221–230 of 285 posts
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Interestingly, Blackbird has a patent portfolio that is not exclusive to software, although Cloudflare intends to invalidate them all.
> although Cloudflare intends to invalidate them all. Scorched earth doesn’t allow for half measures, plus leaving them with any patents would leave them with hope and we can’t have that.
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I don't think it's fair to say that nuclear weapons are why we don't have world wars anymore. I believe it has a lot more to do with globalization and the fact that most countries now recognize that it's a lot more profitable to trade with other countries than to go to war with them.
I used to think that was the case, too, and then someone pointed out how incredibly well-connected and economically interdependent the world was in the years leading up to WWI. Global trade back then was like our modern dot-com boom, but with real money and merchandise. People were sure it would change everything. Turned out not so much. As long as the lives of the old men who ran the world weren't personally at risk…
We have less armed conflicts and their victims now than during the MAD years of the cold war---perhaps that's a better piece of evidence that something other than nuclear weapons is helping us keep the peace?
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The worst case is that the money has to be repaid - how would insuring against that be prohibitive? If there's a 20% chance of invalidation, inventors take a 20% haircut. But the invalidation chance will not be uniform, and the risk assessment done by insurance companies will bring the right kind of market forces to bear against frivolous patents. And even aside from the economic impact, it's quite simply the right t…
> The worst case is that the money has to be repaid - how would insuring against that be prohibitive? Because, under the proposal, those license fees can be recovered at any time. Forever. You will never be able to go uninsured for any patent you ever granted. As your life wears on, regardless of whether you need the insurance or not, your net value is wound down. Again, this means that only large companies will be w…
Forever is too long. It should only be for the life of the patent. That might be a nice incentive to open up the conversation to reducing the life of some patents.
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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.
It probably doesn't matter at all.
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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.
Oh, I don't know. JK Rowling rewrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and added wizards and no-one's complained. :p
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/08/good-bad-and-ugly-adam...
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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…
can you explain this line? I was shocked to read it after your first paragraph and I can't imagine why you wrote it.
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Oh, I don't know. JK Rowling rewrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and added wizards and no-one's complained. :p
You must be kidding, Harry Potter is nothing like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, unless you consider magical candy to be the most important part of the story. :)
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...
> [...] Blackbird combines both a law firm and intellectual property rights holder into a single entity. In doing so, they remove legal fees from their cost structure and can bring lawsuits of potentially dubious merit without having to bear any meaningful cost. Don't the lawyers have opportunity costs?
Patents are basically assets, and they are transferable.
Making then non-transferable is not a solution at all. Basically law firms can represent patent owners.
System needs different validity for patents, which should be set after an evaluation, and can be challenged at the courts.
Putting all patents in the same basket is plain stupid.