Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The patent troll that won a $308M jury trial against Apple

letterspatent.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 281 posts

Re: The patent troll that won a $308M jury trial against Apple

#81

Post by hi_im_miles »

monocasa wrote: post #74
JamesBarney wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The patent's purpose is to incentivize innovation. Some industries need this (medical) others don't (software). So if you got rid of patents innovation in some industries will be fine (software) and others will be wrecked (medical). Patents are not the only way to incentivize innovation, and I think it'd be great to experiment with some other ways. Socializing medicine is completely orthogonal to this issue. Unless y…

It's funny, I've heard from biomed engineers that it's clear to them that patents don't work in the medical field, unlike how they're effective in the software field. It feels like every field knows that they're a cash grab without a lot of benefits, but assumes there's some industry that they don't work in where they're needed.

Though this is only one person's personal experience, to me this was an illuminating conversation on the state of medical device repair as a consequence of strong IP protections:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsJG2ODOcXA

Re: The patent troll that won a $308M jury trial against Apple

#82

Post by 252452d »

freedomben wrote: post #9

Every 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?

[dead]

Re: The patent troll that won a $308M jury trial against Apple

#83

Post by nhoughto »

rasz wrote: post #76

Apple is very reluctant to put all of their heart in patent battles, to the point you start wondering if maybe internal patent attorneys are calling the shots and like the status quo a little too much. They pretty much intentionally lost S3TC patent case opting not to push for patent invalidation https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/itc-judge-rules-tha... The thing about s3tc is _its Apple own technology_, just r…

Pretty strange world where losing 300mil to this lot is a net win to maintain the hostile patent environment against their competitors.

I guess it’s pretty similar to Apple acquiring the patents and then suing competitors.. but without all the ill will that directly suing companies off a weak base brings. Bit sad that it all rationally makes sense.

Re: The patent troll that won a $308M jury trial against Apple

#84

Post by devUnderStress »

alisonkisk wrote: post #67
devUnderStress wrote: post #63

I don't see the problems with such non-practicing entities. They serve a legitimate purpose and advance the goal of patent laws by paying existing patent holders for their patents and suing companies for patent infringement. In this way, companies that would otherwise have to take on risks to mount an expensive lawsuit themselves can receive ready cash. If such non-practicing entities are outlawed, the inventors woul…

Reread the article. The "inventions" are trivial and the patents are of a sort that was banned decades ago.

That doesn't change what I said though. The "non-practicing entity" part got too much undeserved criticism. It's the submarine patent part that is really problematic.

Re: The patent troll that won a $308M jury trial against Apple

#85

Post by qq12as »

NPEs help make the market for patents more efficient -- small firms invent and have a hard time protecting their patent? They sell it to an NPE. Is the system imperfect? Probably. Worst case scenario, a big firm get frivolously sued and loses -- this is just a transfer of money from Apple to the NPE and the small inventor. Will Apple be less likely to invent as a consequence? I don't think so, but you can prove me wrong. Best case scenario, small actors are incentivized to invent and sell their ideas in the market for patents.

So why is everybody outraged? Because the lawful licensing agreements don't make it to the news. The outrageous cases do.

Re: The patent troll that won a $308M jury trial against Apple

#86

Post by onetimemanytime »

rasz wrote: post #76

Apple is very reluctant to put all of their heart in patent battles, to the point you start wondering if maybe internal patent attorneys are calling the shots and like the status quo a little too much. They pretty much intentionally lost S3TC patent case opting not to push for patent invalidation https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/itc-judge-rules-tha... The thing about s3tc is _its Apple own technology_, just r…

>>They pretty much intentionally lost S3TC patent case opting not to push for patent invalidation

Do you have any inside knowledge or just guessing the strategy of the lawyers in the courtroom?

Re: The patent troll that won a $308M jury trial against Apple

#87

Post by lettergram »

I’ll give a contrary view point to most “patent trolls”.

I’m an inventor (100+ Issued patents), I develop POCs and concepts well beyond my ability to productionize. That’s not to say I couldnt create a product, just that I don’t have the resources. However, I do have the resources to develop novel techniques. Does that mean I didn’t invent the process- no, I did invent a new process. I just didn’t build them into a product.

You know what?

Apple is also inventing things and has a plethora of patents. Further, I 100% guarantee they did a patent search and knew of this patent prior to releasing their product(s).

While I don’t think patent trolling is necessarily fair, I don’t think saying “poor old Apple” for having to pay for someone else’s invention is fair either.

Do I think patent law needs reform? Yes. Right after copyright, which can be extended decades/a century after publication. That being said, this is the game. Play by the rules while you’re in it.

Re: The patent troll that won a $308M jury trial against Apple

#88

Post by daniel-cussen »

kenneth wrote: post #80
alisonkisk wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's ironic to use the xenophobic slur "banana republic" to describe a US Federal Court in Texas.

No idea when banana republic became a "xenophobic slur." It's a pretty well understood term describing a country (or sub-jurisdiction in this example) that is so dependent on a foreign-controlled company or industry that it can be bossed around by that industry. Pretty ridiculous how the most benign of terms all become slurs in the woke era.

The banana republics were originally actual countries south of USA (like Colombia) that were actually manipulated by banana producing multinationals.

Re: The patent troll that won a $308M jury trial against Apple

#89

Post by speedgoose »

lettergram wrote: post #87

I’ll give a contrary view point to most “patent trolls”. I’m an inventor (100+ Issued patents), I develop POCs and concepts well beyond my ability to productionize. That’s not to say I couldnt create a product, just that I don’t have the resources. However, I do have the resources to develop novel techniques. Does that mean I didn’t invent the process- no, I did invent a new process. I just didn’t build them into a p…

How can you invent so many things?

Re: The patent troll that won a $308M jury trial against Apple

#90

Post by breck »

lettergram wrote: post #87

I’ll give a contrary view point to most “patent trolls”. I’m an inventor (100+ Issued patents), I develop POCs and concepts well beyond my ability to productionize. That’s not to say I couldnt create a product, just that I don’t have the resources. However, I do have the resources to develop novel techniques. Does that mean I didn’t invent the process- no, I did invent a new process. I just didn’t build them into a p…

Human slavery was also the game until 150 years ago.

Patents and copyright are immoral, or the word immoral has no meaning.

Don’t play immoral games. Think from first principles.

Post reply on HN