Not a week goes by without another piece of news revealing the idiocy (or evilness) of patent law.
Twitter Gets Sued For Letting Famous People Interact Online
21–30 of 59 posts
Re: Twitter Gets Sued For Letting Famous People Interact Online
#22Re: Twitter Gets Sued For Letting Famous People Interact Online
#23Of course it's ridiculous. They are hoping that twitter just pays them to go away. If it loks like twitter has a backbone and it's going to actual court, they can just drop the case. Why not? It's free to try.
Well not entirely free. It will cost them something in court and legal fees right?
It depends. I am not a lawyer, and certainly not an American torts expert (or a tort expert in any nation) but I believe that certain states have statutes in place that allow the judge discretion in assigning the defendant's legal fees to the plaintiff, if the defendant wins the case.
Re: Twitter Gets Sued For Letting Famous People Interact Online
#24How many of these examples do we need to see before something is done with the US patent system?
Probably not until the Government gets served papers for something they are doing that infringes on a random patent some troll is holding. At this point most companies consider it cost of doing business; changing it could possibly weaken or remove the leverage they have with their patent warchest.
You mean Senator. The Government has sovereign immunity, but if a ridiculous patent were to seriously threaten the family business of a sitting Senator we might see something get done.
Re: Twitter Gets Sued For Letting Famous People Interact Online
#25The problem with the patent system is that you can patent things that do not exist. Is it ridiculous?
Re: Twitter Gets Sued For Letting Famous People Interact Online
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably not until the Government gets served papers for something they are doing that infringes on a random patent some troll is holding. At this point most companies consider it cost of doing business; changing it could possibly weaken or remove the leverage they have with their patent warchest.
You mean Senator. The Government has sovereign immunity, but if a ridiculous patent were to seriously threaten the family business of a sitting Senator we might see something get done.
Possibly patents on methods of raising money online for political campaigns or patenting a method for organising large groups of people to congregate in a public area for the purposes of hearing political speech.
Re: Twitter Gets Sued For Letting Famous People Interact Online
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well not entirely free. It will cost them something in court and legal fees right?
It depends. I am not a lawyer, and certainly not an American torts expert (or a tort expert in any nation) but I believe that certain states have statutes in place that allow the judge discretion in assigning the defendant's legal fees to the plaintiff, if the defendant wins the case.
Right, but the suggestion was that it's free to try, even if the case ends up being thrown out.
Re: Twitter Gets Sued For Letting Famous People Interact Online
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
It depends. I am not a lawyer, and certainly not an American torts expert (or a tort expert in any nation) but I believe that certain states have statutes in place that allow the judge discretion in assigning the defendant's legal fees to the plaintiff, if the defendant wins the case.
Right, but the suggestion was that it's free to try, even if the case ends up being thrown out.
You are right - my mistake. I misread the original post as it being "free" for Twitter to allow it to go to court and run their defense against the lawsuit from there. Did not realize that the OP was implying free from the plaintiff's perspective. Sorry about that!
Re: Twitter Gets Sued For Letting Famous People Interact Online
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably not until the Government gets served papers for something they are doing that infringes on a random patent some troll is holding. At this point most companies consider it cost of doing business; changing it could possibly weaken or remove the leverage they have with their patent warchest.
Even if that occurs, the US government can make use of a patent without paying fees under something akin to eminent domain laws.
I thought that it has to be deemed a matter or national security for that to happen? Then again that's just a signature away...
Re: Twitter Gets Sued For Letting Famous People Interact Online
#30Reading the actual patent ( http://www.google.com/patents?id=e-ULAAAAEBAJ&printsec=a... ), seems dubious (well, it's dubious full stop..) My brief reading of it seems to me that the patent is quite specific about categorising celebs into their "fields", it also talks about biographical details as a key part. I think they are trying to force their patent to fit Twitters model, and it doesn't really fit.
Agreed. The patent for the described system would be much more suited to Facebook or LinkedIn than Twitter. I think the lawsuit is because of the highly publicized Twitter accounts of some famous people. The description in the diagram of 'communities of people in various fields of endeavor' is so ridiculously vague that it could be describing a town, a bowling league or fans of the L.A. Lakers.