementation) and published that, you would still get in trouble. So copyright is somewhat broader than you think.

Of course there are grey areas, and it's appropriate that they're decided by the courts. I'm sure nobody would argue that a lossy copy of a work protected by copyright can still infringe, even if the lossiness was deliberate and intended to differentiate it from the original to a minimal degree. Copyright of literary characters is one of the harder ones to define, and perhaps a system more like patents would be more…

The problem is that algorithms and math are explicitly forbidden from being patented. This is why most software patents include some sort of clause specifying that the work is done using a computer.

The patent office has simply done a lousy job when it comes to software patents.

Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game

#138

Post by notyourday »

Bartweiss wrote: post #96
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems a bit naive, then, to assume that the people you're litigating against will civilly keep their anger in Lawyer-Land and never hold a grudge in real life.

There seems to be a lot of that at play in white-shoe firms. Perhaps less so now than when those positions were guaranteed for life, but some of the highest-powered lawyers I've known didn't have much intuitive sense that they were actually affecting people.

There's a fundamental misunderstanding of reality in legal profession. It is somewhat akin to 18th and 19th century conflicts - two armies line up against each other and both sides shoot. Strangely even though the last man standing won the decorum mattered. That is until someone had a brilliant idea to shoot from the laying down position. Or from the bushes. Or without wearing uniforms.

Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game

#140

Post by robmiller »

freehunter wrote: post #133
thaumasiotes wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also didn't happen when Terry Brooks reskinned the lord of the rings as "The Sword of Shannara".

Or when EL James rewrote Twilight without the vampires and called it 50 Shades of Grey.

Or when Disney animated Doc Hollywood and called it Cars
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