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Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

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Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#231

Post by freejazz »

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #208
freejazz wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Authors can license all of their rights away. They can sell their copyrights - I don't see your point...

I'm asking whether the laws which allow this are within scope of the US Constitution's clause on intellectual property rights. There are plenty of laws which have been ruled unconstitutional. But it takes someone making the complaint to a court for this to happen. Otherwise the legislature does whatever it wants. Currently a majority of the US Supreme court thinks that the status quo at the time of the writing of the…

> I'm asking whether the laws which allow this are within scope of the US Constitution's clause on intellectual property rights.

Which laws are those? I'm not sure why it wouldn't be in the scope of the constitutional grant of authority to congress. "by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries" The use of exclusive here makes perfect sense with how things worked then, and today. I think you are getting caught up in non-existent semantics. What would be the purpose of the clause if authors/inventors couldn't sell their work? what would be secured in the exclusive rights that benefits the furthering of arts and science if inventors and authors couldn't exploit their exclusive rights? I'm a copyright and patent litigator and I've never heard anyone make the argument you are making.

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#232

Post by IanCal »

kstrauser wrote: post #223
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.

I offer as an alternative: IP is property, and it's taxed at the value you declare that it's worth. However, if you swear to the IRS that it's worth $500/yr, then you can't claim in court that a violation of it is costing you $10,000,000/yr in losses. That would be perjury. Your patent is worth $10,000,000? Awesome! I bet your local school district will love to hear how much you'll be paying in taxes on it.

Something I've wondered about - you specify a value and pay a tax accordingly. Anyone is then able to buy it from you for that price. Have some short term part for free, then fees scale over time.

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#233

Post by kstrauser »

EnigmaFlare wrote: post #230
kstrauser wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I offer as an alternative: IP is property, and it's taxed at the value you declare that it's worth. However, if you swear to the IRS that it's worth $500/yr, then you can't claim in court that a violation of it is costing you $10,000,000/yr in losses. That would be perjury. Your patent is worth $10,000,000? Awesome! I bet your local school district will love to hear how much you'll be paying in taxes on it.

But property usually isn't taxed. Trading is. If you license a patent to someone else for $500/year, you'd pay tax on that $500. But if it's actually worth more, of course you wouldn't charge such a low fee.

To my knowledge, all US states have property tax.

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#234

Post by ardel95 »

kstrauser wrote: post #223
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.

I offer as an alternative: IP is property, and it's taxed at the value you declare that it's worth. However, if you swear to the IRS that it's worth $500/yr, then you can't claim in court that a violation of it is costing you $10,000,000/yr in losses. That would be perjury. Your patent is worth $10,000,000? Awesome! I bet your local school district will love to hear how much you'll be paying in taxes on it.

That would effectively kill software patents. Which is a fine outcome.

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#235

Post by eitland »

EnigmaFlare wrote: post #230
kstrauser wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I offer as an alternative: IP is property, and it's taxed at the value you declare that it's worth. However, if you swear to the IRS that it's worth $500/yr, then you can't claim in court that a violation of it is costing you $10,000,000/yr in losses. That would be perjury. Your patent is worth $10,000,000? Awesome! I bet your local school district will love to hear how much you'll be paying in taxes on it.

But property usually isn't taxed. Trading is. If you license a patent to someone else for $500/year, you'd pay tax on that $500. But if it's actually worth more, of course you wouldn't charge such a low fee.

That's the point up thread.

It isn't now, but we could make it so.

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#236

Post by pjerem »

cloogshicer wrote: post #228

Serious question: What if you run a small blog with a newsletter and some troll comes along and sues you - how do you defend yourself? Even if the troll's claims are completely ridiculous, if you don't have a few $100k lying around for legal fees, you might not even have the option of going to trial. What do you do in such a case?

I’m not in the US so, YMMV, but in France, I subscribed a "legal insurance".

It will cover enough fees to at least give you enough insight about what is happening, if you should defend your case, if you are faulty or if you should just ignore the threat.

Also, even if our judiciary system isn’t perfect, I doubt you will find a judge that wouldn’t be comprehensive of a random being attacked by a corporation. Especially if there is no obvious malicious intent or personal benefit, you only risk some symbolic fine and the order to stop.

So, I would probably ask for judiciary advice and either ignore or comply to the troll.

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#237

Post by thelastgallon »

kstrauser wrote: post #223
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.

I offer as an alternative: IP is property, and it's taxed at the value you declare that it's worth. However, if you swear to the IRS that it's worth $500/yr, then you can't claim in court that a violation of it is costing you $10,000,000/yr in losses. That would be perjury. Your patent is worth $10,000,000? Awesome! I bet your local school district will love to hear how much you'll be paying in taxes on it.

This is better than what I proposed.

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#238

Post by jeltz »

IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #147
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.

Domain names pay per year because there's an ongoing service attached. There's no such thing for patent (besides fee to file) Why punish patent holders because of patent trolls or garbage patents ? Make it unprofitable to be a troll, and they will go away. Trolls need to be tagged , like pirates. There should be rules to make hunting for trolls profitable. For that, you need a "bounty". Here's my take: In any patent…

> Domain names pay per year because there's an ongoing service attached. There's no such thing for patent (besides fee to file)

I work for a registrar and know people working at registries so I know that is not the case. The reason they charge more than like 1-2 dollars per year is to make it expensive to hoard domains.

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#239

Post by eitland »

IanCal wrote: post #232
kstrauser wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I offer as an alternative: IP is property, and it's taxed at the value you declare that it's worth. However, if you swear to the IRS that it's worth $500/yr, then you can't claim in court that a violation of it is costing you $10,000,000/yr in losses. That would be perjury. Your patent is worth $10,000,000? Awesome! I bet your local school district will love to hear how much you'll be paying in taxes on it.

Something I've wondered about - you specify a value and pay a tax accordingly. Anyone is then able to buy it from you for that price. Have some short term part for free, then fees scale over time.

A slightly different version was in use in Denmark:

a ship declared the value of their cargo for toll purposes. They decided the price, but the catch was the customs could buy the cargo at that price.

Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

#240

Post by kiba »

kentonv wrote: post #159
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…

It's not a myth! My uncle is such a garage inventor, and has made a comfortable living for himself by licensing a number of different inventions. One of the things he invented was the Zipit drain cleaner. It's a long piece of plastic with barbs on it. You shove it down your drain, pull it back out, and it pulls out a gigantic disgusting hairball that you had no idea was down there! It's really quite remarkable, it wo…

Lawyers are expensive. If your business model required suing someone to enforce your claim, you better hope you have money, and you better hope you win your case fast.

Otherwise, you will spend more time and energy on that lawsuit than your work on invention. It's what economists termed "deadweight loss".

It has at time proven to be a business mirage, especially if inventors start suing other inventors and pioneers rather than getting on with copying and improving upon each other's work. Invention and engineering is a collaborative process, even if at time, adversarial. Can't really let a few folks has their monopolies at the expense of everyone else.

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