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A Spectator Who Threw a Wrench in the Waymo/Uber Lawsuit

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Re: A Spectator Who Threw a Wrench in the Waymo/Uber Lawsuit

#21

Post by cma »

halter73 wrote: post #19
cma wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is cheap/free to do it when it is first filed (pre-issuance submission), it's only more expensive after it is granted.

Does the cheap/free pre-issuance submission really matter when you have to spend thousands of dollars on a reexamination fee whether or not the patent gets invalidated or modified in the end? I get that this is to help cover the USPTO's reexamination costs. But whatever the reason, it's still really expensive to call bullshit. And as the grandparent comment laments, this is a real shame given the low quality of many…

Pre-issuance submission goes to the examiner before it is granted. You don't have to pay a reexamination fee I don't think? Any link to that?

Re: A Spectator Who Threw a Wrench in the Waymo/Uber Lawsuit

#24

Post by asabjorn »

aeleos wrote: post #11

I don't really understand why this guy would feel like he needed to use a lot of his own time and $6000 to try and help Uber. In the article it says that he felt like it was a larger competitor attacking a larger competitor, but its not like Uber is some small plucky startup. With revenue in the billions, its not like they couldn't even afford millions in legal fees easily. Or is it that its not helping Uber, but fig…

When a lawsuit without merit took your startup from success to a below-valuation firesale, any similar situation might feel personal to you and it must feel good to do something about it.

Re: A Spectator Who Threw a Wrench in the Waymo/Uber Lawsuit

#25

Post by ajross »

dougb wrote: post #7

Makes me wonder if Travis has a connection to Eric through Akamai. Eric's company, Speedera, was also acquired by Akamai in 2005. Travis's company, RedSwoosh, was acquired by Akamai in 2007.

I'm thinking the same thing. I mean... this whole article just smells off. It's a press hit about one patent claiming that somehow this invalidates the Waymo case in a dispute that is fundamentally about trade secrets anyway. I mean, he found prior art on a LIDAR patent. Good. But... why do we care?

Re: A Spectator Who Threw a Wrench in the Waymo/Uber Lawsuit

#26

Post by defen »

ebbv wrote: post #13

I smell more bullshit here than when I drive past my local farms on fertilizing day.

Travis resigned June 20. Technically at that point he's not part of Uber, right? Maybe he tipped this guy off and then he has 40 days to prepare the re-exam docs. Even if it's true, though, I don't know nearly enough about the subject to know why or whether it would matter if a "3rd party" challenged the patent instead of Uber, though.

Re: A Spectator Who Threw a Wrench in the Waymo/Uber Lawsuit

#27

Post by Deimorz »

thisisit wrote: post #20

Is auto playing embedded video is becoming the new norm? I opened the link on iPad and the video on the page auto plays but on mute. Anyone else having this problem?

It's absolutely the new norm. Most news sites have an autoplaying video on almost every article now.

Sometimes the video will even follow you down the page as you scroll. Even worse, sometimes the video isn't even about the same story. I guess they just desperately need to show you a video even if they don't have a very relevant one.

It's terrible, and yet another reason to block almost everything by default with something like uMatrix.

Re: A Spectator Who Threw a Wrench in the Waymo/Uber Lawsuit

#28

Post by joshuamorton »

frenchie14 wrote: post #16
CalChris wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Total funding on Speedera was $51M. So assume a liquidation preference takes at least $51M off the top. He was an engineer and not a founder or an exec. So yeah, I’ll take him at his word. He probably didn’t clear anywhere near a $1M. https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/speedera-networks

The article states he was a co-founder and the crunchbase page has two other cofounders

Wikipedia and Bloomberg also list him as a cofounder, CTO, and VPE. Oddly there appears to have been another cofounder who was also CTO, but I expect that he got a good payday.

Re: A Spectator Who Threw a Wrench in the Waymo/Uber Lawsuit

#29

Post by aeleos »

asabjorn wrote: post #24
aeleos wrote: post #11

I don't really understand why this guy would feel like he needed to use a lot of his own time and $6000 to try and help Uber. In the article it says that he felt like it was a larger competitor attacking a larger competitor, but its not like Uber is some small plucky startup. With revenue in the billions, its not like they couldn't even afford millions in legal fees easily. Or is it that its not helping Uber, but fig…

When a lawsuit without merit took your startup from success to a below-valuation firesale, any similar situation might feel personal to you and it must feel good to do something about it.

I would understand if it was a small small startup like his that was in trouble, but even if Uber got in trouble for violating the patents, its still just research for developing self-driving cars that isn't critical to their day to day business. I am not asking why bother helping a company in a similar situation, but why bother helping a company that didn't really need helping?

Re: A Spectator Who Threw a Wrench in the Waymo/Uber Lawsuit

#30

Post by frenchie14 »

CalChris wrote: post #18
frenchie14 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article states he was a co-founder and the crunchbase page has two other cofounders

Typical engineer not getting enough credit and probably not enough stock. Sounds like the real deal as an engineer though. http://www.d.umn.edu/external-affairs/homepage/12/swildens.h...

From the sounds of it, he wasn't "a typical engineer with not enough stock." He lives in Los Altos Hills. The cheapest house for sale on Zillow right now is $5.5 M [1]. This guy made out just fine

[1] https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Los-Altos-Hills-CA/pmf...

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