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US Supreme Court declines to hear appeal by patent troll

inc.com

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Re: US Supreme Court declines to hear appeal by patent troll

#61

Post by chaz »

6cxs2hd6 wrote: post #54
chaz wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Revenue is to be made on unique visitors and impressions. No clicks are required.

So the loss of traffic is a good thing because advertisers aren't paying for impressions that aren't actually seen? ;)

The advertiser usually doesn't care, since most ad blockers prevent the ad call, and their budget will be spent on another visitor. The ad blockers that render the ad off-canvas are bad for the advertiser, since they're getting charged for an ad that has no possibility of being seen.

Sites want as many unique visitors as possible because larger sites get more attention from advertisers, it permits better frequency capping, and enables better segmentation of audiences. Even though they get paid per impression, larger uniques tend to allow for higher CPMs.

Separately, it's worth considering that many writers are measured on metrics: uniques, minutes, shares, comments, etc. In some places, they might even get paid on such performance (I think Gawker did this). When content gets copied, the writer can be deprived of such credit.

Re: US Supreme Court declines to hear appeal by patent troll

#62

Post by BlackDeath3 »

DougBTX wrote: post #49
chaz wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We all know that he means copyright infringement: the content was reproduced without permission. Using the literal definitions of the words "stealing,""theft," and "piracy" mistakes pedantry as rebuttal, and helps no one when discussing copyrights.

I'm all for using the actual meaning of words. If that means it is harder to make emotional arguments, then so be it.

Though I had a good chuckle at the grandparent post, it seems to be less about preventing emotional arguments and more about derailing a legitimate concern (potential loss of revenue or whatever) with pedantry.

Re: US Supreme Court declines to hear appeal by patent troll

#63

Post by kps »

Karunamon wrote: post #31
vanderZwan wrote: post #28

Good news, but the last sentence of the article made me curious: > The total median awards to trolls is now nearly twice as high as those to legitimate patent holders, whose median reward fell about 30 percent to $4 billion, according to a 2013 report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers. I was wondering how they estimated this, so I checked out the report: > We collect information about patent holder success rates, time-to-tri…

I think the canonical example of a NPE is ARM. They don't fabricate their own chips, but they license out their designs.

'Practicing' doesn't mean manufacturing physical objects. ARM spends money producing things its customers value: processor designs at various levels, and software.

Given that the Acorn RISC Machine came out 28 years ago, I'm pretty sure someone could build a patent-unencumbered processor for that instruction set if they really wanted to go it alone.

Re: US Supreme Court declines to hear appeal by patent troll

#64

Post by Symmetry »

vanderZwan wrote: post #28

Good news, but the last sentence of the article made me curious: > The total median awards to trolls is now nearly twice as high as those to legitimate patent holders, whose median reward fell about 30 percent to $4 billion, according to a 2013 report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers. I was wondering how they estimated this, so I checked out the report: > We collect information about patent holder success rates, time-to-tri…

I would say no, a NPE becomes a patent troll when rather than publicizing and trying to license the technology they developed to companies that might find it useful they wait for their developments to be independently invented or unknowingly copied and then sue the infringer. Or they patent a technology used by another group but which hasn't already been patented, and then sue the inventor (which has happened to groups I've been a part of twice).

In general it's hard to come up with useful inventions without a concrete problem, so often good NPEs are in communication with their potential customers even before they start work.

Re: US Supreme Court declines to hear appeal by patent troll

#65

Post by PhasmaFelis »

chaz wrote: post #45
austerity wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've just checked and the content is still there, so he clearly hasn't stolen it.

We all know that he means copyright infringement: the content was reproduced without permission. Using the literal definitions of the words "stealing,""theft," and "piracy" mistakes pedantry as rebuttal, and helps no one when discussing copyrights.

It's not quite the same as pedantry; it's using sarcasm to make the point that copyright infringement is not the same thing as theft and pretending that it is is misleading and deceptive.

Re: US Supreme Court declines to hear appeal by patent troll

#66

Post by officemonkey »

Flimm wrote: post #17
ToastyMallows wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had no problem getting in, this isn't behind a paywall of any sort.

It's probably a violation of copyright to copy an article and paste it here. Copyright automatically applies, paywall or not.

I would argue that the Fair Use Doctrine means it's probably not a violation.

Re: US Supreme Court declines to hear appeal by patent troll

#67

Post by officemonkey »

ck2 wrote: post #20

What did it cost Newegg to litigate that? Does the troll have to pay legal fees? Hope Newegg can remain price competitive.

Most organizations have general counsel staff that they pay hefty six-figure salaries.

They get paid whether they're in court or surfing reddit. Might as well make them work for a living.

Re: US Supreme Court declines to hear appeal by patent troll

#68

Post by chc »

DougBTX wrote: post #49
chaz wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We all know that he means copyright infringement: the content was reproduced without permission. Using the literal definitions of the words "stealing,""theft," and "piracy" mistakes pedantry as rebuttal, and helps no one when discussing copyrights.

I'm all for using the actual meaning of words. If that means it is harder to make emotional arguments, then so be it.

Words do not have an "actual" meaning. They have definitions assigned on a more or less arbitrary basis, and there may be multiple conflicting definitions for any one word†. The Greeks used to believe that foreigners were stupid because they spoke something that was not proper Greek. Nowadays we laugh at their naïveté, but then turn around and talk about the "actual meaning of words." It's just silly.

† Just within English we have words like "cleave," that are widely accepted as meaning both "hold on tightly" and "separate." And in Spanish, we have "dame" which means "give," while in Japanese they use the same word to mean "don't do that." Can we declare the Spanish or the Japanese to be wrong about what that word means?

Re: US Supreme Court declines to hear appeal by patent troll

#69

Post by TeMPOraL »

chaz wrote: post #61
6cxs2hd6 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the loss of traffic is a good thing because advertisers aren't paying for impressions that aren't actually seen? ;)

The advertiser usually doesn't care, since most ad blockers prevent the ad call, and their budget will be spent on another visitor. The ad blockers that render the ad off-canvas are bad for the advertiser, since they're getting charged for an ad that has no possibility of being seen. Sites want as many unique visitors as possible because larger sites get more attention from advertisers, it permits better frequency ca…

> The ad blockers that render the ad off-canvas are bad for the advertiser, since they're getting charged for an ad that has no possibility of being seen.

I was wondering whether such ad-blockers exist. Searching for one and installing it now.

Re: US Supreme Court declines to hear appeal by patent troll

#70

Post by larrys »

grellas wrote: post #43

A few thoughts: 1. The Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal by Soverain from an adverse ruling by the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals that had determined the Soverain "shopping cart" patent to be invalid on grounds of obviousness. 2. The Federal Circuit's holding by a 3-judge panel had been remarkable and had shocked patent lawyers generally in that the parties before the court had not even raised the issue on a…

"not only had this patent passed muster as being non-obvious with the USPTO on its original filing but it had also been found to have been non-obvious on two separate patent re-examinations before that same body and by a string of U.S. district court judges before whom the issue had arisen."

As far as "original filing" that of course doesn't mean much considering the things that get through.

But serious question here. When you say "had also been found to have been non-obvious on two separate patent re-examinations" doesn't that also speak to the skill of the attorneys involved in the case?

I know of a trademark that we weren't able to get that a competitor that was much larger was able to get (that was a similar generic word). I put the loss to the skill of the attorney that I used falling short in his arguments.

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