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SparkFun Hooks a Patent Troll

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Re: SparkFun Hooks a Patent Troll

#181

Post by arvindamirtaa »

AlbertCory wrote: post #166
arvindamirtaa wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> offer to settle They can do that. But there isn't much leverage for them if they do that. They'll be giving their hand away and at that point SparkFun has almost no reason to pay a single dollar. Disclaimer : IANAL

At Google I went to a talk by a former patent troll about their business models. They buy a patent, and then milk it for what it's still worth. Eventually that goes to zero. If they lose a case publicly, then it's zero immediately. If they settle privately, then the patent is still useful against other victims. The main goal isn't to get $$ from SparkFun -- it's to keep SparkFun from destroying their asset.

That's interesting. So, they won't mind if the amount is $10 or even $0 as long as the headlines read "SparkFun and $PatentTroll settle for an undisclosed sum".

Re: SparkFun Hooks a Patent Troll

#182

Post by Traster »

randomswede wrote: post #178
Traster wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>SparkFun's criticism is kind of painful to read. The diagram that SparkFun claims is SPI is not SPI. The discussion that SparkFun claims is malloc is entirely unrelated to malloc. Yeah this is where my spidey sense started tingling. He mocks "Dynamic RAM" but I don't understand the joke, there is dynamic and static RAM and presumably this patent is talking about loading the configuration at run-time as opposed to us…

Almost all RAM in the last few decades has been DRAM, rather than SRAM.

Not on the FPGA Board I write code for every day.

Re: SparkFun Hooks a Patent Troll

#183

Post by qohen »

robomartin wrote: post #179
AlbertCory wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bingo. You've got it. I was talking about SparkFun trying to determine if he's infringing. When we look at a patent that way, we care mainly what the claim says. On the other hand, every word of everything ever published can be used as prior art. So if SparkFun was trying to invalidate the patent, they would look for anything published anywhere, including patents but also journals, books, etc. Your comment about the…

Does someone offer a comprehensive "Patent it yourself" course? This would be very useful, not necessarily to actually write patents but rather to truly understand the subject. It could save entrepreneurs time and money and, yes, some could actually use the knowledge to write their own patents. Patents are very expensive. The small entrepreneur often has to choose between protecting IP and having cash to run the busi…

Nolo Press, which is known for putting out do-it-yourself legal books, has a book for writing one's own patents [0]. At the link, there's a sample chapter.

They also have a number of pages on their website related to this topic, which might be worth reading first[1].

[0] https://store.nolo.com/products/patent-it-yourself-pat.html

[1] https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/patent-law

Re: SparkFun Hooks a Patent Troll

#184

Post by qohen »

gonehome wrote: post #5

I wonder if it's possible to make some sort of patent troll insurance company. Basically a company that attempts to collect as many patents as possible to weaponize against trolls and then provides legal protection to clients from trolls. The clients can share their patents with the insurance company too to help them become more powerful. Then when sued by a troll the insurance company goes scorched earth to destroy…

I wonder if it's possible to make some sort of patent troll insurance company.

There have been efforts along these lines, e.g.: RPX [0] and Allied Security Trust [1]. And the general idea is called Defensive Patent Aggregation [2].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPX_Corporation

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_Security_Trust

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_patent_aggregation

Re: SparkFun Hooks a Patent Troll

#185

Post by URSpider94 »

rytor718 wrote: post #175
URSpider94 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It actually doesn't matter if SparkFun designs chips. They do buy them, and re-sell them in devices. Patent law continues to apply to all downstream implementations of a product, until the claim is "exhausted" by a license. So, if the maker of the SoC doesn't have a license from this troll, then the troll is free to sue all of their customers, and in turn their customers, all the way down until someone pays up. It's…

I know nothing about patent law but this strikes me as false. I cannot be sued for turning on a radio in a vehicle that I bought or rented. I've never heard of a court thats accepted such frivolous claims either, nor of any law that asserts such. The manufacturer of that radio can possibly be downstream sued, sure. That sounds at least plausible if they're assembling said radio without proper license for the parts. B…

Anyone who makes use of patented technology that has not been licensed by someone upstream can, indeed be sued, at least in principle. Consider the case of Innovatio, who tried to go after businesses who were providing WiFi for their customers by using routers that contained chips that contained potentially infringing circuitry. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/02/infamous-wi-fi-patent-... . The reason we don’t see more suits of end customers is that it’s not economically feasible - nobody would sue millions of consumers to collect $.10 each, when they can sue the upstream manufacturer just once and collect hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in royalties.

Re: SparkFun Hooks a Patent Troll

#186

Post by randomswede »

Traster wrote: post #182
randomswede wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost all RAM in the last few decades has been DRAM, rather than SRAM.

Not on the FPGA Board I write code for every day.

I am not disputing that SRAM still has its place, but in "bits sold", I would be surprised if there's even 1 bit of SRAM sold for every 100 bits of DRAM sold.
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