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The Twitter "Patent Hack"

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Re: The Twitter "Patent Hack"

#31

Post by damoncali »

VanL wrote: post #30
damoncali wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, patents are sold encumbered by their previous licenses. Do you really believe that will happen? When investors are asking why some pinhead inventor is holding up their profits? You can't force everyone involved in a company to think this is a good idea, and therefore, it isn't. Edit: (For some added color, imagine Kevin O'leary of Shark Tank fame sitting on the board of a company with some of these patents).

Umm, yes I do. Shark Tank notwithstanding, I am a patent lawyer, and I see these deals all the time.

But this agreement, that essentially makes the patent worthless for licensing? If you say so, I'll believe it, but I'm shocked that anyone would buy such a thing.

Re: The Twitter "Patent Hack"

#32

Post by jonmc12 »

Adoption by ventures is interesting, but I think the real power here falls in the ability of inventors themselves to 'unionize' in a sense. Say a movement began where a significant portion of the top patent producers took a pledge to one another to only work for companies under the Twitter Patent agreement.

Sometime, in less than 17 yrs from today, the balance of 'defense only' patents to normal patents would make offensive patent litigation prohibitively expensive.

Suddenly, there is a group of people on this planet - not lobbyists, not politicians, not investors - actual IP producers who can change a broken system for the better. To me, this is the most exciting potential of the Twitter Patent Hack.

Re: The Twitter "Patent Hack"

#33

Post by raldi »

scromar wrote: post #11
shasta wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you actually read the agreement? Kliment is correct. The inventors are granted an irrevocable license to sub license the patent to any target of offensive use of the patent. IANAL, but presumably existing licenses on a patent are attached to the patent and are not just a contractual matter between the licensee and original patent owner.

You are right. The fourth paragraph does give some teeth to the agreement. However, the broad language of the second paragraph still gives the assignee a lot of wiggle room to argue that they are not breaking any promises made.

I don't see the nature of the teeth you refer to, unless everyone's making the assumption that all patent inventors are noble and cannot be convinced, at any price, to license their patents for evil purposes.

Re: The Twitter "Patent Hack"

#34

Post by brlewis »

damoncali wrote: post #26
brlewis wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you expect investors to be stupid? The article we're commenting on is an investor excited that software patents will stop holding up profits.

A very specific kind of investor - a career-long early stage VC. But even there, there is much room for disagreement without labeling people as "stupid". I expect investors to be rational - and to seek profits where they are available given the information that is currently on the table. In some cases, that means they will say, "you know what? Screw that doc - we're selling these puppies."

Your earlier comment sounded like you were saying that a company adopting this patent hack would be hard to sell to other investors. Isn't selling companies to other investors what an early stage VC does?

Re: The Twitter "Patent Hack"

#35

Post by harryh »

nroach wrote: post #21
3pt14159 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't own the patents for use in offensive actions so the patents would serve no use to a patent troll. It would take the originator's consent.

Ah, and there's the rub. All it takes is a nod from the inventor, and the patents can be used offensively. If I'm a troll and putting together a portfolio to go after a "big fish", I probably already have the resources to offer the inventor a sizeable cut or up front payment sufficient to acquire that consent.

Offering the inventor a cut or upfront payment would violate the terms of the IPA.

Re: The Twitter "Patent Hack"

#36

Post by harryh »

brlewis wrote: post #24
damoncali wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, patents are sold encumbered by their previous licenses. Do you really believe that will happen? When investors are asking why some pinhead inventor is holding up their profits? You can't force everyone involved in a company to think this is a good idea, and therefore, it isn't. Edit: (For some added color, imagine Kevin O'leary of Shark Tank fame sitting on the board of a company with some of these patents).

Why do you expect investors to be stupid? The article we're commenting on is an investor excited that software patents will stop holding up profits.

Investors lose more money to patent trolls than they make from licensing patents or suing people. If they can do things to fix the system overall they'll win in the long run.

Re: The Twitter "Patent Hack"

#37

Post by damoncali »

brlewis wrote: post #34
damoncali wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A very specific kind of investor - a career-long early stage VC. But even there, there is much room for disagreement without labeling people as "stupid". I expect investors to be rational - and to seek profits where they are available given the information that is currently on the table. In some cases, that means they will say, "you know what? Screw that doc - we're selling these puppies."

Your earlier comment sounded like you were saying that a company adopting this patent hack would be hard to sell to other investors. Isn't selling companies to other investors what an early stage VC does?

If I were investing in a company that had these things, I would be concerned that the patents were now no longer licensable - that their value had been decreased by waiving some of the rights granted by the patents.

In certain situations, I could see investors trying to undo this agreement so they could unlock that value. If the value is great enough, they will try really hard (and given how vague this agreement is, I bet they'll succeed). That's all I'm saying.

In the end though, I don't see how this agreement is anything more than twitter saying "we won't sue people over patents, and we won't sell them to people who will". I don't see that as particularly significant. Just that twitter isn't pursuing licensing revenue as a strategy.

Re: The Twitter "Patent Hack"

#38

Post by mistercow »

VanL wrote: post #17
mistercow wrote: post #14

The problem I see with this is that it doesn't (and, I think, can't) really account for the future. Suppose you see that Twitter has a patent on buttons that you have to quadruple click, and you think they'll only use it defensively, so you make a free jQuery plugin called t4p, which implements quadruple clickable buttons. Three years pass and now a new service, Blithr (like Twitter but messages are limited to 18 cha…

No, patents are sold encumbered by their previous licenses. Another entity may acquire the patents, but the portfolio would still be subject to this agreement. The issue is the ambiguity of "defensive" action gives the assignee of the patent relatively broad license to act without the consent of the inventor - and the inventor can be suborned later, too. (Trust me, that happens.)

OK, I think I see what you're saying. In other words, if a patent troll someone buys out Twitter, they will have to renegotiate their terms with the inventor before they can start shaking people down. I guess that's at least some reassurance.

Re: The Twitter "Patent Hack"

#39

Post by wickedchicken »

drcube wrote: post #25

What's with the "inventor gets to change his mind" clause? That's like having a clause in the GPL that says at any given time, the author can revoke the GPL and sell the copyright to Microsoft. It appears like they're not taking this seriously.

> That's like having a clause in the GPL that says at any given time, the author can revoke the GPL and sell the copyright to Microsoft.

Which, unless the author has specifically assigned copyright to someone else, you can totally do. A similar situation arises with dual-licensed software. Of course, older versions of the software still 'live on' under the GPL, the author is implicitly making a fork.

This is one of the reasons the FSF wants you to assign it copyright to stuff: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#AssignCopyright

Re: The Twitter "Patent Hack"

#40

Post by dalore »

drcube wrote: post #25

What's with the "inventor gets to change his mind" clause? That's like having a clause in the GPL that says at any given time, the author can revoke the GPL and sell the copyright to Microsoft. It appears like they're not taking this seriously.

An author of a GPL licenses work does own the copyright and is free to sell the copyright to anyone he chooses and even change the license. What they can't do is to revoke the GPL of past versions that are out.

For instance you can dual license your work. Have a GPL version for free or a private version which they could pay for.

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