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

letterspatent.org

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

#251

Post by joemullin »

lemagedurage wrote: post #178
vasco wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ideas can explicitly not be patented. "A patent cannot be obtained upon a mere idea or suggestion. The patent is granted upon the new machine, manufacture, etc., as has been said, and not upon the idea or suggestion of the new machine. A complete description of the actual machine or other subject matter for which a patent is sought is required." https://www.uspto.gov/patents/basics

This is the party line, but it just isn't true. Patents are obtained & enforced on ideas all the time, especially in software. PMC is enforcing a patent on the idea of DRM, on the idea of error-correction in streaming video. They never implemented either (beyond a prototype which may or may not have had these features, and never sold).

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

#252

Post by joemullin »

I'm the author of the above piece. I'm a bit late to the party here, but really appreciate the conversation——it's my first time on this site as a solo blogger (former Ars Technica writer).

For those that found this interesting——especially those that are frustrated by the current software patent system——consider subscribing. It's free, just a passion project I'm doing on the side. I think writing about & publicizing these problems is one of the ways forward to a solution, which is one of the reasons I started Letters Patent.

If you have questions about what i've covered, or suggestions about what to write about, please send them my way: joe@letterspatent.org.

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

#253

Post by joemullin »

cletus wrote: post #228
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…

> Why is it OK for huge companies like apple, IBM, Google... to use the patent system to keep out any competitors or newcomers [citation needed] Specifically, Oracle notwithstanding, big tech companies have used patent portfolios defensively. Take Google as one example. When has Google filed a patent infringement lawsuit against any company (other than as a countersuit after getting sued eg Sonos)?

Many internet companies, including Google, have used patents only defensively (so far). However, there are plenty of tech companies that do assert patents offensively, including Apple, IBM, Qualcomm (famously), Oracle, and lots of others.

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

#254

Post by joemullin »

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…

The "invention" is DRM. You think Apple read this patent and said "a-ha, that's how you do it?"

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

#256

Post by cletus »

joemullin wrote: post #253
cletus wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is it OK for huge companies like apple, IBM, Google... to use the patent system to keep out any competitors or newcomers [citation needed] Specifically, Oracle notwithstanding, big tech companies have used patent portfolios defensively. Take Google as one example. When has Google filed a patent infringement lawsuit against any company (other than as a countersuit after getting sued eg Sonos)?

Many internet companies, including Google, have used patents only defensively (so far). However, there are plenty of tech companies that do assert patents offensively, including Apple, IBM, Qualcomm (famously), Oracle, and lots of others.

Qualcomm and Oracle are clearly bad actors. IBM? Probably. But I have no idea honestly.

But Apple? The only patent suit I'm aware of that they initiated was against Samsung and this is a little more complicated.

First, it was primarily a design patent suit. I'm a little more sympathetic to design patents than software patents (which I'm 100% against). And, let's face it, Samsung did pretty much just rip off the iPhone. There were some non-design patents thrown in there too, that's true.

But the commenter I replied to suggested these tech companies were using patents to squash smaller competitors. And for most companies that isn't true. Even if you choose to include Apple in a list of companies that use patents offensively rather than defensively, Samsung isn't really a small competitor, so the point stands.

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

#257

Post by lend000 »

dasudasu wrote: post #192
lend000 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

Execution can depend a lot on the amount of capital you have available in the first place. Imagine a startup trying to develop a very expensive solid state LIDAR. They don't have the millions in funds to go to a fab and go into production. They do shitty prototypes. But they get some attention and are able to sell/license their patents. In this alternative universe where patent law is much weaker: 1. The big corp can…

I'm pretty sure this exact scenario has happened, but instead of going the patent route, the startup got acquired and they all got nice retirement packages from Google (Waymo).

If they can't find anyone to invest in them, are they the ones to execute the idea? Btw, they could sell patents to practicing entities (those who immediately choose to become practicing entities of the patent) and still get compensation for their IP.

And your scenario does not exist, frankly, where someone comes up with an idea so unique and groundbreaking, that it isn't rediscovered for longer than the duration of a typical patent term. You have a couple years, tops. In fact, someone has probably already come up with the idea and you never heard of it. Execution is what matters.

Change always affects someone negatively, but I don't find your examples compelling. Patent trolls and lawyers are the real losers in this scenario, which is fine, because they are currently a net tax on value creation in the IP space.

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

#258

Post by breck »

JamesBarney wrote: post #248
breck wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Penicillin and ether were not covered by patents. Pretty sure those were two of the greatest of all time. On the patent side you have such modern marvels as OxyContin, which has arguably caused more loss of life than COVID-19. Patented drugs are generally awful. The idea that it costs $1B to make a game changing drug is a lie. It costs $1T. The US taxpayer pays 99.9%, and the big pharma company spends a billion to ge…

> Patented drugs are generally awful. The idea that it costs $1B to make a game changing drug is a lie. It costs $1T. The US taxpayer pays 99.9%, and the big pharma company spends a billion to generate some shitty subpar derivative that they can then get monopoly protection on and create an artificial racket supported by false marketing. This number is impossibly wrong. There were 48 new drugs brought to market in 20…

stdlib

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

#259

Post by hurril »

cycomanic wrote: post #142
hurril wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a false dichotomy if I ever saw one. The fight is not between the ones that legitimately use patents and those that've merely bought (or created) them to make money off of the IP itself. There are, in fact, four alternatives here and not two: 1. Producing company, legitimate patents; 2. Producing company, illegitimate patents; 3. Non-producing company, legitimate patents; 4. Non-producing company, illegitimat…

There are several problems with your argument. 1. How do you distinguish legitimate and illegitimate patents. I guess you have to agree on some arbiter, like courts of law. So that's how we are in the current situation 2. Notwithstanding the issue around deciding between them, most larger patent holders have a huge portfolio of "clearly" legitimate and illegitimate patents, and they are using both (you don't need to…

Patents need to be discriminated based on some threshold of originality or something similar. My country even has a term for it "verkshöjd" that is applied in this context. That way you don't get trolls trying to sue Amazon for "Way to sell merchandise using a >>computer network>>."

Of course there's no easy way to distinguish _all_ patent (applications) this way but that one would not be accepted.

The issues you raise are certainly valid and reasonable but notwithstanding not the point of contention here. The trolling part is the one that comes from what is perceived as illegitimate claims/ patents.

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

#260

Post by mashpoe »

toxik wrote: post #171
mashpoe wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People like to say that without patents there will be no incentive to advance technology, but if you're the one to come up with an idea then you already have a huge head start. If you don't make use of that head start, then you don't deserve it, and this applies to patents as well. Monopolies are bad, and competition is good. Everyone is already incentivized to come up with and implement ideas faster than their compe…

The fact of the matter is that countries with weak IP laws and/or enforcement see less innovation. It makes sense too, the calculus is easy: rip someone’s tested idea off for free, or invest huge piles of money just to get your foot in the door?

Assuming that statistic is true, how do you know countries with more innovation don't just end up producing big corporations that lobby for more control over ideas that they don't want to compete for?
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