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Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit

blog.comma.ai

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Re: Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit

#291

Post by rhino369 »

denton-scratch wrote: post #285
rhino369 wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the filed a suit against you, you can counterclaim the invalidity of the asserted patents. And even if they drop the claims against you, you still have the claim that their patent is invalidity. If they just threaten you, can still sue the patent owner for a "declaratory judgement" that their patent is invalid, though you have to show harm in order for the court to hear the case. So if they promise not to sue or y…

> You can always file an Inter Partes Review at the patent office to attack any patent. I see. So that sounds like the simplest, clearest course. Presumably it's in practice the most difficult, expensive and time-consuming route.

It's actually the easiest, least expensive, and quicker option.

Re: Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit

#292

Post by barelycompetent »

gregsadetsky wrote: post #89
pclmulqdq wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The disclosures in the patent aren't what they are suing you over. Read the claims. Patents like this often have a lot of stuff shoved into the disclosure so that they can keep the patent application alive to write more patents based on the original disclosure. The claims appear to be written to read on devices like yours: My knowledge of your system is a bit dated, but I thought you had a device that you plugged int…

The DARPA Grand Challenge ran in 2004 and 2005 (i.e. before 2007) and the cars there definitely all had emergency shut off mechanisms. Maybe one of the competitors used an existing (i.e. not custom made) car part for this? ——— Found this from 2004: “A DARPA-provided electronic stop device allowed a remote control shut-down of the vehicle in case of an emergency” Is that a lead? [0] https://www.researchgate.net/profil…

A lead would need to teach significantly more to even be considered.

Does the vehicle have (1) an after-market device installed that (2) detects that a first component stopped sending commands to a second component and (3) uses relay switch to disconnect the failed first component from the second component and (4) starts sending commands to the second component on its own that are indistinguishable from those sent by the first component?

Technically, the above requirements are needed against claim 20 of '707. Claim 6 requires fewer features. That doesn't help us because: (1) claim 20 is asserted in the complaint [0], and (2) claim 20 was upheld in a previous challenge to its validity (an "IPR"), so it's got some staying power.

[0] https://blog.comma.ai/img/20220824085232055.pdf

Re: Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit

#293

Post by barelycompetent »

georgehotz wrote: post #21
etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #18

To play devil's advocate, there is nothing about being a patent troll inherently illegal. Hotz feels the patent is invalid, but it might not be. Our system does not require you to ever build the object patented before extracting fees from it. This is in fact the way the US patent system works. One of the patents is here: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/10454707 Method, Apparatus and System for Retrof…

The patent in the complaint doesn't even have anything to do with what we do as a company! It describes a system that calls 911 when it detects a crash (like onstar). Ignore the (very generic) title and read on in the actual patent. https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/10454707 We write open source ADAS software, and it doesn't have any functionality like that: https://github.com/commaai/openpilot But for…

You are describing one scenario where this invention could be used ("a system that calls 911 when it detects a crash"). The legal protection provided by this patent is _not_ limited to any specific context or scenario.

Let's take '707 claim 6. _Any_ commercial product with each and every one of the following bullet points ("limitations" in lawyer-speak) infringes and must purchase a license to this patent.

[1] A vehicle, comprising: [2] a factory-installed first apparatus configured to generate an electrical signal; [3] a factory-installed second apparatus configured to receive the electrical signal; and [4] a retrofit apparatus electrically connected to the factory-installed second apparatus, [5] wherein the retrofit apparatus generates a mimicked electrical signal independently of the electrical signal generated by the factory-installed first apparatus, and [6] wherein the factory-installed second apparatus receives the mimicked electrical signal.

Re: Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit

#294

Post by wombatpm »

mrcheesebreeze wrote: post #279
wombatpm wrote: post #110

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…

Too genius of a plan to be just sitting here. Go do it, you seem to have a good plan that seems feasible, there must be some people with capitol willing to hop on board. A new insurance we never even knew we needed.

I know. The positive response is amazing

Re: Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit

#295

Post by barelycompetent »

etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #18

To play devil's advocate, there is nothing about being a patent troll inherently illegal. Hotz feels the patent is invalid, but it might not be. Our system does not require you to ever build the object patented before extracting fees from it. This is in fact the way the US patent system works. One of the patents is here: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/10454707 Method, Apparatus and System for Retrof…

No post body was provided.

Re: Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit

#296

Post by wombatpm »

TylerE wrote: post #286
denton-scratch wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't really need to employ lawyers at all. It's just an insurance club. They need an actuary, an accountant and a clerk. They can pay law-firms to do the lawyering, and contract researchers to dig up prior art. That way, the main costs arise on a per-case basis - only the office staff are fixed costs.

That's seem to make a startup LESS attractive companies, no? One bad case and the whole thing runs out of money. This is the kind of service you'd want provided by somebody "too big to fail".

True, but the goal is to fight patent trolls or non practicing entities. Not take on legitimate cases of patent infringement against Oracle or Intel or Apple

Re: Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit

#297

Post by deepspace »

_fat_santa wrote: post #243
frellus wrote: post #52

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.

> 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 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.

Most people know that lawyers are expensive, but very, very few know just how expensive it is to go to trial. Even the simplest case can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Justice is only available for extremely rich folks.

Re: Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit

#298

Post by leaflets2 »

jbms wrote: post #207
wombatpm wrote: post #110

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…

Maybe YC could be the target customer? They bankroll a single company as insurance against all their investments being targets of attacks. They can afford it. They might attract all the best startups as a result, if those feel better protected.

And it's in YCs self interest to make their startups safer?

Wouldn't this be in all venture capitalists self interest? (Not only YC) Maybe they could join (or start their own)

Re: Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit

#299

Post by ummonk »

cratermoon wrote: post #115
acdha wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here’s John Walker’s proposal for that in 1993 after getting extorted by the XOR patent troll: https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/chapter2_105.html I think the problem is that most of the major companies are comfortable writing it off as a cost of doing business and don’t want to give up the possibility of using strategic patent suits themselves.

> don’t want to give up the possibility of using strategic patent suits themselves This is a highly under-appreciated aspect of the patent world. Companies that buy and own lots of patents do so defensively. Big companies even enter into patent cross-licensing agreements with each other, where they basically say "I know you probably infringe on my patents and I probably infringe on yours, but we'll make a deal and in…

Yeah, but if such an insurance scheme can protect smaller member companies and prevent patent trolls from targeting them, I'd say that's mission accomplished. Let the patent trolls go after the companies that will pay them off, but make sure they're strongly deterred from going after the little guys.

Re: Patent Trolls Inbound: Our First Lawsuit

#300

Post by ummonk »

grayfaced wrote: post #129
ummonk wrote: post #90

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.

The risk models for potential members would vary wildly. The fee structure would have to account for different levels of risk based on the activity of members. And then what if one member faces a lawsuit that could be an existential threat to that company, how much of a legal defense is the appropriate response? And then who determines the legal strategy (settle vs court)? This sounds like ransomware insurance. Often…

I don't think it's quite analogous to ransomware insurance because a patent troll incurs its own costs from fighting out a lawsuit in court. So by credibly committing to bitterly fighting out each patent troll lawsuit, it can deter patent trolls from suing its members, and actually lower overall costs. Credible deterrence is important in an iterated game.
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