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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

#141

Post by jacques_chester »

criddell wrote: post #66
adekok wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree it should likely be illegal, the solution to bad laws isn't more laws. A better solution would be to * do better examination of patents so that BS ones don't get issued * allow third-parties to invalidate patents by showing prior art to the patent office for a nominal fee * punish patent applicants who know about, or should have known about prior art * if a patent is invalidated, force them to return al…

> allow third-parties to invalidate patents by showing prior art to the patent office for a nominal fee I think there should be a punitive part to this as well. If you apply for a patent that is later invalidated, then those that licensed the patent should be made repaid. And yes there should be a fee for trying to invalidate a patent, but there should also be a reward if they are successful.

> If you apply for a patent that is later invalidated, then those that licensed the patent should be made repaid.

I feel that this effectively says that nobody should be able to license their patent: they would need to hold all of their license fees in reserve against a lawsuit that could happen at any time between the patent grant and the end of the legal system.

That or buy insurance which will, no doubt be priced well above what a sole inventor could afford.

The net effect would be to accelerate the concentration of patent portfolios.

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

#143

Post by avodonosov »

It was late summer night when I noticed that article on HN. I immediately noticed it's organized like a novel - this popular lame style which often annoys me lately:

    Matthew Prince knew what was coming.
    The CEO of Cloudflare, an internet security
    company and content delivery network
    in San Francisco, was behind his desk
    when the emails began to trickle in ...
Was he really behind his desk?

Hesitated a little before posting - am I trying to self-assert by deriding others? But this "novel" article style is some new fashion / cliche which might be interesting to discuss. Let's see what others think.

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

#144

Post by jacques_chester »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #10
FussyZeus wrote: post #4

I'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…

The law of remedies is very broad and most of it has roots in Equity, which gives judges broad discretion to make orders against litigants who fail to "come with clean hands".

I am not a lawyer, of course, but I dropped out of law school late enough to realise that you should always consult one before forming opinions about what is and isn't legally plausible.

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

#145

Post by bubblethink »

avodonosov wrote: post #143

It was late summer night when I noticed that article on HN. I immediately noticed it's organized like a novel - this popular lame style which often annoys me lately: Matthew Prince knew what was coming. The CEO of Cloudflare, an internet security company and content delivery network in San Francisco, was behind his desk when the emails began to trickle in ... Was he really behind his desk? Hesitated a little before p…

The recent WaPo article about Russian interference in the US election where stuff arrived in envelopes with top secret written on them, and people huddling around it, was also off putting.

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

#146

Post by Zyst »

avodonosov wrote: post #143

It was late summer night when I noticed that article on HN. I immediately noticed it's organized like a novel - this popular lame style which often annoys me lately: Matthew Prince knew what was coming. The CEO of Cloudflare, an internet security company and content delivery network in San Francisco, was behind his desk when the emails began to trickle in ... Was he really behind his desk? Hesitated a little before p…

I like it. I really enjoy the overly dramatic and/or expositional style is something I greatly enjoy in general.

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

#148

Post by avodonosov »

avodonosov wrote: post #139

I've read the patent. But what part of CloudFlare services it claims to cover? Also, the patent applies the same way to almost any proxy server (ICAP and similar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Content_Adaptation_Pr... )

Can the Decorator design pattern be considered a prior art?

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

#149

Post by lkbm »

slaymaker1907 wrote: post #137
MatthewWilkes wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I hadn't heard it explained this way before, but it explains so much.

So, for example, if I came up with a better sorting algorithm, I couldn't patent Luca Sort, but I could patent using a computer to run the Luca Sort algorithm? Or am I misunderstanding?

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

#150

Post by tareqak »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #86
learc83 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a large firm, a lawyer isn't going to go through the active cases for every partner in the firm when choosing where to take clients for dinner.

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.

I now have a question about the original account: did the lawyers / legal firm in question:

1. still represent their client (the vegan protestors) with the same utmost care that one would expect in hiring any legal team?

2. politely close the contractual obligation to represent and refund some or all of their fees?

3. just did a poor job of representation after this incident , but still bill the same hours and other fees?

Edited to correct formatting

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