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A Spectator Who Threw a Wrench in the Waymo/Uber Lawsuit

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Re: A Spectator Who Threw a Wrench in the Waymo/Uber Lawsuit

#81

Post by sobani »

throwawayyx96 wrote: post #78

So Waymo was trying (and succeeding) to patent a basic electronic circuits designs that has existed for decades. This is not surprising at all as the grandiose claims of innovation coming out of SV, perpetuated by unscrupulous and mostly clueless tech news writers who don't understand the technology they're writing about, haven't had any substance behind them for a long while. The USPTO should be embarrassed as well…

Doesn't the USPTO basically rubber stamp every patent claim that is written properly?

Re: A Spectator Who Threw a Wrench in the Waymo/Uber Lawsuit

#82

Post by dsfyu404ed »

asabjorn wrote: post #46
saagarjha wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Swildens ended up selling Speedera at a discount to Akamai for $130 million You’re not the only one.

I think we are getting stuck on his smallest investment. Even for a middle class person spending the time to research and write a 101-page challenge of the patent far outweighs investing $6k.

Most middle class people can find the time to dedicate to things that are important to them (even if those things are a 100 patent challenge). Wringing $6k out of your budget is a different story.

Re: A Spectator Who Threw a Wrench in the Waymo/Uber Lawsuit

#83

Post by asabjorn »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #82
asabjorn wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we are getting stuck on his smallest investment. Even for a middle class person spending the time to research and write a 101-page challenge of the patent far outweighs investing $6k.

Most middle class people can find the time to dedicate to things that are important to them (even if those things are a 100 patent challenge). Wringing $6k out of your budget is a different story.

From personal experience it was different. When I did my PhD and was very low income I did invest more than 6k in projects, and writing the 120 page thesis was way harder even after my research was done.

Re: A Spectator Who Threw a Wrench in the Waymo/Uber Lawsuit

#84

Post by Nomentatus »

ajross wrote: post #25
dougb wrote: post #7

Makes me wonder if Travis has a connection to Eric through Akamai. Eric's company, Speedera, was also acquired by Akamai in 2005. Travis's company, RedSwoosh, was acquired by Akamai in 2007.

I'm thinking the same thing. I mean... this whole article just smells off. It's a press hit about one patent claiming that somehow this invalidates the Waymo case in a dispute that is fundamentally about trade secrets anyway. I mean, he found prior art on a LIDAR patent. Good. But... why do we care?

Inequality is driven in good part by stolen intellectual property and laws that make that increasingly legal or at least unregulated. Fraud in this case might be reversed, but I'll bet it's not prosecuted as such.

Re: A Spectator Who Threw a Wrench in the Waymo/Uber Lawsuit

#85

Post by ric2b »

acomjean wrote: post #61
kilburn wrote: post #59

I am a bit surprised that most comments here focus on whether the guy's genuine or not. What surprised me, in a bad way, is that to challenge a patent you have to have 6k USD to throw away plus the expertise and time (which the article estimates at 60k USD). IMHO, if the patent ends up overturned, the patent holder should be liable for those costs. In fact, I can't think of any reason why it shouldn't be that way. Ca…

Why is the US Patent Office not liable for these obviously bad patent grants? I think this patent mess ends when the Patent Office isn't self funded and thus doesn't have the perverse incentive to grant as many patents as possible.

If the patent office is liable it can still be self-funded and not have an incentive to grant as many patents as it can. Make the liability some multiple of what they charge for the filling and there you go. Vary the multiple as needed to increase/decrease how careful you want them to be (leading to less patent grants overall)
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