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Paul Allen Sues Apple, Others Over Patents

online.wsj.com

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Re: Paul Allen Sues Apple, Others Over Patents

#21

Post by ssp »

jacquesm wrote: post #12
adharmad wrote: post #8

Sad to see him become a Patent troll. Also, what could be the point of such a lawsuit? Surely Paul Allen cannot think that he can have out-of-court settlements (no cross-licensing since his company does not produce anything) with all the listed companies. Some of them will surely fight back.

> Sad to see him become a Patent troll. Yes, quite. Paul Allen had an excellent reputation up to this point. He always struck me as the one with the interesting projects, such as backing Burt Rutan. > Some of them will surely fight back. all of them will fight back.

Maybe he is trying to destroy the patent system.

If you have valid patents that read on various valuable products, and you can bank roll a credible law suit asking for injunctions and not accepting any other kind of relief, that might create enough chaos to get the attention of law makers.

Re: Paul Allen Sues Apple, Others Over Patents

#22

Post by 3d3mon »

Some seem rather obvious:

"The technology behind one patent allows a site to offer suggestions to consumers for items related to what they're currently viewing, or related to online activities of others in the case of social networking sites.

A second, among other things, allow readers of a news story to quickly locate stories related to a particular subject. Two others enable ads, stock quotes, news updates or video images to flash on a computer screen, peripherally to a user's main activity."

Re: Paul Allen Sues Apple, Others Over Patents

#23

Post by narrator »

_delirium wrote: post #20
jsz0 wrote: post #9

"We recognize that innovation has a value, and patents are the way to protect that." Innovation has no value to the public if you don't produce and ship a good product. In my opinion the company that actually ships something should always have the upper hand because it's good for consumers. Patent reform should follow a use-it-or-lose-it model. If a company comes up with an innovative idea, ships a product, and that…

I mostly agree, but patents were partly intended to protect small-fry scientists/inventors who came up with good ideas that they couldn't necessarily commercialize themselves, by providing a legal mechanism to keep manufacturers from just ripping off the idea as they shopped it around. It makes more sense when it's not a portfolio company holding hundreds of patents, though, and when the inventions are genuine breakt…

Patents are good for protecting inventions that require a large amount of capital investment to bring to production.

Fashion and food were traditionally not protected by patents because to make a cake or a dress, one only needed an oven or a sowing machine. On the other hand, complicated manufactured goods needed patent protection because the factories needed to produce them would cost millions to build, and a small inventor could never raise the money without patent protection.

In the age of computing, the cost of the equipment to create software is negligible, so it's far more optimal to not grant patent protection.

Re: Paul Allen Sues Apple, Others Over Patents

#25

Post by dwynings »

protomyth wrote: post #6

It would be really cool if mainstream media would link to the patents the article talks about because their description is horrible.

Patents are referenced here: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://online.wsj.com/pub...

U.S. PATENT NO. 6,263,507 U.S. PATENT NO. 6,757,682 U.S. PATENT NO. 6,788,314 U.S. PATENT NO. 6,034,652

Re: Paul Allen Sues Apple, Others Over Patents

#26

Post by CamperBob »

andrewgioia wrote: post #18

It's really odd that Paul Allen is doing this, he certainly doesn't need the money or the hassle. Is it possible that he's suing these high profile companies to spark some kind of legislative reform re: software patents?

Little is known publicly about Allen's state of health these days, or who is really in control of his holdings, for that matter.

Re: Paul Allen Sues Apple, Others Over Patents

#28

Post by crystalis »

marknutter wrote: post #17

You know what I think we should do? Institute a law where you can't sue a company for patent infringement unless you do so before they introduce and make a substantial amount of money off that product. Say, 1 million in revenue or something.

Company A makes patent infringing product. Company A makes puppet Company B that licenses product for , successfully fulfilling any sort of patent infringement limitation you can think of for the low low cost of a few lawyers.

Any policy you think of is going to have ridiculous loopholes and require companies to have patent 'watchdogs' who will need to search out fledgling products to make sure they're not infringing on any patents. These company watchdogs will have to justify their wages... by making even more patent lawsuits than there are now.

Re: Paul Allen Sues Apple, Others Over Patents

#29

Post by lotusleaf1987 »

CamperBob wrote: post #27
lotusleaf1987 wrote: post #7

Paul Allen and Nathan Myhrvold (former-Msft CTO) must be two peas in a pod: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100217/1853298215.shtml

Allen, unlike Myhrvold, has done a lot of good. This is a weird move by his previous standards.

True, it's just intriguing that they're both high-ups from MSFT.

Re: Paul Allen Sues Apple, Others Over Patents

#30

Post by jacquesm »

ssp wrote: post #21
jacquesm wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sad to see him become a Patent troll. Yes, quite. Paul Allen had an excellent reputation up to this point. He always struck me as the one with the interesting projects, such as backing Burt Rutan. > Some of them will surely fight back. all of them will fight back.

Maybe he is trying to destroy the patent system. If you have valid patents that read on various valuable products, and you can bank roll a credible law suit asking for injunctions and not accepting any other kind of relief , that might create enough chaos to get the attention of law makers.

I'll believe that when I see it. But it's a possibility.

The breadth of this is certainly something to give food for thought, this is not an 'ordinary' patent troll lawsuit.

Part of me has Paul Allen as a very nice and visionary guy and part of me reminds me that he didn't exactly distance himself from microsofts illegal practices during the Gates' years.

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