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Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

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Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#81

Post by fargle »

kiba wrote: post #50
fargle wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ga…

patents were intended to protect the little-guy, the inventor (meaning a person), with an artificial monopoly so he could make money. Did that actually broadly happened over the history of patents? It sounds intuitive enough that patent protect the little guys, it's another if it actually happened for any period of time. I remember reading that the Wright brothers spending time and money suing other inventors and pio…

i think it did in the US in the 18th and 19th centuries. Colt for example. many old-west certainly had lots of individual or small companies patent gadgets. i think by the 20th century, it was already a big-business only thing. or was that just the economy in general? doesn't matter.

the Wrights are kind of a sad story, but one that HN readers should be familiar with. technical excellence and just flopped at the business side. they got far too wrapped up in secrecy, almost paranoia, and like you pointed out, it just delayed and eventually ruined them. strain from fighting basically killed Wilbur at 45 years old.

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#82

Post by flaminHotSpeedo »

sam_goody wrote: post #17
djbusby wrote: post #7

Lots 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?

I have an invention that I think could change the world (a better toilet). I went to a patent attorney. His advice: File a submarine patent, wait til someone else has the idea but is stupid enough to manufacture, sue him for low enough that he wants to settle. Why not manufacture? He explained that the patent system is designed to help the incumbents. If you manufacture, the big players will make some minor change, f…

I'm not an expert on patetnts, but that seems backwards to me. If I get a patent for something, someone else can make a trivial change they call an improvement, admit their work is derivative, and get a patent for that without any cooperation or licensing from me?

And then if I iterate and get sued, even though I can show I hold the original patent it's not a slam dunk win for me in court?

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#83

Post by s_dev »

Solvency wrote: post #5
tomschlick wrote: post #4

Software patents should not exist.

Ok I'll bite, why stop at software?

Software is just fancy math being executed. Math can't or at least shouldn't be patentable e.g. imagine the absurdity that would ensue if you could patent a number not that that hasn't happened (HD DVD encryption). I'm aware every piece of IP or Copyright can be represented with a really big number (a mp4 file is really just a big number) but it's not the number that's the patentable aspect.

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#85

Post by crdrost »

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…

> Issuing a license is a form of "using it" in a use it or lose it scenario.

Patent trolls will point to their prior victims as current licensees, proving successful commercialization.

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#86

Post by smachiz »

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)

Only for patents used in standards - where the standard enforces FRAND/RAND/other licensing schemes to insure that 'standards-required' patents are available to all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminat...

This is Qualcomm's big business (and others), getting their patents into standards like 5G and then charging people a fair amount to use it - and they have to license it to everyone, even their arch nemesis. Or you just buy their chips.

For a patent of something you invented, but did not submit to become part of a standards-body, you absolutely can choose not to license it for any amount of money.

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#87

Post by pwg »

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…

> Patent troll companies file patents and then sit on the patent until they can sue another party for infringement

Many of the patents asserted by trolls were not actually filed by the trolls. Most often the troll company simply purchased the patent from the original owner (or, often, a bankruptcy court) and then they proceed to go about suing others using their newly acquired weapon.

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#88

Post by teddyh »

kiba wrote: post #50
fargle wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ga…

patents were intended to protect the little-guy, the inventor (meaning a person), with an artificial monopoly so he could make money. Did that actually broadly happened over the history of patents? It sounds intuitive enough that patent protect the little guys, it's another if it actually happened for any period of time. I remember reading that the Wright brothers spending time and money suing other inventors and pio…

As I recall, the entire US aviation industry was locked up for decades in patent conflicts, and were as a result way behind the rest of the world (where US patents were not valid). The only thing which could fix this quagmire was a miracle, which actually did occur in the form of WW2, causing the US government to nationalize the entire thing, allowing people to actually innovate again, which the US air force desperately needed.

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#89

Post by pwg »

thelastgallon wrote: post #79
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.

Patents are property and we need taxes/fee on it. $500/year per patent, will ensure use it (if you think it is valuable) or lose it. This is no different from domain names, most people pay $10 - $100/year just to keep a domain name. Some domain names are used, most aren't. These taxes can fund free education or healthcare or defense.

> Patents are property and we need taxes/fee on it. $500/year per patent

Those 'taxes' already exist (at least in the US system). They are called "maintenance fees".

See https://www.fr.com/insights/ip-law-essentials/everything-abo...

Failing to pay the fee causes the patent to expire, and be unable to be used to sue someone. So these troll firms must also be paying these fees to be able to sue based on the patent.

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#90

Post by fargle »

marcosdumay wrote: post #78
fargle wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ga…

Granting intention over centuries-old institutions is a fools errand. Whatever the people that created them intended, they were used at first to grant favors to well connected people (some times for good reasons, other times not), and then to enable industrial monopolies on planned economies. That last one is the format that the modern version is based on.

kinda prickly? when i think we agree.

i brought up intention because it's a) historically true and b) to contrast with the complete opposite that they developed into. you get rid of something without acknowledging what it was intended for and looking at whether it's still helping or not. i don't think any of that is foolish.

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