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Newegg vs. Patent Trolls: When We Win, You Win

blog.newegg.com

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131–140 of 154 posts

Re: Newegg vs. Patent Trolls: When We Win, You Win

#131

Post by IndianAstronaut »

grellas wrote: post #80

What Newegg does is highly commendable. To achieve a decisive victory in these cases, Newegg typically has to take the defense of its case through a full trial and possibly an appeal. People often fail to appreciate just how risky a trial can be. We stand on the sidelines and laugh at how absurd this or that flaky patent appears. And yet - and yet - the law itself went through a phase in which such patents were almos…

Vote with your wallet. Support companies which provide this service with yout purchases.

Re: Newegg vs. Patent Trolls: When We Win, You Win

#132

Post by notahacker »

ikeboy wrote: post #110
throwawaykf05 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Because agencies specialising in licensing a patent (i) are non practising entities, and many people's view a troll is pretty much defined by the concept of acquiring IP without the intention of doing anything with it other than seeking fees, and (ii) occupy their time sending legal threats to firms already using aspects of the patented invention rather than delivering sales pitches to people searching for technological breakthroughs, because "the right to develop your own technology which does X using Y" is a really hard sell.

Re: Newegg vs. Patent Trolls: When We Win, You Win

#133

Post by olalonde »

> In this latest round of Newegg vs. the patent trolls, Newegg went against a company that claimed its patent covered SSL and RC4 encryption, a common encryption system used by many retailers and websites.

Maybe rights over patents should be lost if the rights holders fail to actively defend it (similar to trademarks)? That would at least prevent the absurd scenario where a patent holder waits for their technology to become widespread before starting to prosecute.

Re: Newegg vs. Patent Trolls: When We Win, You Win

#134

Post by rawdisk »

sytelus wrote: post #130

As everyone knows in industry, this is not really a "win". Patent trolls are setup in such a way that if they win they make lot of money and if they lose then they lose very little. In many cases, they don't have to even pay damage or lawyers fee for other party. If they are ever ordered to do so then they would just announce bankruptcy of their shell company. They don't even lose their portfolio because it's allocat…

"... tech industry itself want to own such lousy patents to use against each other."

I recall a story where Steve Jobs called Eric Schmidt from Burning Man and threatened Schmidt with "nuclear war" over Android. What did he threaten him with? Legitimate competition? Guess again.

Junk patents are a perfect vehicle for vexatious litigation.

This is just my biased opinion but the IT industry appears to have no shortage of child-like executives.

World's largest patent troll co-founded by former Microsoft CTO and a licensing lawyer from Intel who coined the term "patent troll". Two individuals who had certainly seen their share of trolling by smaller entities against MSFT and INTC. I believe the lawyer blogged about the problem of "patent trolls" anonymously for while at Intel in the late 90's, but was later "outed".

The industry was aware of this problem very early on.

Re: Newegg vs. Patent Trolls: When We Win, You Win

#135

Post by sosborn »

brlewis wrote: post #103
sosborn wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why choose the word landmine? What's wrong with, say, a hammer?

Hammers aren't used to exclude people from a path they might otherwise blissfully follow.

I guess I disagree with the idea that patents are inherently bad. Like hammers they can be used to build or to destroy.

Re: Newegg vs. Patent Trolls: When We Win, You Win

#136

Post by Natsu »

ikeboy wrote: post #110
throwawaykf05 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

'Genuine' with respect to patents is a very low bar. They've issued patents on any number of scientifically impossible inventions, in spite of rules against that sort of thing. So the courts are usually required to sort it out after many years and endless litigation.

Re: Newegg vs. Patent Trolls: When We Win, You Win

#137

Post by Aaronontheweb »

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #104
Aaronontheweb wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

This isn't a complete economic argument in favor of companies behaving poorly. Punitive damages pale in comparison to a threat of loss of future business dealings as a result of poor behavior.

Japan, for instance, prohibits punitive damages. Is there any suggestion on your part that companies there are somehow more "predatory" than ones here in the US?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punitive_damages#Japan

Re: Newegg vs. Patent Trolls: When We Win, You Win

#139

Post by ycombobreaker »

brlewis wrote: post #103
sosborn wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why choose the word landmine? What's wrong with, say, a hammer?

Hammers aren't used to exclude people from a path they might otherwise blissfully follow.

You simply aren't using enough hammers!

Though seriously, I think the term landmine is loaded toward using patents exclusively as a troll. A wider analogy could be like a toll bridge, where the builder should be compensated by travelers. Some tolls could be usurious, but that wouldn't invalidate the whole principle.

Re: Newegg vs. Patent Trolls: When We Win, You Win

#140

Post by zeidrich »

mcherm wrote: post #14

I really appreciate Newegg's approach here -- 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. Newegg is performing an (expensive) community service. How should I be supporting them (other than making them my "first place to check" for electronics shopping)?

I don't know if I agree. The thing is, what Newegg is doing, especially by publicizing it is to tell trolls to avoid Newegg.

That's great for Newegg, but it means that future trolls will skip them, and just go after the startups and small businesses that don't have the resources to fight a lawsuit on principal.

I'm not saying that what Newegg is doing is bad, or even that it doesn't help. I'm just saying that the publicity that they are seeking for it might end up working out well for them by getting people to stop suing THEM, but won't work well to get people to stop suing other, smaller businesses.

If a patent troll were to sue you for something you've implemented, and you knew that Newegg implemented it too, you'd have a difficult time getting Newegg to fund your defense I think. Unless the troll sues Newegg, nobody's going to help you out. If the trolls just avoid Newegg, they can still get their payout.

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