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Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

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Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#91

Post by btilly »

pwg wrote: post #87
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…

> 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.

Worse yet, the troll company was often created for the purpose of owning that specific group of patents. That limits the damage from a lawsuit gone wrong to just that group of patents, and not the many other patents owned by the hundreds of other similar troll companies that the same lawyer runs.

We really need a patent troll version of anti-SLAPP laws. To go past the shell company, and hit the people who run them.

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#92

Post by robertlagrant »

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.

> These taxes can fund free education or healthcare or defense

Why only those things?

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#93

Post by ryandrake »

willvarfar wrote: post #77
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.

Whilst good intentioned, it might well work the other way: Dedicated patent trolls will trivially overcome any hurdles by cheaply doing just enough to legally demonstrate they are working on future commercial applications blah blah honest. Meanwhile, it likely puts up a prohibitive cost that will prevent the smallest genuine inventors from inventing?

That's the big problem with societies based on the letter of the law vs. the spirit of the law. Human nature has repeatedly demonstrated that if the letter of the law is what matters, people will work night and day to technically comply with the letter of the law, so they can continue to do the bad thing legally. Whole cottage industries will spring up to guide businesses right up to that legal line and sell them the tools and techniques to ensure they barely don't cross it.

In such a society, the rules need to be enormous and complex, much more than a 2 sentence HN post, to eliminate all the edge cases and loopholes everyone will naturally want to take advantage of.

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#94

Post by rakoo »

Angostura wrote: post #27
rakoo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> No invention ever came out of nowhere, based on nothing more than hard work and selfless involvement Straw man. No-one has suggested that the inventor invented something in a complete vacuum without support from society.

And yet that's exactly what the patent model claims: The invention is the fruit of a single mind who must get the entirety of money ever produced by the commercialization of the product. It is a glorification of individualism

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#95

Post by nordsieck »

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.

> $500/year per patent, will ensure use it (if you think it is valuable) or lose it.

Not really.

Some patents are fantastically valuable to patent trolls. Some are not. A $500/year fee isn't going to deter a "company" of lawyers who are making millions soaking businesses with patents that should never have been granted.

If you want a scheme that actually does what you want, you'd need something like:

The owner of the patent chooses the fee that they pay per year. And anyone can pay that fee * the remaining years on the patent * some multiplier (probably in the 2-10 range) to prematurely end the patent.

So, if someone's got a patent on a hamster powered submarine, they can keep it for $1 per year (or whatever the minimum should be). And that's fine... because it isn't harming any one since no one wants to build such a thing.

But a patent that a troll is using to milk the industry with will need to have a pretty stiff fee or people won't play ball, they'll just buy out the troll.

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#96

Post by coldpie »

adabyron wrote: post #53
fuhrtf wrote: post #34

Cloudflare 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.

Newegg was famous for doing this as well. Glad to see Cloudflare keeping the "Don't be evil" concept alive.

Newegg's fall was so sad to see. From an top-notch seller of tech with an admirable legal team that made headlines, to yet another no-name online flea market.

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#97

Post by Solvency »

s_dev wrote: post #83
Solvency wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hardware is just fancy physics. Medicine is just fancy chemistry.

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#98

Post by hnburnsy »

>The patents relied on by Sable were filed around the turn of the century, and they addressed the hardware-based router technology of the day.

At first I was wondering what routers existed back in 1900, then realized it was not that turn of the century. I think this is the first time I have see 'turn of the century' refer to 1999->2000.

Chicago Manual of Style has some good usage suggestions on this...

https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/U...

>A: Instead, write “at the beginning of the twentieth century,” or “at the end of the nineteenth century,” or “in the years around 1900.” “The turn of the century” is useful only when the context makes it obvious which turn you’re talking about.

Of course when talking routers I guess the context was clear.

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#100

Post by thomastjeffery »

thfuran wrote: post #36
rakoo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

They went on to support their point. To ignore that is...the fallacy fallacy fallacy?
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