There may not be many, but there are some upsides. It may incentivize small inventors who believe there will be a value for their invention even if they themselves are not capable of productizing it. Shouldn’t they be rewarded by being able to sell their creation to the patent troll?
The patent troll that won a $308M jury trial against Apple
41–50 of 281 posts
Re: The patent troll that won a $308M jury trial against Apple
#42I wish there was a good “how to” guide for patent trolling.
Re: The patent troll that won a $308M jury trial against Apple
#43Every so often a patent troll story comes up on HN, and people like me bitch about how broken the system is and get group therapy from shouting into the wind on a web forum. What can we actually do . How do we start fixing this problem?
> What can we actually do. How do we start fixing this problem?
Write draft legislation that would fix the problem. Propose this to your country's legislature (Congress in the US, Parliament, etc).
Push for the new law.
Form or join an organization that writes and pushes for legislation that will fix the patent law mess.
Etc.
Re: The patent troll that won a $308M jury trial against Apple
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
You still need patents. Healthcare is an obvious example, if we eliminated patents we'd have 0 new drugs pass FDA approval over the next decade. But software is very different from medical patents.
Really? How about socializing all of medicine.
Including drug discovery? I'm very skeptical of that working out better than the current system (for drug discovery).
Re: The patent troll that won a $308M jury trial against Apple
#45Every so often a patent troll story comes up on HN, and people like me bitch about how broken the system is and get group therapy from shouting into the wind on a web forum. What can we actually do . How do we start fixing this problem?
Apple apparently has 308 million dollars of incentives to fix the system, so maybe that’s a good start.
Re: The patent troll that won a $308M jury trial against Apple
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree, but they stopped making them 25 years ago. This company is taking advantage of legacy laws. You couldn't replicate this business model today because it's already been outlawed.
Congress should just invalidate all submarine patents, full stop. When the 13th amendment was passed slave owners didn't get to "grandfather in" their existing slaves. Extreme example, but the point is sometimes old laws are so harmful to society we should not allow people to continue abusing them.
You're absolutely right, however let's note that no rational person would conclude that Apple actually infringed on any invention of this patent troll. This case should have gone nowhere, and the plaintiffs should have been sent home with a bill for the defense's legal counsel.
I mentioned in another comment about the Eastern District of Texas which became effectively a giant grift operation (though a recent SC case should put a damper on it). Plaintiffs sought it because they knew the jury pool would also be people who benefit from this extraordinarily corrupt, banana republic extortion racket. It was effectively like a forgettable little drive-through town that setup speed traps and decided to fund the municipality on the backs of outsiders.
There are some people who would counter this. For instance one paper notes that of jury trials, 73% of East Texas cases choose for the plaintiff, versus 68% elsewhere, "proving" that it isn't that much of a difference. The problem with this reasoning, however, is that East Texas was specifically where the cases with no merit went. It was overloaded with patent trolls and NPEs.
Actual, credible cases were seldom tried in East Texas.
Every judgment of that district should be vacated.
Re: The patent troll that won a $308M jury trial against Apple
#47Every so often a patent troll story comes up on HN, and people like me bitch about how broken the system is and get group therapy from shouting into the wind on a web forum. What can we actually do . How do we start fixing this problem?
If you are the CTO of Microsoft you set up the world's largest patent troll after you leave Microsoft.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_Ventures
I guess if you are a tech CTO, you don't beat them, you join them.
The sad part of Myhrvold's troll company is that it quickly spilled over into sectors other than software and "tech". Sectors that did not necessarily have the same knee-jerk negative reaction to the patent system (because despite its flaws, they depended on it).
Re: The patent troll that won a $308M jury trial against Apple
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've wondered that too. How can we realistically boycott the companies that abuse patents? I suppose I could stop using Apple products, but most current software jobs require some form of smartphone for authentication, so I need an iPhone or Android phone, thus supporting Google or Samsung or LG or one of the other big megacorps that abuse the American patent system. I feel like the only thing that could conceivably…
The megacorps are forced to file many patents for defensive purposes, either for protection against each other or the NPEs. Technical bulletins, disclosures, and scientific publications showing the obviousness of ridiculous NPE patents just don't seem to be enough. The juries must be receiving bad info on what to do.
> for protection against each other or the NPEs
Unfortunately, a patent portfolio doesn't protect against NPEs. A patent portfolio lets a company settle patent disputes with cross-licensing deals, or counter-sue with a "no you" argument.
An NPE doesn't have a product, so there's no reason to cross-license, and no way their product can violate any other patent.
Re: The patent troll that won a $308M jury trial against Apple
#49A parasite resulting from society's outdated patent laws, with a simple fix. 1. Only make practicing entities eligible for IP damages. 2. Reduce the duration of all patents by 50%.
So you're a small startup with no sales trying to build a prototype, but you patented your idea so that you get a priority date, and also because a patent is the first thing investors want to see to know that your idea won't just be copied by anyone else. Now you just get run over by the big boys? Now you're in the same situation, but you sell your patent to another entity because you can't afford yourself to sue the…
I'd support a short (relative to the patent term) grace period to become a practicing entity. If you create a reduction to practice, you are a practicing entity. If you file a patent but can't actually build the thing (or maybe it can't be built) -- this happens all too often, by the way -- then I don't see why they should hold on to their failed patent, only for it to be scooped up by some patent troll for pennies on the dollar and eventually clog our legal system and extract fees from real value producers.
Ideas are a dime a dozen. Execution is what matters. IP has value and should be incentivized, but right now, the legal system weighs the legal application for an idea far too heavily, and so alas, patent trolls exist.
Re: The patent troll that won a $308M jury trial against Apple
#50Every so often a patent troll story comes up on HN, and people like me bitch about how broken the system is and get group therapy from shouting into the wind on a web forum. What can we actually do . How do we start fixing this problem?
Companies like Apple, AMZN, MSFT, have enough resources and money to change the system but it wouldn't benefit them in the end. A few hundred million might seem like a lot to us but it's trivial to them. Sure they will defend themselves, they've got a lot of Lawyers on payroll that need to do something to earn their salaries.
I can't imagine the carnage they could collectively unleash on the Judge, Jury, County, State, etc if they really wanted to? But it isn't worth the time, money or effort. At the end of the day it's just pay the "Parking Ticket" and move on.