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Patent troll on the verge of winning 1% of iPhone revenue

arstechnica.com

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Re: Patent troll on the verge of winning 1% of iPhone revenue

#81

Post by AnthonyMouse »

eridius wrote: post #72
EGreg wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case I don't think this is a patent troll. They are an NPE but they aren't trying to bully small companies to settle out of court. If they win maybe more people will want to join the dark side and make large corporations pay. Maybe then they will put pressure on Congress to finally pass the bipartisan bill that Leahy and Harry Reid forced to be shelved.

Are patent trolls only patent trolls if they go after small businesses?

There is an argument to be made that going after a big fish means it's more likely you have a real claim, because it's not like Apple won't hire good lawyers, and if you lose you get nothing, so why bother if you have no chance?

The problem is that argument is complete bunk when you're talking about software patents. The plaintiffs also get nothing if they don't sue, and if they do they have a chance at a huge windfall. Imagine how many bad patents you could litigate with and lose if you could win one claim for $200 million dollars.

One of the (many) problems with software patents is that because the scope of what software does is so broad, what an individual patent would rightly be worth sounds extremely small, and so their worth tends to be vastly overestimated when not taken in the proper context.

You look at something like an iPhone, it's probably covered by thousands of patents. Cellular wireless, wifi, video codecs, audio codecs, encryption algorithms, web browsers, app stores, music stores, digital telephony, media library functions, printing, Airplay, etc. etc. Each of those will be claimed by dozens if not hundreds of patents. And "1% of revenue" sounds small when you're not taking that into consideration, even though in reality 1% is huge. Even calling it 1% of the value of all patents covering the device is ridiculous, and revenue has to cover at least a couple of non-patent sources of costs like manufacturing, distribution, marketing, etc.

There is an obvious absurdity if there exist 1000 patents that could each be considered to be worth 1% of revenue when you only look at them one at a time.

Re: Patent troll on the verge of winning 1% of iPhone revenue

#82

Post by AnthonyMouse »

rayiner wrote: post #56
larrys wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "definition" of a patent troll (per google search): "A patent troll, also called a patent assertion entity, is a person or company who enforces patent rights against accused infringers in an attempt to collect licensing fees, but does not manufacture products or supply services based upon the patents in question." This is always the definition that I understood.

The problem with this definition is that one of the purposes of the patent system is to enable companies that don't produce products but rather produce R&D.

That works fine when you develop a new technology and then offer to license it to people who wouldn't have thought of it before you told them about it. Patenting an obvious concept and then threatening everyone who independently came to the same conclusion is a different matter entirely.

Re: Patent troll on the verge of winning 1% of iPhone revenue

#83

Post by lucian1900 »

eridius wrote: post #72
EGreg wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case I don't think this is a patent troll. They are an NPE but they aren't trying to bully small companies to settle out of court. If they win maybe more people will want to join the dark side and make large corporations pay. Maybe then they will put pressure on Congress to finally pass the bipartisan bill that Leahy and Harry Reid forced to be shelved.

Are patent trolls only patent trolls if they go after small businesses?

I would argue anyone that uses an obvious or old patent offensively is a troll. That includes Microsoft and, more recently, Apple.

Re: Patent troll on the verge of winning 1% of iPhone revenue

#84

Post by Yetanfou »

ps4fanboy wrote: post #31

There will be great irony if Apple complains about patent reform after this.

Live by the sword, die by the sword. It won't come that far, but Apple certainly has no leg to stand on when it comes to spurious patent claims. Given the size of their war chest, legal department and political clout (reaching as far as the current president of the US, it seems) they'd have a good chance at instigating effective patent reform. Now all that is needed it the will to do so.

Re: Patent troll on the verge of winning 1% of iPhone revenue

#86

Post by quink »

flipped_bit wrote: post #70

The core of the issue (if any) is that historically, the patent system is inextricably tied into the free-market/laissez-faire economic system, which for all its flaws, did create the world as we know it for the last ~ 200 to 300 years which led to an exponential rise in technological development - a unique phase started in the Western world, where now some of the 'successful and well-developed' countries in the East…

> A knee-jerk reaction to throw out the baby out with the bathwater by abolishing the whole patent system may not be the right solution here.

To further that analogy, if that bathwater is a toxic brew with, at least in the software industry, a serious chilling effect on innovation and enterprise is that really a bathwater the baby should be in?

If you can point out to me more success stories because of software patents than nightmare scenarios like the above and the X-Plane saga, then I might agree. But as it stands, the biggest success story, Uniloc, that's relevant to Australia, which is where I am, makes me just pissed off.

Re: Patent troll on the verge of winning 1% of iPhone revenue

#87

Post by tluyben2 »

ScottBurson wrote: post #60
adventured wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is an excellent and fortunate definition. If all you do is hold patents, sue people and companies, and do not make anything or sell goods or services, you're a patent troll. And that's exactly the label that should be slapped on this company. Hopefully we can get all entities that fit the definition of a patent troll abolished. Also fortunately it's inevitable that the patent troll business will be destroyed. It w…

So you believe that independent inventors and universities are causing great economic damage? Why? In my mind, the people who are doing damage are those who are taking advantage of the fact that defending oneself against a patent infringement suit is expensive, by suing small businesses with little or no regard to whether they actually infringe; and those taking advantage of low-quality patents that should never have…

So we shouldn't be thinking about trolls / not trolls, but just how to rapidly identify and throw out trivial patents and prior art. The fact that you can patent most of these things in the first place is crazy; you didn't do 'real R&D' on these. You just had someone with patent knowledge identify as much patents as possible in a grand collection of things which might well have taken real R&D to come up with. But then you should be forced to patent the whole of things, not every trivial part in it. The infringers / trolls are the ones who sue over trivial stuff which a 4 year old can think up while sitting on the toilet. And that's what most of these are. And most of the others (and a lot of these) are prior art. Making it sound official doesn't change that. What is left might well be the result of real and costly R&D and should be (if it's not software imho) protected for a few years so the investment can be earned back.

Re: Patent troll on the verge of winning 1% of iPhone revenue

#88

Post by tempestn »

EGreg wrote: post #80
eridius wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are patent trolls only patent trolls if they go after small businesses?

They are patent trolls if they push the business to settle out of court, which usually is only possible with small businesses.

AFAIK it's pretty common in any lawsuit to try to convince the other party to settle out of court.

Re: Patent troll on the verge of winning 1% of iPhone revenue

#89

Post by nl »

EGreg wrote: post #80
eridius wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are patent trolls only patent trolls if they go after small businesses?

They are patent trolls if they push the business to settle out of court, which usually is only possible with small businesses.

A lot of patent suits are settled out of court. Look up the IBM/Sun case, or the Apple/Microsoft cross licensing deal. All settled out of court.

Re: Patent troll on the verge of winning 1% of iPhone revenue

#90

Post by nicky0 »

piyush_soni wrote: post #78
x0054 wrote: post #20

Have you guys looked at the patents in this case? They look thick and serious, but if you actually read the claims, you will soon realize that it's nothing but an obvious and straightforward procedure for deciding when and with whom to establish a VPN. None of these patents make sure that a VPN connection is more secure, more reliable, or in any way better. Majority of the patent is explanation on how a VPN works, di…

You mean they are just a little less baseless than the patent for 'rounded corners'?

Who has a patent for rounded corners?
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