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East Texas judge throws out 168 patent cases

arstechnica.com

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Re: East Texas judge throws out 168 patent cases

#31

Post by monochromatic »

bitwize wrote: post #28
monochromatic wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a decision from Judge Gilstrap though, not from a jury. So it doesn't have anything to do with "educating everyone."

The community of attorneys and jusges handling patent cases didn't have the technical know-how to understand the breadth and depth of fuckery-duckery going on in the realm of obvious software patents, allowing trolls to pull a bankable fast one. Enough fast ones get pulled and they start catching on. That's who's being educated: the courts and legal community.

The attorneys handling patent cases damn well better have the technical know-how to understand the subject matter they're litigating. As for the judges, this is the Eastern District of Texas.

Re: East Texas judge throws out 168 patent cases

#32

Post by monochromatic »

dragonwriter wrote: post #17
monochromatic wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a decision from Judge Gilstrap though, not from a jury. So it doesn't have anything to do with "educating everyone."

Federal judges are not created with deep and intimate practical knowledge born of experience of the ins and outs of every area of federal law; they get educated by experience like anyone else.

Well, sure. But this is the Eastern District of Texas, where it's a reasonable guess that the judges are pretty patent-savvy.

Re: East Texas judge throws out 168 patent cases

#33

Post by dragonwriter »

monochromatic wrote: post #32
dragonwriter wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Federal judges are not created with deep and intimate practical knowledge born of experience of the ins and outs of every area of federal law; they get educated by experience like anyone else.

Well, sure. But this is the Eastern District of Texas, where it's a reasonable guess that the judges are pretty patent-savvy.

Its EDTX, where the judges (and everyone else, including the local jury pool) have over time gotten more patent savvy, because of the propensity to file patent cases in that district.

Which is kind of the point of the "educating everyone" statement, as I understand it.

Re: East Texas judge throws out 168 patent cases

#34

Post by cafard »

saosebastiao wrote: post #6

Is it normal in other areas of the law for the plaintiff to be able to choose the (extremely favorable) district and judge for the case? Cause I can't imagine this happening in any other area of law, either civil or criminal. It just doesn't seem right, especially when the bias is so clearly observable. IANAL though...

I remember reading of an oil company waiting until a tanker was in New York harbor to file some sort of case it thought better heard in New York.

Re: East Texas judge throws out 168 patent cases

#35

Post by cheepin »

x5n1 wrote: post #16
stanleydrew wrote: post #15

Progress is slow when it comes to patent reform. Judges have a lot of control over how fast it happens, since they're really the only ones who can make binding decisions. Of course it would be great if the patent office had made better decisions in the first place, but that ship sailed long ago.

... and the legislature can reform all of this over night, but big money and big business won't let it. they like the safety of patents even if they are not going to war with them. same mentally as guns i guess.

For most of the people I know that aren't in tech, patent reform isn't remotely on their radar. Congress isn't going to go against the money for an issue that doesn't have overwhelming popular support. Is there even a consensus on what would fix the problem? Banning software patents just covers one edge case, but there are plenty more issues in patent law.

Patents in all fields clearly slow down innovation by allowing the holder to slow down or stop derivative works. The common counter to removing patents altogether is big pharmacy. I don't know how much sympathy I can have for big pharmaceuticals either with how much they get away with: even with unpatented drugs we see anti-competitive behavior with companies like Turing. Clearly the innovation is profitable enough that funding it publicly and then reaping the benefit publicly shouldn't be a problem, right?

The other objection is that it promotes secrets over open innovation, but I'm not sure that is too valid either. The current status quo gags profitable utilization of research for 20 years. Surely there's an acceptable alternative.

Re: East Texas judge throws out 168 patent cases

#36

Post by monochromatic »

dragonwriter wrote: post #33
monochromatic wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, sure. But this is the Eastern District of Texas, where it's a reasonable guess that the judges are pretty patent-savvy.

Its EDTX, where the judges (and everyone else, including the local jury pool) have over time gotten more patent savvy, because of the propensity to file patent cases in that district. Which is kind of the point of the "educating everyone" statement, as I understand it.

I guess. I dunno, I just always see lots of comments about how the EDTX judges are awful/pro-patent/getting kickbacks/whatever. So the idea that, hey, they just needed to be educated by presiding over a few cases... it's odd.

Re: East Texas judge throws out 168 patent cases

#37

Post by TheMagicHorsey »

Software patents are pitched as a policy choice that encourages programmers by giving them some financial incentive to invent more software.

That's how they have been pitched to programmers and the American people.

However, after having worked in the patent industry for a few years now, I can tell you software patents are really just a mechanism to redistribute the wealth of engineers to lawyers. Period. That's the end result. Nothing more.

I wish this was some sort of exaggeration. But it isn't in my opinion.

Re: East Texas judge throws out 168 patent cases

#38

Post by cgriswald »

x5n1 wrote: post #16
stanleydrew wrote: post #15

Progress is slow when it comes to patent reform. Judges have a lot of control over how fast it happens, since they're really the only ones who can make binding decisions. Of course it would be great if the patent office had made better decisions in the first place, but that ship sailed long ago.

... and the legislature can reform all of this over night, but big money and big business won't let it. they like the safety of patents even if they are not going to war with them. same mentally as guns i guess.

> same mentally as guns i guess.

Is it really the same? I struggled over this a bit and I think I agree that the mentality is the same, but disagree on the nature of that mentality.

Moneyed interests want patents because it is easy for moneyed interests to acquire patents and more difficult for others. Such interests do not need to go to war. They only need speak softly and show their patents. Their hegemony is not threatened, even if they must fight amongst themselves.

Likewise, guns. Make it impossible for people to acquire guns and those with the guns remain in control. There is no need to go to war when those who would disagree with you are under your control because they cannot defend themselves.

Re: East Texas judge throws out 168 patent cases

#40

Post by throwawaykf05 »

If you look past the common rhetoric against ED Texas about bring patentee-friendly and look at the data, this is not really surprising.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1597919

ED Texas did get a bad rap for being plaintiff-friendly early on, but that didn't last long at all, as the data shows. These days it seems to be favored for being a relatively fast docket and having judges with more patent-expertise.

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