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Gnome patent troll stripped of patent rights

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Re: Gnome patent troll stripped of patent rights

#21

Post by btrettel »

coolhoody wrote: post #4

> “offers a number of ways to wirelessly share photos online such as through social media.” How was it possible to patent this in 2018? https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/01/50/f8/a8e7c12...

> How was it possible to patent this in 2018?

Easy. I'm a former patent examiner and in my view, the root cause of most bad patents is obviously the lack of time patent examiners get.

Most people here don't understand how patents are granted. Patent examiners don't get a lot of time. If I'm an examiner, and I can't find it in the time provided, and the application doesn't have some other issues (101, 112, etc.), the application is likely to be granted. This is not a matter of caring about the quality of the work. I'm confident that few critics of the USPTO would do a better job than current examiners under the same time constraints.

The most effective way to eliminate bad patents would be to increase the amount of time patent examiners get. The amount of time is based on some IBM study from the 1960s from what I know. Some adjustments to the time have been made, but it's nowhere near enough. Yes, we now have better search technologies, but we also have at least two orders of magnitude more documents to search.

I'm told that the amount of time examiners get probably won't increase without congressional intervention. Right now the USPTO only makes money through user fees. The USPTO receives no tax revenue at all. This situation is actually worse, as the Department of Commerce diverts some of the USPTO's revenues for other projects. At the very least the USPTO should be given control over their own money, and they should also receive tax revenue. Then examiners can be given more time and do a better job.

Here's why some other approaches won't work:

- Punishing examiners for making bad decisions will just make an already stressful job more stressful. This seems to be the current focus at the USPTO. Fortunately I haven't heard anyone being fired due to poor quality, so I think it's mostly talk.

- Adding more ways for companies to kill bad patents after they've been granted favors large corporations who can afford to kill bad patents. Small corporations and individuals are still powerless against bad patents.

Re: Gnome patent troll stripped of patent rights

#22

Post by noizejoy »

throw_m239339 wrote: post #2

I mean, to the author, thank you. Can't believe it cost $150,000+ for the open source community to go through that litigation... Dorsey, and all the SV billionaires who made money off open source, perhaps it's time you "contribute back" by financing the fight against patent trolls...

Not sure why you’re advocating private, rather than company funding (by companies who have benefited greatly from open source). Also don’t understand, how naming one specific individual adds to the quality of the suggestion.

Re: Gnome patent troll stripped of patent rights

#23

Post by AnimalMuppet »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #11

How about we make "non-practicing entity" a defense in a patent lawsuit? That, if you can prove that the owner of the patent is an NPE (and doesn't reasonably license or innovate or even try to innovate, only sue or unreasonably license), case tossed...

Let's say I'm some random individual, and I have a great idea, and I patent it. Let's say it's the patent on interval wipers on cars. But I'm not an auto company, so what I do with it is, I try to license the patent to auto companies. But they say, hey, this guy is a non-practicing entity, so we can invalidate his patent on that grounds alone, so why would we license it?

That gets us a world without patent trolls, and without interval wipers (and everything else invented by an individual inventor who wasn't in a position to start a company to implement the idea). Is that a strictly better world?

Re: Gnome patent troll stripped of patent rights

#24

Post by tedivm »

tssva wrote: post #19
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #10

Good on Mr. Smith. But was he in any way involved with the legal defense team for GNOME? The story reads to me like GNOME spent $150k on a legal defense that saved themselves and carved out a little niche for FOSS projects, but otherwise allowed the patent troll to continue profiting from this patent. > Of course, that’s little comfort to the 20+ victims attacked after GNOME with the now-proven-worthless Rothschild ‘…

When GNOME was raising the 150k they said they would not settle and would battle until the patent was overturned. People donated based upon this and then GNOME settled. This is why when things like the he said/she said argument with System 76 have come up I am mystified that some people are ready to believe GNOME's take. They have already shown that they are a project whose leadership's word can't be trusted.

According to the Gnome website they didn't have to pay their lawyers, so I'm wondering where that money went.

> GNOME was represented pro-bono by Matt Berkowitz, Kieran Kieckhefer, Joy Wang and Larry Crouch from Shearman & Sterling LLP.

https://foundation.gnome.org/2020/05/20/patent-case-against-...

