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IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties

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Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties

#141

Post by paulgb »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #81

I was a fact witness for Groupon in the IBM/groupon suit (which IBM won). Airbnb is going to need a lot of luck with a jury to win this. Morally they ought to win it, but ...

> Airbnb is going to need a lot of luck with a jury to win this.

As an aside, the fact that these things are decided by juries is nuts to me. Why should the average Joe who needs help installing a printer be compelled to miss work to decide multibillion dollar lawsuits that are deeply technical? I understand the right to a jury if you are accused of murder, but for patent cases it just seems asinine.

Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties

#142

Post by cturner »

abridgett wrote: post #97

I remember when I worked at IBM Hursley research labs 20 years ago. The lab director told us all "patents are very important to IBM". I expected him to tell us that IBM made billions from licensing them. He didn't say that though. I don't think he even _mentioned_ that. Instead he stated: "It raises the entry barrier for the competition". Patents were (narrowly) created to _encourage_ the spread of knowledge. Instead…

"Patents were (narrowly) created to _encourage_ the spread of knowledge"

That may have been the language used, but it didn't reflect the reality even of that time.

James Watt had a mate in Westminster, and patents were a novel mechanism for him to stymie competition. It stalled the pace of engine advancement for a couple of decades.

This is described in some detail in an early chapter of /Against Intellectual Monopoly/ (Boldrin/Levine, 2010).

Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties

#143

Post by jbay808 »

freejazz wrote: post #104
jbay808 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree it probably isn't patentable. It's an analogy that a lot of software tech companies these days can make a good business by putting some frameworks together with a database and solve real problems that used to be solved by other tools, and make good money and valuable products in the process. But depending on your opinion of battery powered coffee grinders, it's not necessarily new technology.

I'd love to see a patent as you describe that has not been found invalid in a PTAB or Art. III court proceeding

When did I say I'm describing a patent? In fact I specifically said that category of new product is usually not patentable. I'm responding to the below claim:

> most new technology is just software

Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties

#144

Post by freejazz »

thayne wrote: post #140
freejazz wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but this is because institutions like Google use their power to weaken patent rights.

As long as it suits them. I think the bigger reason is that in many civil cases (not just IP) it ultimately comes down to who is willing to pay more for lawyers and legal fees.

As a litigator I do not think that is true. Facts, more than anything, dictate outcomes, generally. Though I will say that patent cases are prohibitively expensive. Though, contrary to what I would think many here assume, leaves the inventor with the short end of the stick as opposed to large IP-owning organizations like Google (that simultaneously advocate for lesser patent-rights).

Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties

#146

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

azinman2 wrote: post #47
noir_lord wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU doesn't allow software patents. The world hasn't ended so far. https://fsfe.org/campaigns/swpat/swpat.en.html for a decent overview

Too be fair, the EU also never managed to build a large scale software industry. I’m not saying this is only because of patents, but it’s not a great example to uphold.

Someone should tell Spotify, SAP, Sage, Nokia, and ARM they're not large scale.

Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties

#147

Post by rdxm »

ABNB lining up with IBM in a patent dispute is priceless. If you look up bringing a knife to a gunfight in the "dictionary" you'd see a picture of this.

There are probably 3rd or 4th generation patent attorneys in IBM's shop. This will not end well for ABNB....

To quote Dean Wormer: "Fat drunk and stupid is no way to go through life son"

Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties

#148

Post by freejazz »

jjoonathan wrote: post #96
riazrizvi wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is working exactly as intended. The point of the USPTO is to provide a mechanism for carving up the universe of ideas into plots of land where ownership is clear and backed up by the force of the state. You can charge rent on it, you can develop it yourself, you can leave it idle, it’s yours. Software innovators are a bit like wholesome farmers who just want to labor in the fields, beat the elements and gr…

> in a country without property law big mean farming operations with security staff will just come and park themselves where you were farming. That's exactly what is happening in a country that does have the corresponding IP law and the IP law is enabling the practice rather than fighting it. In other news: war is peace, ignorance is strength, and freedom is slavery. Carry on!

Right - because on places like here people are convinced that strong inventor's patent rights are BAD overall. That's how big corporations take up all the IP while simultaneously using it to strangle smaller players. With stronger IP regime, an inventor could get an injunction over an infringer - now they can't. Read about efficient infringement.

Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties

#149

Post by ChuckMcM »

raywu wrote: post #118
patentatt wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair to IBM, what your director may have been saying is that their use was primarily defensive, which it is and was for IBM. It’s not wrong for them to patent as much as they are able to, it serves an important disclosure function. When I worked at the USPTO, we used several patent databases. The US, of course, Japan, Europe, and IBM. IBM had their own database because of how significant their IP was. So while…

This is informative. What is a good way to keep track of 1) parents filed by IBM, 2) lawsuits and parties involved IBM? Is there a service you like that provide weekly or monthly updates?

Disclaimer, I've contributed a couple of patents to IBM's hoard of patents, but I no longer work there.

#1 is fairly straight forward, a simple script that uses the USPTO search function and searches for the Assignee field being IBM and the date range being the last 30 days gives you the patents issued that month to IBM. You can do that with a simple cron script, curl, and some script code.

#2 is somewhat more difficult, IBM gets sued a lot because they are big and a juicy target. If you have access to one of the legal databases (Lexis, Etc) you can search for cases where IBM is the plaintiff and the complaint contains phaseology around patents (like "patent", "infringement", Etc.) While expensive to access, if you live near a College or University with a Law program and you can get library privileges you use their access. In Santa Clara county you can join the Santa Clara Law Library (http://sccll.org/) which will give you access. Unfortunately, you need to be there to access the databases so that would involve a monthly trip to the library (not a bad thing in my opinion :-))

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