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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

#201

Post by pnw_hazor »

FussyZeus wrote: post #22
dboreham wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The real solution is to either make sure prior art and non-obviousness requirements are properly enforced or just dismantle the whole thing as unworkable. Obviousness is the key issue for me. I suspect most people, even those who work in the technology fields, are not aware that it is considered essentially impossible to prove obviousness (source: I have worked as a consultant on several patent litigation cases). So…

Perhaps we need to establish some sort of obvious-evidence protocol? Some kind of common sense argument that can be presented in the court of law and weighed against other evidence? Example: Someone steals an apple to feed their hungry child. Yes, it's a crime, but sending the parent to prison isn't a solution; the child is still hungry, and now both of them will to varying extents have to be cared for by the state,…

There is one. It is complicated.

The easiest way to prove obviousness is to find printed publications that describe the claimed invention. For obviousness, multiple printed publications can be combined as long as they are in a related field and there would be some kind of motivation for one of ordinary skill in the art to combine what they disclose.

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

#202

Post by 0x1BADBABE »

jgrahamc wrote: post #44

More detail on what we are doing from three blog posts: Standing Up to a Dangerous New Breed of Patent Troll https://blog.cloudflare.com/standing-up-to-a-dangerous-new-b... Project Jengo https://blog.cloudflare.com/project-jengo/ Patent Troll Battle Update: Doubling Down on Project Jengo https://blog.cloudflare.com/patent-troll-battle-update-doubl...

additionally:

The Patent scam intro by Austin Meyer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG9UMMq2dz4

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

#203

Post by raleighm »

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…

Yeah, headings merely referencing Updike novels in an article about a patent troll is an annoyance I didn't expect today.

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

#204

Post by raleighm »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #171
phonon wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would definitely be disbarred.

The Bar's disciplinary proceedings are not a public process. "Definitely" is definitely too strong.

I think you can find disciplinary records/proceedings online in most states. If former associates of a firm you engaged are bringing suit against you, then yes, that can raise professional responsibility issues and it's a good idea to contact the firm as you did and ask about the firm's internal knowledge management system and what information about your business those associates might have had access to.

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

#205

Post by lostboys67 »

notyourday wrote: post #138
Bartweiss wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In the Napoleonic wars Wellingtons order for troops to wait lying down on a reverse slope to avoid cannon fire was considered unsporting

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

#206

Post by realusername »

ovi256 wrote: post #2

I'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…

Copyright is enough, software patents do not exist in Europe and it works as well as in the US. I never saw a single patient which I would define myself as justified, most patents are something I could come up myself with in less than an hour of reflexion.

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

#207

Post by TeMPOraL »

mankash666 wrote: post #180
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #71

I've used Latham & Watkins. Just made a call to let a partner there know what I think about his firm's alumna and how it colors my opinion of him and his firm. Encourage everyone to check with your firm's General Counsel about this. If you use Latham, or Kirkland or Weil, encourage your GC to reach out and make your views heard. It's despicable that these lawyers are harassing their firms' former and potential client…

Disagree! Both ethics and the law make it clear that the (negative) actions of former employees have no bearing on the institution. For instance, yelling at the average american for Donald Trump colluding with Russia is both pointless, and detrimental to the average person.

Like all forms of punishment, it isn't (or at least shouldn't be) about hurting the people involved after the fact - it's about raising perceived costs of a deed so it doesn't get committed again in the future.

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

#208

Post by pbhjpbhj »

lkbm wrote: post #149
slaymaker1907 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

That's not how it works in Europe; just saying "done on a computer" is explicitly not enough. There's a concept called "technical effect" that's been worked over in the courts and well developed in the last decade (I'll leave you to look it up, eg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_under_the_E...).

I'm a bit out of the loop but whilst USA started letting pretty much anything in there seem to have tightened up over the years.

There's a parallel with business methods too. In both cases there been a move towards a middleground - harmonisation. Personally I feel the USA position is far worse and this harmonisation is not good; liberalisation of soft-pat and business method patents on Europe would be a big loss IMO.

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

#209

Post by pbhjpbhj »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #112
indolering wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, it's not a violation of copyright.

Copyright law apparently makes an explicit exception for translations. (i.e. translations are subject to copyright despite usually sharing literally no wording with the original.) It isn't clear to me whether that only covers works in a foreign language that claim to be translations of some other work, or whether it would apply to any foreign-language work that duplicates the plot of an earlier copyrighted work.

The thing to remember with copyright is it covers copying. If you read a book and rewrite it in another language you didn't copy it, you copied the ideas, perhaps, but copyright covers expression and not ideas.

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

#210

Post by Kliment »

mobilefriendly wrote: post #59
prutschman wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever threatened to, or alluded to your ability to do so, to obtain commercial negotiating leverage in a context other than defending the company from the threat of a patent suit?

Who cares? Cloudflare are a practicing entity, presumably with legitimate patents. They aren't necessarily at war with software patents as a concept, just the obvious abuse.

There is no such thing as a legitimate patent.
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