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IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties
71–80 of 240 posts
Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties
#72It's pretty uncommon these days to see a major tech company (read: one that has a reputation to maintain) actually litigate over a software patent in court, especially over something as established and basic as "ecommerce". I'm curious what the exact patent is for.
Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, they would rather license. 2018 was $1.2B+ in revenue just for the patents they already have. Our patent system really needs fixed.
If someone invests resources inventing something, why shouldn't that entity be entitled to participate in the on-going monetization of that invention? If we presume the prior statement is simply a straw man, do you agree partially with this statement and it simply needs reform or would you propose to throw it out altogether? If the former, how would you propose to reform it?
The problem is so many software patents just cover "do a thing on a computer," which becomes so broad nobody else can ever do that thing without infringing on the patent. Even if I have an objectively different, even better, way of doing it, software patents are used far too broadly because they tend to protect the act of doing a thing as opposed to specifically how to do the thing.
This is in contrast to something like a hardware patent, where if you patent a tool, and I build a better tool that does the same thing, the mere fact it does the same thing is not infringing unless I copy specific aspects of your patented physical design.
The reform is that an ideal implementation of software patents is largely the same as an ideal implementation of software copyright. I can't just copy what you did, but if I figure out a different way to do it, that's perfectly fine. That's why so many people say scrap software patents altogether and work on improving software copyright instead.
Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties
#74It would be great if more companies handled patents like Tesla. They obtain patents and then let others use them royalty free
Do they do that with all their patents?
Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties
#75The whole US patent system needs to either be scrapped or rebuilt. The purpose it was originally intended to be used for doesn't make sense in a world where most new technology is just software, and software is incredibly easy to copy and duplicate. Getting a software patent is mostly a matter of sneaking past the people at the USPTO, and making sure you're the first to file. These patent factories could just write c…
I think it is working exactly as intended. The point of the USPTO is to provide a mechanism for carving up the universe of ideas into plots of land where ownership is clear and backed up by the force of the state. You can charge rent on it, you can develop it yourself, you can leave it idle, it’s yours. Software innovators are a bit like wholesome farmers who just want to labor in the fields, beat the elements and grow good crops to feed the people for a decent profit. That’s nice, but in a country without property law big mean farming operations with security staff will just come and park themselves where you were farming.
The problem I believe, is that software innovators are taught not to worry about patents. Perhaps this attitude helps the VC shops who are experts at it, and it gives them an information advantage. I don’t know who feeds the myth.
In a right-thinking world, we would look at this situation and say Airbnb just started farming on land that was unclearly owned. This is the natural consequence.
Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties
#76famous fat line patent ! https://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/044.html >>> The chief blue suit orchestrated the presentation of the seven patents IBM claimed were infringed, the most prominent of which was IBM's notorious "fat lines" patent: To turn a thin line on a computer screen into a broad line, you go up and down an equal distance from the ends of the thin line and then connect the four points. You probably le…
Here is the 'fat lines' patent you mentioned: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6930686 . It's more about efficiency of drawing a line than connecting four dots.
What the patent says it's about and what your lawyers say it's about are two different things
Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties
#77Can someone find the relevant suit and allegations? What eCommerce patents does IBM own?
This is from 2007, but it sounds right, and it includes some patent numbers: https://www.computerworld.com/article/2545023/ibm--amazon-co...
> IBM sued Amazon in October last year, alleging that the company was infringing on a number of its U.S. patents, including those relating to storing data in an interactive network (Patent No. 5,442,771), adjusting hypertext links with weighted user goals and activities (5,446,891) and ordering items using an electronic catalogue (5,319,542)
Hahahahahaha
Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Constitution requires that Congress setup laws for both copyright and patent, for the good of the nation. Patents were always intended for the overall wellbeing of the nation. That's not to say that is what has always been achieved by the patent system, but it's not some sort of conspiracy. If anything, in history, they were always OSTENSIBLY for good, but perhaps ACTUALLY bad. So I find your statement to be A) h…
The Framers were skeptical of enabling government to give out patent and copyright monopoly grants. Jefferson wrote: Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than…
It's true some of the founders were skeptical, I never said otherwise and I never said it was "uncontested. What I said was that it's inclusion in the Constitution is for a clear reason, whether or not the reasoning is valid is a different debate.
As I pointed out, the constitution grants congress the EXPLICIT AUTHORIZATION you refer to, for the very purpose of promoting the PROGRESS of the arts and sciences.
I guess you think that the promotion of the progress of arts and sciences is not inherently a GOOD thing, but I'd disagree and I think the implied reasoning behind it's inclusion is entirely self-evident.
Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties
#79IBM made a large investment in Prodigy the bbs/internet service of the 90's and came out of it with a lot of patents.
Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep. Just look at the top 10 companies by market cap: 1. Microsoft – mostly software 2. Apple – software and hardware 3. Amazon – mostly software 4. Alphabet – mostly software 5. Berkshire Hathaway – not tech 6. Facebook – mostly software 7. Alibaba – mostly software 8. Tencent – mostly software 9. Johnson & Johnson – not tech 10. Visa – not tech, but mostly software
I'm not sure company value can really tell you what the volume of new tech is. Does a company like Facebook really develop new tech, or just apply it? They don't produce that many papers, compared to even a small university department. How are you even measuring the volume of new tech? What is one new composite material compared to one new JavaScript framework? How do you compare those?
I don't believe the claim of their publishing rate is accurate. They published over 300 papers last year according to the research website (https://research.fb.com/publications/?dateYear=2019).
Is a small university department really producing more than a paper per working day?