There needs to be a "use it or lose it" doctrine/law around technological IP. I get all the arguments around creating a market for the patent rights, but it just leads to these bottom feeders creating no value and increasing costs for the industry and consumers.
Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial
31–40 of 426 posts
Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial
#32What would be required to get a court to order Sable pay the legal fees Cloudflare incurred?
Quite a bit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_rule_(attorney%27s_fe...
Versus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_rule_(attorney%27s_fee... in much of the rest of the world.
Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial
#33Lots of patent hate in the first few comments. If we take the position that an inventor should be able to try and get profit from their invention how can we protect that without patent system?
> If we take the position that an inventor But most software patents aren't inventions; they're just brain farts with money behind them. They might not be trolls, but they went to the toilet, had some random idea I had 20000 times in my life already, but they patent it genuinely thinking it's anything original. There are many none trolls, like the famous Amazon one-click buy one; everyone in web dev invented that in…
>had some random idea I had 20000 times in my life already,
Aren't patent systems already supposed to reject "inventions" that are common sense? Perhaps the problem is not the system itself but rather the humans who are approving these.
Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial
#34Cloudflare is like Google early days. They could spend resources on things for the good of the all. In this case they’re spending millions when they could have settled for much cheaper. Thanks Cloudflare.
Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial
#35Lots of patent hate in the first few comments. If we take the position that an inventor should be able to try and get profit from their invention how can we protect that without patent system?
> an inventor should be able to try and get profit from their invention
Well then, let the inventor try and get profit from their invention. An idea is never enough: it's the execution that matters, so let the inventor go forth and execute.
Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial
#36Lots of patent hate in the first few comments. If we take the position that an inventor should be able to try and get profit from their invention how can we protect that without patent system?
> If we take the position that an inventor should be able to try and get profit from their invention The premise is flawed, the conclusion can only be wrong. Patents are an invention by the bourgeoisie to extend their control of the production of anything and extract as much money from it, but to make it acceptable they have the play the image of the "lone inventor in their garage". This inventor doesn't exist. No in…
>The premise is flawed, the conclusion can only be wrong.
That's the fallacy fallacy.
Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial
#37Worth mentioning: Newegg is another company that doesn't blink and goes after patent trolls with a vengeance, at least they used to: https://www.newegg.com/insider/newegg-vs-patent-trolls-when-...
Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial
#38Lots of patent hate in the first few comments. If we take the position that an inventor should be able to try and get profit from their invention how can we protect that without patent system?
patents were intended to protect the little-guy, the inventor (meaning a person), with an artificial monopoly so he could make money.
they weren't intended to be used by huge companies to help further their already impressive monopolistic empires. they collect them and use them as a kind of insurance or mutual-assued-destruction policy. microsoft won't sue ibm (and so on) because both have such a vast portfolio of garbage patents that they know they could tie each other up in litigation for 100 years, and they don't feel like paying for it.
then you get to the trolls. our government is actually enabling and encouraging a semi-legal form of extortion. the big companies can pay or pay to fight. it's a tax on everyone in the business though, even when winning. only the attorneys really win here.
it's obvious that the time and place for patents has come and gone.
- they don't do what they are intended, do much more harm than good.
- other comments are 100% correct, "software" (algorithms) and other similar areas like the one in TFA should never have existed in the first place.
- the pursuit of patent portfolios has created a surge of really bad patents. it's really been the entire life of the internet and modern computing. "one-click-patent", etc. and far worse. so why actually encourage more and lower quality patents?
- it does no good for an inventor to go get a patent, because even if the spiffy device is successful at market, the chinese will steal it with or without the little patent number engraving on the bottom. hell, they'll copy that too. if you find out who they are and sue them, they'll pop up as another company. if that's who you are competing against, why waste time and energy on anachronistic non-functioning armor.
- better option for an advantage from a unique software algorithm is to: be to market first and, if desired, keep it a trade secret.
- i think it'd be relatively easy to fix. first, allow the patent-holder to pick or easily challenge the venue (to kill east-texas) and second, allow awarding of attorney costs for the defendant, and force the plaintif to post a bond to prove they can pay them.
- but why bother? just abandon the whole system. it literally helps nobody.
Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial
#39Cloudflare is like Google early days. They could spend resources on things for the good of the all. In this case they’re spending millions when they could have settled for much cheaper. Thanks Cloudflare.
Hope they wouldn't end like google. But you are right. Thank you Cloudflare.
Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If we take the position that an inventor But most software patents aren't inventions; they're just brain farts with money behind them. They might not be trolls, but they went to the toilet, had some random idea I had 20000 times in my life already, but they patent it genuinely thinking it's anything original. There are many none trolls, like the famous Amazon one-click buy one; everyone in web dev invented that in…
>had some random idea I had 20000 times in my life already, Aren't patent systems already supposed to reject "inventions" that are common sense? Perhaps the problem is not the system itself but rather the humans who are approving these.
That’s definitely part of it: in the 90s you saw a ton of “on the internet” patents which looked a lot like the examiners not having had enough experience to say that something was either an obvious adaptation of an existing concept to the web or that the two systems had almost nothing in common other than using a computer (I remember a patent troll hitting a customer with a 1980s patent for cash registers connected to a minicomputer using a phone line, claiming it covered their web store). A younger generation of patent clerks hired with more experience seems to have helped there.
The other problem is funding: look at the patent examiner listings right now and think about how many people they’re going to be able to get with the federal pay scale having been prevented from keeping pace with the market for years:
https://www.usajobs.gov/Search/Results?l=&l=&a=CM56&hp=publi...