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Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

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Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#101

Post by [deleted] »

fargle wrote: post #90
marcosdumay wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#102

Post by rakoo »

derf_ wrote: post #60
rakoo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is absolutely not the point of the patent system, otherwise there would be no provision for a monopoly over the commercial manufacturing of the invention. Don't be deluded, the patent system serves as a weapon for bigger companies to block competition. That is their only goal.

> ...otherwise there would be no provision for a monopoly over the commercial manufacturing of the invention. You should always be able to make your opponent's arguments at least as well as they do, as that is the first step to overcoming them. The argument from patent proponents is that without the legal monopoly, they would rely on trade secret law instead, so they would do their best to ensure no one else understo…

> The argument from patent proponents is that without the legal monopoly, they would rely on trade secret law instead, so they would do their best to ensure no one else understood what they do.

Look at China, and the argument of "maybe it will be bad" turns out to be wrong. I'm not saying the system is perfect, far from it, but the idea that patents are a life-saving measure is utterly false. Companies live and die in both systems, but at least in China they get to share their improvements.

The premise is that a patent is necessary to have funds for continuing innovation, but that's just not understanding what capitalism is and how pervasive it is in our society. The reason individuals need money is precisely because of capitalism redistributing money to those who have the most already, not to the ones who need it the most, not to the ones making the most progress, or not to everyone in a fair manner allowing all of us to live without worrying about that aspect (yes, there is more than enough resources creation for all of us). The patent system only furthers this uneven distribution. Innovators do not calculate the amount they might be getting from their invention before setting about and coming up with something new; that is a lie that needs to disappear.

Patents are not making the society better.

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#103

Post by freejazz »

nordsieck wrote: post #95
thelastgallon wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>making millions soaking businesses with patents that should never have been granted.

Invalidity arguments and IPRs suddenly aren't things?

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#104

Post by mnau »

nness wrote: post #12
Solvency wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok I'll bite, why stop at software?

Patents fundamentally operate to allow the owner of protection to extract value from research and development investment. If you cannot protect your research and development, then competitor may extend upon your invention without the necessary capital or time investment — effectively making any kind of innovation risky and unattractive to business. There is no model where abolishing patents still grants protection fo…

Inventor profits by being ahead of competition. VisiCalc (first spreadsheet) was a killer app.

But they didn't innovate and were taken over by Lotus 1-2-3 four years later.

Lotus was great, graphs and all.

Same thing happened to the Lotus, Excel was just better. Lotus didn't innovate (e.g. IBM had first ever pivot tables and they made separate spreadsheet program for it instead off improving Lotus).

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#105

Post by withinboredom »

Havoc wrote: post #76

Doesn’t this just mean trolls will sue everyone except CF going forward? Seems like a valiant stance but still short of what is needed something industry wide - something to invalidates this “business model” entirely

If you don’t enforce a patent as soon as you become aware of it, it becomes much harder to sue (similar to trademark I believe). I could be wrong, IANAL

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#106

Post by worewood »

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.

I think this is just basic game theory.

If they settled the trolls would just keep coming.

If they fight the patent extortion then trolls are going to think twice before suing them, for fear of losing .

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#107

Post by AlbertCory »

this is an excellent summary of how the system works.

Every month HN has a thread like this, and every month the usual suspects rant about how patents are fucked up, and there needs to be this, that, or the other. And nothing changes.

Ask your local candidates for Congress if they'll support removing patentability for software. That's how you solve this problem.

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#108

Post by brlewis »

shagie wrote: post #52
kemayo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The myth of patents is that some inventor working in their garage comes up with a genius invention, patents it, and then can leverage that patent-granted period of exclusivity into a thriving business. Hard work and smarts translating directly into rewards! This is, of course, a myth. It's not impossible for that to happen, theoretically, but the way the patent system actually works these days is that large companies…

Board game rules fall under patents. It has an example of the garage process, patent, infringement, and win. https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/west/2012/11/26/271633... > A company headed by a Colorado professor who invented a strategy board game has won a $1.6 million patent infringement verdict. > ... > Innovention prevailed in a patent infringement against MGA, Wal-Mart Stores and Toys R Us. A federal court in…

> Board game rules fall under patents

Please supply evidence. All links in your comment relate to a patent to an invention where lasers are an essential part of the claims. I'm not convinced that rules alone would be patentable subject matter.

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#109

Post by rvnx »

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #55
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…

> Is the world better since we have to pay a license to use the word "Smiley" and not "Emoji" ? (a >500M USD per year business btw). If this is true it would fall under copyright or trademark protections, not patents.

You are absolutely right, just a side & +/- related topic that made me upset and wanted to rant about :)

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#110

Post by nness »

mnau wrote: post #104
nness wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patents fundamentally operate to allow the owner of protection to extract value from research and development investment. If you cannot protect your research and development, then competitor may extend upon your invention without the necessary capital or time investment — effectively making any kind of innovation risky and unattractive to business. There is no model where abolishing patents still grants protection fo…

Inventor profits by being ahead of competition. VisiCalc (first spreadsheet) was a killer app. But they didn't innovate and were taken over by Lotus 1-2-3 four years later. Lotus was great, graphs and all. Same thing happened to the Lotus, Excel was just better. Lotus didn't innovate (e.g. IBM had first ever pivot tables and they made separate spreadsheet program for it instead off improving Lotus).

Inventors only profit if and when they release — Patents allow you to cover the cost of research and development even if a profitable product does not materialise or is not profitable at the time of release. R&D is essential for economic growth, so the promise/higher-chance of a successful return at some point in the future, I think, this is a reasonable trade-off.
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