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Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game

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Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game

#101

Post by atomical »

cortesoft wrote: post #93
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #71

I've used Latham & Watkins. Just made a call to let a partner there know what I think about his firm's alumna and how it colors my opinion of him and his firm. Encourage everyone to check with your firm's General Counsel about this. If you use Latham, or Kirkland or Weil, encourage your GC to reach out and make your views heard. It's despicable that these lawyers are harassing their firms' former and potential client…

What exactly are they supposed to do about that, though? They left the firm?

Law is a very social profession. It could have some impact.

Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game

#102

Post by indolering »

Hermel wrote: post #99
MatthewWilkes wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copyright covers implementations, not ideas. I have no moral objection to truly novel inventions in computer science being protected by patents. An innovative search algorithm, a compression scheme, etc. Its shit when MP3s and GIFs were encumbered, but they were genuine inventions whose sharing publicly genuinely advanced the public good. The kind the patent trolls use are not innovative in the same way. We need a st…

I'm pretty sure that if you rewrote Harry Potter from scratch with new names and wording (redoing the implementation) and published that, you would still get in trouble. So copyright is somewhat broader than you think.

Nope, it's not a violation of copyright.

Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game

#103

Post by [deleted] »

Hermel wrote: post #99
MatthewWilkes wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copyright covers implementations, not ideas. I have no moral objection to truly novel inventions in computer science being protected by patents. An innovative search algorithm, a compression scheme, etc. Its shit when MP3s and GIFs were encumbered, but they were genuine inventions whose sharing publicly genuinely advanced the public good. The kind the patent trolls use are not innovative in the same way. We need a st…

I'm pretty sure that if you rewrote Harry Potter from scratch with new names and wording (redoing the implementation) and published that, you would still get in trouble. So copyright is somewhat broader than you think.

[deleted]

Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game

#104

Post by lightedman »

Hermel wrote: post #99
MatthewWilkes wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copyright covers implementations, not ideas. I have no moral objection to truly novel inventions in computer science being protected by patents. An innovative search algorithm, a compression scheme, etc. Its shit when MP3s and GIFs were encumbered, but they were genuine inventions whose sharing publicly genuinely advanced the public good. The kind the patent trolls use are not innovative in the same way. We need a st…

I'm pretty sure that if you rewrote Harry Potter from scratch with new names and wording (redoing the implementation) and published that, you would still get in trouble. So copyright is somewhat broader than you think.

That didn't happen when Disney ripped off Kimba the White Lion and made The Lion King.

Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game

#105

Post by gozur88 »

patrickmay wrote: post #82
gozur88 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has always bothered me. The standard is supposed to be "non-obvious to an expert in the field" and yet they hand out patents like candy for things that are obvious to the most casual observer. My solution is to cap the number of patents granted every year to, say, 1000. Patents would be ranked from least to most obvious and actual prior art investigation would take place (because the number is manageable). The o…

As I said in response to a comment upthread, the existence of an implementation by someone who had no knowledge of the patent should be prima facie evidence that the idea is obvious to an expert in the field. That should get the patent invalidated.

Karunamon is right - it would be virtually impossible to prove the second implementer never looked at the patent database.

Beyond that, over time things that were novel are no longer novel as the direction of technical development changes, so the timing would be important as well.

Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game

#106

Post by lightedman »

dangrossman wrote: post #50
oskarth wrote: post #42

> So-called non-practicing entities — or holders of a patent for a process or product that they don’t plan to develop — often use them to sue companies that would sooner settle rather than pay what can add up to $1 million by the time a case reaches a courtroom. Why on earth aren't non-practicing entity patent lawsuits outlawed? Seems like a no-brainer, and I can't imagine these firms being big enough to have any ser…

> Why on earth aren't non-practicing entity patent lawsuits outlawed? The NPE category includes universities and researchers. Many inventions can't be brought to market without significant capital, and not all inventors are interested in commercializing their inventions themselves. Just because you're not personally going to build a billion dollar chip fabrication facility to implement the new silicon etching process…

"The NPE category includes universities and researchers."

That seems utterly stupid. Universities and researchers by definition are constantly practicing, what's what academia is all about.

Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game

#107

Post by thaumasiotes »

lightedman wrote: post #104
Hermel wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure that if you rewrote Harry Potter from scratch with new names and wording (redoing the implementation) and published that, you would still get in trouble. So copyright is somewhat broader than you think.

That didn't happen when Disney ripped off Kimba the White Lion and made The Lion King.

It also didn't happen when Terry Brooks reskinned the lord of the rings as "The Sword of Shannara".

Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game

#108

Post by thephyber »

raverbashing wrote: post #67
dangrossman wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why on earth aren't non-practicing entity patent lawsuits outlawed? The NPE category includes universities and researchers. Many inventions can't be brought to market without significant capital, and not all inventors are interested in commercializing their inventions themselves. Just because you're not personally going to build a billion dollar chip fabrication facility to implement the new silicon etching process…

But an exception could be made for these Or another idea, make patents non transferrable.

This proposal doesn't fix anything. If it were enacted, the current NPEs would just consult with the patent owners for a commission.

There are two major classes of problems as I see it:

(1) Many patents are granted but can be invalidated ("weak patents") if someone is willing to invest in the time in taking the patent holder to court.

(2) Patent fights are / can be extremely expensive, so the threat of litigation makes for great extortion material. If patent threat victims could petition the US PTO with evidence of prior art that the PTO missed during the original grant (bypassing the court), this would put a significant dent in the threat that NPEs use and would benefit both the industry that the victim is in and avoids paying 2x attorney fees in litigation.

Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game

#109

Post by smsm42 »

lightedman wrote: post #106
dangrossman wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why on earth aren't non-practicing entity patent lawsuits outlawed? The NPE category includes universities and researchers. Many inventions can't be brought to market without significant capital, and not all inventors are interested in commercializing their inventions themselves. Just because you're not personally going to build a billion dollar chip fabrication facility to implement the new silicon etching process…

"The NPE category includes universities and researchers." That seems utterly stupid. Universities and researchers by definition are constantly practicing, what's what academia is all about.

Universities do research, but rarely release commercial products. E.g. an university may design a novel audio compression algorithm, but it usually won't make a commercial encoder/player software or encoder/decoder chip to sell to audio-gadget manufacturers.

Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game

#110

Post by philipodonnell »

lightedman wrote: post #106
dangrossman wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why on earth aren't non-practicing entity patent lawsuits outlawed? The NPE category includes universities and researchers. Many inventions can't be brought to market without significant capital, and not all inventors are interested in commercializing their inventions themselves. Just because you're not personally going to build a billion dollar chip fabrication facility to implement the new silicon etching process…

"The NPE category includes universities and researchers." That seems utterly stupid. Universities and researchers by definition are constantly practicing, what's what academia is all about.

Practicing in this sense means using the patent to produce some product or service. Researchers are non-practicing by definition until they stop researching and start utilizing (assuming the patent is not something related to researching itself).
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