The patent troll that won a $308M jury trial against Apple • Hacker News Board

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

#211

Post by snarf21 » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 1:05 PM UTC

vasco wrote: post #136

cycomanic wrote: post #123

The issue I have with much of the patent trolling bashing is, that it somehow makes a distinction between practicing companies who make something and non practicing entities. I think this is a huge veil the industry pulled over people's eyes. Why is it OK for huge companies like apple, IBM, Google... to use the patent system to keep out any competitors or newcomers, but it is not ok for smaller inventors to sell thei…

Patents are a monopoly on an idea. And ideas shouldn't be owned by anyone. One shouldn't be forced to share their ideas, but the concept of coming up with something, and then going to your community and saying: "Hey everyone, I thought of this and wrote it down, none of you wrote it down before so now it's my idea for the next 30 years" Is just ridiculous.

I agree that we allow patents for things today that aren't novel but patents do allow a single person to build a company around an idea. By having some protection for a time, they have time to recoup research costs and build something sustainable.

Without them, billionaires could just monitor the market and essentially just steal the business because they have the capital to leverage economies of scale. How do you prevent this without patents? What is your better idea?

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

#212

Post by BrandoElFollito » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 1:18 PM UTC

viraptor wrote: post #204

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a look at the link. I do not really understand what it does (I work in IT, many years as a sysadmin) but it suspiciously looks like my code on a day I thought I had a revolutionary idea. Then a few weeks later I have to look at it again and try to rediscover that revolutionary idea while the family is waiting for the lights to work again.

> I do not really understand what it does It's basically: query the database for the list of nodes, then tell the LB which of those nodes you want to send traffic to. Something you come up with in 5min if you ever need it.

Well, yes, that I more or less understood - but why? The LB does this already, it is its role to know what to send where under which conditions.

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

#213

Post by TrackerFF » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 1:26 PM UTC

djohnston wrote: post #184

I don't see how this one district in eastern Texas can be such an outlier without some sort of oversight. Does no one find it absurd that all these patent cases go here, that the results are so consistently in the favour of the plaintiff, etc?

Seems like they've found their niche.

More lawsuits = more business lawyers = more money for local business.

But AFAIK, this has only been possible because the plaintiffs have been able to choose their venue. And in the end, it's a game of numbers.

If venues where chosen at random, I'd imagine the the whole business model would fold - simply too much risk/uncertainty.

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

#214

Post by viraptor » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 1:36 PM UTC

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #212

viraptor wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do not really understand what it does It's basically: query the database for the list of nodes, then tell the LB which of those nodes you want to send traffic to. Something you come up with in 5min if you ever need it.

Well, yes, that I more or less understood - but why? The LB does this already, it is its role to know what to send where under which conditions.

Debugging I guess? If you have more logic in your LB/routing, you may want to process all of it as usual, but skip the random selection part and talk to a specific server for a single request. Or it could be used for pull-style monitoring over the same LB as traffic (GET /stats/i-0001234). Or some weird cluster selection... like HP uses numbers in the domain, for example www8.hp.com

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

#215

Post by jmartrican » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 1:42 PM UTC

Maybe the value added that PMC provides is protection from other lawsuits? Basically you pay them and now you have protection from other similar companies trying to sue you. Sounds like classic protection racket that the mob is known for.

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

#216

Post by jmartrican » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 1:49 PM UTC

As a small company, can you go to one of these patent trolls for protection? Maybe make a deal while you are still small and the fees are manageable. Go to them and say... "This is what we do. Do you have patents to protect us from lawsuits?"

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

#217

Post by freedomben » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 1:56 PM UTC

winter_blue wrote: post #43

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?

> 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.

Fascinating, thank you! I hadn't thought of that, but that's the kind of audacious (even outrageous) thing that while extremely unlikely to happen, it could. I like the way you think!

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

#218

Post by traspler » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 2:02 PM UTC

jmartrican wrote: post #216

As a small company, can you go to one of these patent trolls for protection? Maybe make a deal while you are still small and the fees are manageable. Go to them and say... "This is what we do. Do you have patents to protect us from lawsuits?"

Even as a big company you can do that. E.g Intellectual Ventures [1] offers such protection services.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_Ventures

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

#219

Post by jmartrican » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 2:06 PM UTC

traspler wrote: post #218

jmartrican wrote: post #216

As a small company, can you go to one of these patent trolls for protection? Maybe make a deal while you are still small and the fees are manageable. Go to them and say... "This is what we do. Do you have patents to protect us from lawsuits?"

Even as a big company you can do that. E.g Intellectual Ventures [1] offers such protection services. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_Ventures

Pretty cool. Know of any instances of one patent troll going to battle with another patent troll, to protect one of its clients?

Before I pay for protection, I want to be sure they got my back.

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

#220

Post by _qwfv » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 2:18 PM UTC

dstick wrote: post #210

charcircuit wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are leaving out the option of just licensing the patent. If you are lucky they will license it to you for free.

Can the license holder set any price they want? Essentially blocking access with an absurdly high paywall? Or is there some kind of standard?

Yes, or they can refuse to license it to you at all.