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Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

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Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#61

Post by lukan »

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #49
lukan wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are research companies who only do research and get money by licencing their patents. I mean, I really would like to live in a world without patents, but currently those companies do provide value, but cannot exist, without guarding their IP. Yet they would cease to exist, with your proposal.

Great point. And then if one of those companies sold a patent that wasn't immediately licensable to an IP firm for an immediate infusion of funds should the IP firm be considered a patent troll?

Maybe the patent system could work, without the possibility of selling patents at all? Have not thought it out, but I know musicians also seldom profit of selling their IP to the major labels. But they are pushed into it.

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#62

Post by mistrial9 »

dosethree wrote: post #47
duped wrote: post #31

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.

just abolish the patent system entirely. at minimum, for software

compare and contrast to industry practices today

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/software-patents.en.html

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#63

Post by duped »

lukan wrote: post #45
duped wrote: post #31

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.

There are research companies who only do research and get money by licencing their patents. I mean, I really would like to live in a world without patents, but currently those companies do provide value, but cannot exist, without guarding their IP. Yet they would cease to exist, with your proposal.

Why wouldn't they be able to exist?

If you invent something, there's a work product. There is documentation, notes, blueprints, CAD files, software, etc. You can sell this and license it however you want. You can sue people that use it without a license. More importantly, you as the original author can use the IP as you see fit.

All of that is what I would put under the category of "use it." If you stop licensing it, then you "lose it."

Personally I don't think you should be able to sell the invention as an idea to another company that only relicenses it, but I get that there needs to be a market for IP itself.

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#65

Post by huijzer »

rvnx wrote: post #3

At the end of the day, this is a deep legislation issue, patents should not exist at all. They are supposed to promote innovation, in practice, it's more about protecting guys who sitting and waiting for passive cash. Once we give exclusive rights to all AI stuff to Nvidia, is the world going to be a better place ? What would be with ChatGPT if Google actually had enforced (or enforces) patents on Transformers. Is th…

I'm not so convinced of your argument yet. You point out some cases in which granting a patent will lead to reduced innovation, which I agree is bad. But how about innovations which might never have happened without the patent system in place?

I agree with you that patents a probably a net negative for innovation, but we need to come up with a stronger argument than monopolies are bad.

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#66

Post by schmichael »

> One of our outstanding engineers described what it’s like to create a new product

This is a good reminder to enthusiastically help out your legal team if your company is the target of trolls!

I had the opportunity to do it once. Our legal team was helpful, patient, and curious. The work was pretty annoying because you have to try to help them work out whether some bizarrely worded unrelated thing could possibly be construed to be part of our product.

In our case the troll went away as soon as we made it clear we were serious about taking it to court.

I cannot tell you how thankful I am for Cloudflare taking it as far as they can. The cost and risk must be considerable to them.

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#67

Post by lukan »

jonwachob91 wrote: post #58
lukan wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are research companies who only do research and get money by licencing their patents. I mean, I really would like to live in a world without patents, but currently those companies do provide value, but cannot exist, without guarding their IP. Yet they would cease to exist, with your proposal.

Issuing a license is a form of "using it" in a use it or lose it scenario. Those are not patent troll companies. Patent troll companies file patents and then sit on the patent until they can sue another party for infringement, and never make an attempt to commercialize their patent. Another example of not using it in the use it or lose it scenario is Pfizer's acquisition of Esperion Therapeutics in 2004. Esperion was…

That is hard I think, as there are patents that are not licenced because no one wants to - but I think every holder of a patent must licence it to any party interested. So just "sitting on patents" is not really possible to my knowledge. (but I am really not an expert here)

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#69

Post by amadeuspagel »

jonwachob91 wrote: post #58
lukan wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are research companies who only do research and get money by licencing their patents. I mean, I really would like to live in a world without patents, but currently those companies do provide value, but cannot exist, without guarding their IP. Yet they would cease to exist, with your proposal.

Issuing a license is a form of "using it" in a use it or lose it scenario. Those are not patent troll companies. Patent troll companies file patents and then sit on the patent until they can sue another party for infringement, and never make an attempt to commercialize their patent. Another example of not using it in the use it or lose it scenario is Pfizer's acquisition of Esperion Therapeutics in 2004. Esperion was…

What's your bargaining position when you lose a patent that might be useful for only a few companies if you don't issue a license?

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#70

Post by floating-io »

lukan wrote: post #67
jonwachob91 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Issuing a license is a form of "using it" in a use it or lose it scenario. Those are not patent troll companies. Patent troll companies file patents and then sit on the patent until they can sue another party for infringement, and never make an attempt to commercialize their patent. Another example of not using it in the use it or lose it scenario is Pfizer's acquisition of Esperion Therapeutics in 2004. Esperion was…

That is hard I think, as there are patents that are not licenced because no one wants to - but I think every holder of a patent must licence it to any party interested. So just "sitting on patents" is not really possible to my knowledge. (but I am really not an expert here)

If I'm understanding what you're saying correctly, then I'm not sure where you got that idea.

Patent holders are not required to license their patents last time I checked. You are simply required to acquire a license prior to using patented technology.

If they don't want to license it, you're SOL.

(edit: if you were speculating on what should be, and not what is, then my bad... :)

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