Re: Gnome patent troll stripped of patent rights

#26

Post by gjsman-1000 »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #23
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #11

How about we make "non-practicing entity" a defense in a patent lawsuit? That, if you can prove that the owner of the patent is an NPE (and doesn't reasonably license or innovate or even try to innovate, only sue or unreasonably license), case tossed...

Let's say I'm some random individual, and I have a great idea, and I patent it. Let's say it's the patent on interval wipers on cars. But I'm not an auto company, so what I do with it is, I try to license the patent to auto companies. But they say, hey, this guy is a non-practicing entity, so we can invalidate his patent on that grounds alone, so why would we license it? That gets us a world without patent trolls, an…

It would not compare to my proposal directly because:

“I try to license the patent to auto companies”

Many patent trolls never even attempt licensing, they just wait to sue or settle. This would not remove all trolls but would be a first step.

Re: Gnome patent troll stripped of patent rights

#27

Post by JamesBarney »

tedivm wrote: post #24
tssva wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When GNOME was raising the 150k they said they would not settle and would battle until the patent was overturned. People donated based upon this and then GNOME settled. This is why when things like the he said/she said argument with System 76 have come up I am mystified that some people are ready to believe GNOME's take. They have already shown that they are a project whose leadership's word can't be trusted.

According to the Gnome website they didn't have to pay their lawyers, so I'm wondering where that money went. > GNOME was represented pro-bono by Matt Berkowitz, Kieran Kieckhefer, Joy Wang and Larry Crouch from Shearman & Sterling LLP. https://foundation.gnome.org/2020/05/20/patent-case-against-...

There are lots of expenses in a legal case besides just the lawyers, like expert witness, process servers, etc..

Re: Gnome patent troll stripped of patent rights

#28

Post by tedivm »

tebruno99 wrote: post #13
throw_m239339 wrote: post #2

I mean, to the author, thank you. Can't believe it cost $150,000+ for the open source community to go through that litigation... Dorsey, and all the SV billionaires who made money off open source, perhaps it's time you "contribute back" by financing the fight against patent trolls...

I understood that it cost Gnome $150k for Gnome to settle and obtain their own exclusive right of usage instead of doing the right thing and fight the patent.

They got that for free. What the $150k was spent on seems to be anyone's guess.

> https://foundation.gnome.org/2020/05/20/patent-case-against-...

https://foundation.gnome.org/2020/05/20/patent-case-against-...

Re: Gnome patent troll stripped of patent rights

#29

Post by lstodd »

_jal wrote: post #12
cmeacham98 wrote: post #5

There needs to be anti-SLAPP style legislation for patent trolls. I honestly don't understand why there isn't: it seems like an easy PR win for legislators. Who would be against this (except patent trolls)?

I suspect lots of large companies that do make things but also hold many, many patents would object. Patents can a potent weapon, especially if you have a lot of them in a specific area. So to answer your question, I would expect opposition from anyone with a big portfolio who wants unencumbered range of motion to use them offensively. So for specific examples from the little corner of the world focused on here, I su…

They "hold many, many patents" (usually worthless) to have an "unencumbered range of motion to use them offensively" against similar entities.

If the whole idea of using bullshit patents to defend against someone's threat of some other bullshit patents gets buried at last, then everyone wins because not having to trade "portfolios of bullshit patents" back and forth lowers costs of business for everyone.

This was obvious at least 30 years ago, where have you been?

Re: Gnome patent troll stripped of patent rights

#30

Post by nonrandomstring »

> Perhaps it's time for the law to adjust to the point where the stakes for the troll are high

Take that further. The stakes should be high against all adjacent patent holders. Ultimately if we want to keep a working patent system it's too much work to rely on piecemeal independent cases like this, albeit a great success. The system has to self-police to be fair, and perhaps the best people to keep trolls and mischievous opportunists on a leash are the bigger players with legitimate patents. They must be fiven a motivated interest in eliminating trolls.

If you sell a gun to an unstable crazy who shoots up the neighbourhood then some blame lies with you. While the transfer of patents between concerned partner companies and subsidiaries seems okay, the market for trading patents simply as value assets needs destroying. Ultimately its probably better if we move to a world where a lot of "intellectual property" expires with it's holder and passes into the public domain.

To apply a leverage point analysis, it's probably time to reexamine and change the rules about the transferability of patents. Does the purchaser have a legitimate justification to hold the patent? If no, it forfeits.

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