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Judge tosses Apple motion, allows patent troll Lodsys to continue rampage

arstechnica.com

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Re: Judge tosses Apple motion, allows patent troll Lodsys to continue rampage

#41

Post by randomfool »

javajosh wrote: post #28

The threat that Lodsys represents to anyone doing technology is so large that it would seem to make sense to band together. I'm thinking along the lines of creating a "Patent Defense Cooperative" where members pay a certain amount every month for the three purposes of a) patent lawsuit insurance, b) to fund lobbying efforts to reform the patent system, and c) scrutinize a judicial apparatus that seems biased in favor…

Sweet- so Apple can join this and infringe on anyone's patents and get their legal bills paid for?

Seriously though, it would have to have some clear definition of patent troll.

It would be interesting to have some sort of insurance- say $5million to be spent in case of patent lawsuit. Make a clear public statement- we will never settle and WILL spend $5m in case of a lawsuit. Would make it very counter-productive for small-time trolls.

This is essentially what NewEgg did and it makes sense.

Re: Judge tosses Apple motion, allows patent troll Lodsys to continue rampage

#42

Post by josaka »

I think these patents have expired. US 7,620,565 and 7,222,078 date back to an August 1992 parent application, and were themselves filed in 1999, after the 20-years from priority date rule went into effect. Neither was granted patent term extension. So they should have expired last year.

Re: Judge tosses Apple motion, allows patent troll Lodsys to continue rampage

#43

Post by wakkalakka »

aspensmonster wrote: post #26
geuis wrote: post #5

Why hasn't anyone addressed the probable criminal activity going on with these handful of judges in this one district of Texas? Just because someone has the title "judge" doesn't give them untouchable super powers. There's a giant reek of illegality coming from that area and someone needs to look under the covers. My hypothesis is there's a payoff racket going on. There's a multi level system setup with a few insider…

It's Texas. With its Republican judiciary and Republican legislature and Republican executive branch, you'd think that things like cronyism and corruption and rackets and other forms of meddling with the Invisible Hand of the Free Market would be frowned upon. You'd think Texas would be a paragon of Free Market economic ideology. But who am I kidding, you've lived here too. Minus a short stint in Denver, I've lived h…

This is not about red vs. blue, Republican vs. Democrat, liberal vs. conservative, or anything else like it.

Everyone tries to get their patent cases heard in this particular district in Texas the same way that everyone incorporates in Delaware. It's one particular legal venue that just happens to be friendly to certain vested interests. The reason to seek out this venue is because of nothing more than apolitical favoritism towards patent holders. That's all. Don't make this into something it's not.

Re: Judge tosses Apple motion, allows patent troll Lodsys to continue rampage

#44

Post by dctoedt »

geuis wrote: post #33
dctoedt wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's actually exactly the response I would expect from someone or a group who are involved in nefarious acts and are being called out on it. For what it's worth, when I was a patent litigator back in the day, I worked almost entirely on the defense side of the docket; that was coincidental, but I wasn't unhappy about it. -------- > ... there was no mutual settlement here. Lodsys was allowed to unilaterally settle.…

Oh I'm sorry if I wasn't clear, I'm not attacking you personally. Just to be clear about that. Your response was just a good example of the kinds of tactics guilty parties use sometimes by trying to silence critics. Do you blog about your experiences? One thing I could stand to learn about more are the internals of patent litigation.

> Do you blog about your experiences?

No, not about patent litigation. It's been a long time since I've done that kind of work, and I never was one of the star litigators in any case. But thanks for asking!

Re: Judge tosses Apple motion, allows patent troll Lodsys to continue rampage

#45

Post by geuis »

DannyBee wrote: post #32
geuis wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for a well-discussed and well-thought response, which is more than the other responses garnered. "Go back to Slashdot", "You're a biggot", etc. I say what I think and while some people don't like what I say, I try to be as realistic about a situation as I can be. So yes, on average Texans are among the most devout Christians and among the worst educated in the United States. There are more than enough public s…

"Unless I am seriously misunderstanding what happened here, which is possible, there was no mutual settlement here. Lodsys was allowed to unilaterally settle. Most of Apple's arguments were just ignored. " You are seriously misunderstanding. There is a mutual settlement between Lodsys, and the actual defendants in the lawsuit . Apple is not a party to the lawsuit except as an intervenor. If the parties to the lawsuit…

Thanks for clearing that up. It makes what was said before make more sense now.

