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USPTO invalidates Apple's "rubber-banding" patent asserted against Samsung

appleinsider.com

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Re: USPTO invalidates Apple's "rubber-banding" patent asserted against Samsung

#41

Post by vlasta2 »

chucknelson wrote: post #19
pi18n wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to see some sort of punitive damages if a patent you sued over gets invalidated. At a minimum, Apple should need to compensate a portion of Samsung's legal fees.

I don't think that makes sense. It's not Apple's fault that the US patent office granted the patent. Just because they changed their minds doesn't mean Apple is responsible. If anything, the US patent office should compensate both Samsung and Apple for essentially wasted legal fees.

Disagree, it actually may make sense. The office is overwhelmed with patents and does not have the resources or people that are experts in that particular field. The author of the patent is supposed to be the world's best expert in their field (they are claiming to have crossed the boundary of known things with their patent, aren't they?) and it should be far easier for them actually check if there is prior art or the patented thing is actually not obvious to anyone, who is explained the problem that it is supposed to solve. Many low quality patents are filled and there is no risk in filling them. There should be a risk and a penalty for misusing the system.

Re: USPTO invalidates Apple's "rubber-banding" patent asserted against Samsung

#42

Post by jonknee »

jerf wrote: post #21
jonknee wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That also completely screws the little guy, which is one of the big reasons the USPTO is said to exist.

We're talking in the context of a court case involving two enormous multinational corporations going at it for over a year and a half with probably another half-year to go, minimum. The "little guy" can't even afford to sit in the bleachers of this fight. If some "little guy" actually had filed these patents he'd have been bankrupt a year ago. There's probably a patent regime that actually would protect "the little g…

If you had to pay up front on the "value" of the idea, a little guy (be it a solo person or small company) could never file a truly novel patent. That would be even worse than the system now where you could patent it but not afford to litigate (but you would be able to sell it or if it's a great case find someone to take it on contingency).

Re: USPTO invalidates Apple's "rubber-banding" patent asserted against Samsung

#43

Post by TimGebhardt »

jonknee wrote: post #20
dodo53 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I like the idea (from someone around here I think) that patent owners should state a value of the patent when filing, and fees should be a percent of that value. Then value of patent limits maximum damage for infringement. So the amount of damages that can be sued for depends on the amount of funded attention at USPTO on checking the patent is valid (and patent owners could have the option of increasing s…

That also completely screws the little guy, which is one of the big reasons the USPTO is said to exist.

I would also love to have 1 sq mile of land in downtown Manhattan on which to develop a high-rise.

But I'm just a little guy. The darn property tax system is set out to screw me.

This is really the whole reason that corporations were invented: so that people could pool their resources together to achieve things that a single person could not achieve. In fact, they used to just be temporary and when the original stated project on the charter was complete then the corporation disbanded.

If a little guy company wants to own a patent under this scheme either a) they have to file the patent with a lower value so they can make the annual "property tax" but that may cap their wins in the future if it's infringed on. or b) get funding from investors to make the property tax payments. Or c) sell or license the patent to a larger entity that could benefit from it. In the case of (c) if it's truly as valuable as they say it is to the patent office then they should be able to find a suitable buyer.

Flat capped taxes on things produce market inefficiencies such as you see in the domain name arena: It costs very little to hold onto things that might be valuable one day. If instead there was a sliding scale to renew a domain based on it's value then you wouldn't really see domain squatters. They'd be forced to sell their domains to someone that could make more productive use out of the resource. Same with land and property taxes. And maybe the same for patents? I kind of like this idea.

Re: USPTO invalidates Apple's "rubber-banding" patent asserted against Samsung

#44

Post by eternalban »

beedogs wrote: post #7
fpgeek wrote: post #3

This just helps illustrate the absurdity of the US patent system. Samsung and Apple have already been at this for over a year and a half (longer if you count their pre-lawsuit discussions). Now, after we've been through lawsuit filings, discovery, back-and-forth over injunctions and a trial and gotten a verdict... The patent office turns around and says: "On second thought, we shouldn't have issued that patent in the…

> The USPTO does not receive any funding from general taxation sources. Rather, the agency is fully funded by the fees paid by patent applicants and patent owners. This is probably a big part of why the USPTO sucks. If they had the resources to hire dozens and dozens of industry experts, and pay them aggressively competitive wages, they could probably fix most of the problems most of us have with the system as a whol…

I have suggested this before and will do so again:

Just like ROTC, Department of Education can create an Engineering Corps that allows tech students that receive government loans to pay back their debt in form of service.

