In winning these cases has Newegg shared any learnings that might help smaller companies affected by patent trolls, or is it almost as simple as ponying up the cash and going to trial?
Newegg vs. Patent Trolls: When We Win, You Win
101–110 of 154 posts
Re: Newegg vs. Patent Trolls: When We Win, You Win
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are other countries, where this issue is solved (more or less) by the fact that the side which have lost the case is covering trial costs. This does stop 'court trolling' because even is the cost of winning the case is higher than the cost of the settlement, winning the case nullifies that cost. But hey, US is special this way! (and many others... ;)
But even then you propbably will get reimbursed only what an average lawyer would have been costing you. Not what the specialized high profile Lawyer normaly asks for.
In which case the problem isn't solved as the rich can still spend money to win (but they don't get it back). It makes the legal system pay to win and once again allows trolling. Maybe not as much, but still a lot.
Re: Newegg vs. Patent Trolls: When We Win, You Win
#103Re: Newegg vs. Patent Trolls: When We Win, You Win
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are other countries, where this issue is solved (more or less) by the fact that the side which have lost the case is covering trial costs. This does stop 'court trolling' because even is the cost of winning the case is higher than the cost of the settlement, winning the case nullifies that cost. But hey, US is special this way! (and many others... ;)
I would also suggest not having punitive damages. Removes the prospect of / threat of a big payday coming out of a lawsuit.
This would only boost behavior that takes advantage of massive numbers of weaker individuals because in the rare case of one of them winning, you are only going to get a minor fee.
If the max cost of predatory practices isn't much higher than the gain from using them in the rare cases when caught, it creates an incentive to use such practices.
Re: Newegg vs. Patent Trolls: When We Win, You Win
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
> one of the main reasons that patent trolling is so successful is that the cost of settling is smaller even than the cost of winning a suit. Is the underlying reason for this strategy the low costs of settlement, or the extremely high costs of lawsuits? What if the value of a patent really is only a few thousand dollars? Note that this very tactic is used by big companies to avoid licensing valid and useful patents…
I'm a software engineer. Consequently I have to admit ignorance about this concept of a valid and useful patent. All I ever see is patents that hinder the Progress of Science and useful Arts. Are there really enough valid and useful patents that we should hesitate in our fight against the rest?
Can you explain why you think patents hinder progress of science and the useful arts? How many cases do you know of that people were unable to advance the arts because of a patent? People talk about patent trolls suing startups and main street shops: How many of them actually do anything technically innovative? Hinder commercialization of some old technology? Sure, patents can do that. Stifle progress? Not so much. There are studies on these types of things that you can find on ssrn.com
Your impression is likely based on what you hear in a) tech media, which is largely supported by ads and hence welcome rage-views, and b) tech forums like this where open source is the dominant religion. But count how many times you've heard of a merit-less lawsuit, and compare that to the dark matter of millions of active patents out there. Forming opinions based on cherry picked examples is not a good idea. Better to look at empirical evidence.
I'll give you some numbers less than 1% of patents are ever asserted, and only a fraction of them make it to a trial. The vast majority of patents lie fallow because there is no demand for their technology in the market. Now does that look like a serious problem anymore?
Re: Newegg vs. Patent Trolls: When We Win, You Win
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a software engineer. Consequently I have to admit ignorance about this concept of a valid and useful patent. All I ever see is patents that hinder the Progress of Science and useful Arts. Are there really enough valid and useful patents that we should hesitate in our fight against the rest?
There are useful patents though they may hinder more then they help depending on your PoV. Various codecs and some crypto algorithms come to mind. You run into a lot more useful ones at the intersection with the physical world where some protection lets a company get a chance to be the first one to market and reap some benefit. In some industries (Pharma) it's really the only practical approach due to the extreme dev…
To be clear, when I say "patent" I'm referring to a legal instrument that secures exclusive rights. When I say "useful patent" I'm talking about the utility of the legal instrument, not the utility of the mathematical algorithm claimed in the patent.
Re: Newegg vs. Patent Trolls: When We Win, You Win
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you know you have a valid case (you aren't a troll), how hard would it be in practice to find someone to front the money for a lawsuit? Or for that matter, could you go to the competition and sell your patent? That is, say Apple's infringing on my patent; will Samsung buy the patent from me for a fair price and then sue Apple?
>how hard would it be in practice to find someone to front the money for a lawsuit? I'm paraphrasing, but ' Just assign your patent to [some group of investor/trolls] and they'll let you know if they can make anything of it. ' Patents do virtually nothing useful for small businesses/solo inventors. There are exceptions, but they are exceptional.
This is true, except for tech and biotech startups, where patents have been shown to facilitate funding, potentially by signaling future success. Less than 1% of inventors get anything from their patents.
However to me this signals the possibility of an inefficiency in the market, and something that trolls leverage. Intellectual Ventures was reputedly originally formed to fix this gap.
Re: Newegg vs. Patent Trolls: When We Win, You Win
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a software engineer. Consequently I have to admit ignorance about this concept of a valid and useful patent. All I ever see is patents that hinder the Progress of Science and useful Arts. Are there really enough valid and useful patents that we should hesitate in our fight against the rest?
Can you explain why you think patents hinder progress of science and the useful arts? How many cases do you know of that people were unable to advance the arts because of a patent? People talk about patent trolls suing startups and main street shops: How many of them actually do anything technically innovative? Hinder commercialization of some old technology? Sure, patents can do that. Stifle progress? Not so much. T…
You're looking at the wrong data. Progress is easily impeded without actual lawsuits.
The RSA patent held back crypto progress for decades. I don't know if there were any lawsuits.
Likewise for the GIF patent.
Still today patents on JPEG2000 are preventing its adoption.
H.264 patents slowed progress on web technology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Controversies
The "dark matter of millions of active patents out there" is an apt description of failure. The constitutional purpose of patents was to disclose inventions that others could build on. If that purpose were being fulfilled we'd be browsing the patent database instead of all the places we actually go when we want to pick up a new technique.
Re: Newegg vs. Patent Trolls: When We Win, You Win
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Really though, their approach is to be known as the company that won't settle and isn't worth suing. Eventually, patent trolls will just avoid them.
This is actually a very important observation. The entire modus operandi of patent trolls is to go after the weak. Let's not kid ourselves when suggesting incompetent lawyers can't gain competence.
> The entire modus operandi of patent trolls is to go after the weak.
This is not true. Giants like Apple, Google and Microsoft get sued all the time. They face hundreds of troll lawsuits at any given time.
Re: Newegg vs. Patent Trolls: When We Win, You Win
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you know you have a valid case (you aren't a troll), how hard would it be in practice to find someone to front the money for a lawsuit? Or for that matter, could you go to the competition and sell your patent? That is, say Apple's infringing on my patent; will Samsung buy the patent from me for a fair price and then sue Apple?
There are people who specialize in evaluating patents and being the middleman if they believe there is value in licensing and/or asserting your patents. They are often thought of as just another breed of patent trolls.
If the patent is genuine, why would those people be trolls?