Re: Judge tosses Apple motion, allows patent troll Lodsys to continue rampage

#46

Post by VLM »

mistercow wrote: post #21
dctoedt wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if that was the case, assuming nothing bad is going on, there has to be a reason all these cases end up there. It's too frequent to be a coincidence. Fifteen-plus years ago the Eastern District of Texas developed a reputation as a good place to litigate patent cases because at the time it was a fast docket (not so much any more, because of all the patent cases being filed there) and the judges there have come…

>In a 2010 article, Stanford law professor Mark Lemley, who is known for his careful statistical analysis of patent cases (and is cited amazingly often by the Supreme Court), noted that the win rate for patent owners in the Eastern District was 40% That statistic is meaningless without the base rate, which turns out to be 32.5%. I'd also point out that there's something very weaselly about Lemley saying the district…

My strategic advice would be to research the shape of a graph of all states; is there anything peculiar about Texas?

It might be possible to change the locale without changing the outcome.

A similar analogy would be declaring poverty to be the bottom quartile of financial resources, then being surprised that as long as more than 5 people exist we'll always have a bottom quartile therefore always poverty.

What I'm getting at is there may be nothing special about TX at all, there always will be an 81st percentile of course. For example if we sell TX back to .mx, perhaps in exchange for oil or something, then obviously TX would cease to be the 81st percentile but some place else would become the 81st percentile, probably with no real change in the situation other than where the bizjets fly to.

Or maybe TX is corrupt as heck but no one knows it... why TX? Everyone knows Chicago is super corrupt, NYC is super corrupt, N.O. is somewhat corrupt, the whole state of Louisiana is corrupt, the whole state of Alaska is corrupt, the whole state of Illinois is corrupt... so why bypass those probably more fertile grounds for ... Texas of all places? On the big list of cities and states with proven documented corruption problems, east texas never seems to make it very high on the list. IF I were a crook who wanted to hang out with crooks, I see no reason to go to rural TX if I could simply go to Chicago with likely better results, for example.

I mean, haven't the last three governors of Illinois gone to prison on corruption charges? It would appear if you're looking for crooks you'd go to IL not TX, but the trolls don't, which is weird.

Re: Judge tosses Apple motion, allows patent troll Lodsys to continue rampage

#47

Post by randomfool »

geuis wrote: post #5

Why hasn't anyone addressed the probable criminal activity going on with these handful of judges in this one district of Texas? Just because someone has the title "judge" doesn't give them untouchable super powers. There's a giant reek of illegality coming from that area and someone needs to look under the covers. My hypothesis is there's a payoff racket going on. There's a multi level system setup with a few insider…

It's not so much corrupt judges as the local economy has found a niche with patent lawsuits. All these lawsuits bring in lots of big-spending lawyers and various support staff. Patent lawsuit litigation brings a major influx of money here- everyone knows it and no one wants to rock the boat.

Re: Judge tosses Apple motion, allows patent troll Lodsys to continue rampage

#48

Post by mistercow »

dctoedt wrote: post #23
mistercow wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't terms like "probable" and "my hypothesis" pretty obviously make this a statement of opinion, and therefore immune to libel claims?

> Don't terms like "probable" and "my hypothesis" pretty obviously make this a statement of opinion, and therefore immune to libel claims? Quite possibly. But who wants to spend the legal fees to test that? Pragmatically, it's better to stay reasonably far away from the edge of that particular cliff, lest one be propelled over the edge by a random gust of wind (or a well-placed push).

I don't think that's a healthy attitude, especially when we're talking about the possibility of corruption. If we all take that "pragmatic" view, what will actually prevent corruption?

Re: Judge tosses Apple motion, allows patent troll Lodsys to continue rampage

#49

Post by cryofan »

geuis wrote: post #27
dctoedt wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why hasn't anyone addressed the probable criminal activity going on with these handful of judges in this one district of Texas? ... My hypothesis is there's a payoff racket going on. There's a multi level system setup with a few insiders who know how to pay off the local judges to dismiss certain cases. Careful there. Unless you've got more than a hypothesis, what you're saying borders on the libelous. (Not that a…

Thanks for a well-discussed and well-thought response, which is more than the other responses garnered. "Go back to Slashdot", "You're a biggot", etc. I say what I think and while some people don't like what I say, I try to be as realistic about a situation as I can be. So yes, on average Texans are among the most devout Christians and among the worst educated in the United States. There are more than enough public s…

I guess you did not pay attention in law school--a judge is a public figure. That means a much higher standard for libel/slander. Almost impossible to prove.
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