Re: USPTO invalidates Apple's "rubber-banding" patent asserted against Samsung

#45

Post by albedoa »

pi18n wrote: post #12
fpgeek wrote: post #3

This just helps illustrate the absurdity of the US patent system. Samsung and Apple have already been at this for over a year and a half (longer if you count their pre-lawsuit discussions). Now, after we've been through lawsuit filings, discovery, back-and-forth over injunctions and a trial and gotten a verdict... The patent office turns around and says: "On second thought, we shouldn't have issued that patent in the…

I'd love to see some sort of punitive damages if a patent you sued over gets invalidated. At a minimum, Apple should need to compensate a portion of Samsung's legal fees.

Even if you stand against the current patent system, it's how it works right now, so that suggestion is a little bit of blaming the victim. Apple were told that they have a valid patent by the office which makes those determinations. How are they to blame for accepting grant of the patent?

Re: USPTO invalidates Apple's "rubber-banding" patent asserted against Samsung

#46

Post by dodo53 »

a-priori wrote: post #38
dodo53 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I like the idea (from someone around here I think) that patent owners should state a value of the patent when filing, and fees should be a percent of that value. Then value of patent limits maximum damage for infringement. So the amount of damages that can be sued for depends on the amount of funded attention at USPTO on checking the patent is valid (and patent owners could have the option of increasing s…

Are you referring to this comment of mine? "So I had an idea the other day for a patent reform: property tax on patents. As long as a company wants to keep the monopoly rights over a patented invention, they are taxed a percentage of the patent's market value each year. They can choose either to pay that tax or sell the patent to someone else. The government would offer to buy any patent for its market value, using t…

possibly, doesn't seem to be exactly like I remember but is quite possibly my memory fail. Although it's not clear in your comment where the market value comes from (e.g. is it essentially the government is the market maker? that seems like a bad idea as central authority is unlikely to understand and price everything correctly). What stops people from understating the patent value?

EDIT - I guess main point is - is the patent value declared by owner and does the value affect ability to litigate?

Re: USPTO invalidates Apple's "rubber-banding" patent asserted against Samsung

#47

Post by josteink »

sigzero wrote: post #22

"tentatively" That doesn't sound like a sure thing to me.

Indeed. And until it gets overturned completely, you'll still need a team of lawyers ten times the size of your engineering department before you are allowed to innovate.

At least if you operate within US borders. Guess how sexy that is looking these days?

(1 billion dollar sexy, if anyone was wondering)

Re: USPTO invalidates Apple's "rubber-banding" patent asserted against Samsung

#48

Post by ankitaggarwal »

johsoe wrote: post #28
ankitaggarwal wrote: post #23

Sad. This is not a generic patent. It only seemed obvious now. Its not something that will stop innovation (as people scream about). A scrollbar implemented without rubber-band effect will do just fine. And why was this never implemented before anyways. There is all this hype that "Apple is Bad because they sued Samsung". But considering everything, they had no other choice legally. They had to make a case on some gr…

Years refining this overscroll effect?

No. But the design of their products. If you followed the trial, they told the entire process on how they reached the final design of iPhone. It took them years to make it perfect. Taking inspiration is different, and we all know what samsung did for staying in market. LEGALLY, apple had no choice but to take these silly looking patent to the courtroom. Now is the time when we will see real innovation.

I don't know why people build so much of hate for big corporates. Samsung is no different. If you see number of patents Samsung holds, you will be stunned. And most of them are something they never even implemented in their software remotely.

Re: USPTO invalidates Apple's "rubber-banding" patent asserted against Samsung

#49

Post by andrewcooke »

TimGebhardt wrote: post #43
jonknee wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That also completely screws the little guy, which is one of the big reasons the USPTO is said to exist.

I would also love to have 1 sq mile of land in downtown Manhattan on which to develop a high-rise. But I'm just a little guy. The darn property tax system is set out to screw me. This is really the whole reason that corporations were invented: so that people could pool their resources together to achieve things that a single person could not achieve. In fact, they used to just be temporary and when the original state…

a little guy can't buy a plot of land in manhattan, so you're not comparing like with like: it's not the taxes that stop you from buying land in manhattan, it's the original cost of entry.

there isn't the same cost of entry for having a good idea.

Re: USPTO invalidates Apple's "rubber-banding" patent asserted against Samsung

#50

Post by neya »

This is seriously good news for everyone. What this means to me as a start-up guy is that I can tomorrow start a phone company based on an Open Source OS like Android and still not worry about getting sued for trivial BS patents like these. I hope more of such patents are invalidated.
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