241–250 of 318 posts
https://patents.google.com/patent/US20170170984 If you cut through the lawyer-speak, claim #1 is basically about MITM-ing the vehicle's internal message bus. Hardly novel, even in 2007.
What I would like to see is a deposition of the patent examiner who approved this ridiculous patent.
There needs to be an anti-patent-troll membership organization. You pay a fee relative to some metric and the organization acts as insurance against parent trolls by fully defending any patent lawsuits that are obviously unjustified. And to keep costs low, membership in this organization would be public to deter patent trolls from even trying to sue a member in the first place.
Run the numbers: Assuming you need a legal staff of 20 with avg cost 500k per. So that’s 10 million per year. Double it for rent, SGA, etc. we’re at 20 million per year. Offer a protection package at 10k per year, you need 2000 paying customers. Since all the lawyers are on staff, you can have them invalidating patents when not defending case. If you structure it like a mutual insurance company, you could return a po…
One of the big constraints of insurance companies is the differing laws in each state and province, so don't underestimate the corporate/legal/tax/accounting/operational/compliance reporting/etc costs in EACH jurisdiction.
I frankly don't understand why a judge or jury would ever find for a company which has no revenue, other than through litigation settlements. I mean if they're not even selling a license or royalties for their patents, any cases should be dismissed. We can call it the "use it or lose it" rule for patents.
They don't. These guys all prey on settlements, the article even mentioned this troll has lost every single court battle and is surviving off of settlements.
"comma isn’t run by rational actors in suits sitting on a committee. It’s run by me, George Hotz. I’m willing to lose $1M before I give him $10k." This stance is admirable but comma.ai is partly owned by investors. Isn't he obliged to find the lowest cost solution to this ? Or is George Hotz planning to spend his personal money on the lawsuit ?
comma was profitable pre-investment, so Geohot has a lot of leeway to do what he wants. Besides, there is no fiduciary requirement to handle situations like this in any particular way. Fiduciary duty is to keep the business operating. Maximizing profit and minimizing costs are generally good practices; but they are not (legally) fiduciary duties.
I’m guessing this stance will be popular among engineers who will hear about the company and apply for jobs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Japanese video game industry does this in an ad-hoc way. Smaller game studios ask bigger companies, like Nintendo, to register some patents in their stead so the bigger companies can keep them safe with their elite team of lawyers. The bigger companies like Nintendo in turn gatekeep the patents from trolls and abusers, letting the industry at-large use the patents for a greater good while suing anyone who doesn't…
So basically because the official environment (laws and courts) doesn't do its job, large private entities end up taking over in what is essentially a protection racket. Sounds a bit too much like the Mafia IMHO.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Run the numbers: Assuming you need a legal staff of 20 with avg cost 500k per. So that’s 10 million per year. Double it for rent, SGA, etc. we’re at 20 million per year. Offer a protection package at 10k per year, you need 2000 paying customers. Since all the lawyers are on staff, you can have them invalidating patents when not defending case. If you structure it like a mutual insurance company, you could return a po…
Lawyer here. I love this idea. I think you make this work even better with a lot of part-time lawyers forming an army. In a world of remote work, I think it would be an appealing proposition. 100k for 10 hours a week of part time work.
There needs to be an anti-patent-troll membership organization. You pay a fee relative to some metric and the organization acts as insurance against parent trolls by fully defending any patent lawsuits that are obviously unjustified. And to keep costs low, membership in this organization would be public to deter patent trolls from even trying to sue a member in the first place.
Member organisations would be trying to get the anti-patent-troll org to defend any and all IP claims against them. Not all IP claims are patent trolling, some are legitimate and you don't want there to be big arguments whether this is a troll attack that needs defending.
Perhaps the way to do it is by the type of claimant rather than any analysis of the merits of the case. For example, one standard would be "Anyone who brings a claim while not actually being a competitor of the defendant".
There needs to be an anti-patent-troll membership organization. You pay a fee relative to some metric and the organization acts as insurance against parent trolls by fully defending any patent lawsuits that are obviously unjustified. And to keep costs low, membership in this organization would be public to deter patent trolls from even trying to sue a member in the first place.
I think the main difficulty is in the "obviously unjustified" determination. Member organisations would be trying to get the anti-patent-troll org to defend any and all IP claims against them. Not all IP claims are patent trolling, some are legitimate and you don't want there to be big arguments whether this is a troll attack that needs defending. Perhaps the way to do it is by the type of claimant rather than any an…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
An important detail: it shouldn't be (and as far as I know isn't) the loser who pays but the party who behaved unreasonably. For example, if you damage someone's property, offer to pay £100, but they refuse your offer and instead sue you and win .... £100, then you won't be paying their legal costs. In fact, they may have to pay your costs because they were being unreasonable in bringing the case to court after you h…
I trhink it's more complicated than that (IANAL). Isn't it most common to make such a settlement offer "without prejudice"? Then the fact that offer was made can't be brought up in court, so it can't affect the costs ruling.
The meaning they're going for is "by making this offer I'm not admitting guilt, but when we come to awarding costs the fact that I tried to end this without going to court should count in my favour".
Purely fyi, the game theory behind this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signaling_game
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signaling_game#Reputation_game