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Another Patent Troll Slain. You Are Now Free to Rotate Your Smartphone

rackspace.com

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Re: Another Patent Troll Slain. You Are Now Free to Rotate Your Smartphone

#31

Post by teachingaway »

crhulls wrote: post #14

Startups can pool together to fight these guys. My company, Life360 got sued after raising $50m. They thought this meant we had money to write checks from, but instead we decided to use it to fight. We're basically being sued for allowing you to click a marker on a map initiating a phone call. This obviously should never have been patented, so we are doing all the legal defense work and sharing it with the startup co…

1. Love what Life360 is doing with the shared resources. Anti-patent troll caselaw has been AMAZING the last few months. I'll try to put together a good collection of the recent wins.

Anyone can reach out to me at @teachingaway if you want some law students to pitch in on a patent troll defense case. We don't have a huge capacity, but we can help a few startups with legal defense.

2. I'm getting FOUT on life360.com. Possibly caused by loading typekit fonts with tk.async="true"; ?

Re: Another Patent Troll Slain. You Are Now Free to Rotate Your Smartphone

#32

Post by acdha »

r00fus wrote: post #3

"Rotatable sued us and immediately asked for $75,000 to go away. We refused. And we fought. It’s Rackspace policy to not pay off patent trolls, even if it costs us more to fight. Eventually Rotatable offered to just walk away – but we refused again. Just as we promised last year, we challenged the patent and the USPTO invalidated it. This means that Rackspace will not pay one penny to this troll, nor will Apple, Netf…

Note the date:

https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/chapter2_105.html

The writing was on the wall in 1993 but it took a couple decades for the courts to realize the mess they'd created and companies to realize that paying ransom doesn't lead to fewer bandits.

Re: Another Patent Troll Slain. You Are Now Free to Rotate Your Smartphone

#33

Post by damoncali »

luxstyle wrote: post #6

Why do trolls still try to sue Rackspace? They publicly proclaim their anti-troll policy. If 88% of these cases kill the troll when they go through the courts fully, I would stay well away from them if I was a patent troll.

Don't know. But I'd guess it has something to do with that 12%.

Re: Another Patent Troll Slain. You Are Now Free to Rotate Your Smartphone

#34

Post by josaka »

r00fus wrote: post #3

"Rotatable sued us and immediately asked for $75,000 to go away. We refused. And we fought. It’s Rackspace policy to not pay off patent trolls, even if it costs us more to fight. Eventually Rotatable offered to just walk away – but we refused again. Just as we promised last year, we challenged the patent and the USPTO invalidated it. This means that Rackspace will not pay one penny to this troll, nor will Apple, Netf…

> It surprises me why there aren't joint defense funding efforts in place to put these industry pests to bed... One barrier to collective action is that the courts only give you a limited number of attempts to kill a patent (usually one, but sometimes sort of two). So if you join up with a group, that group's attempt is attributable to you, and your one shot is used up. This effect, called an estoppel, is one reason you don't see more of this.

Re: Another Patent Troll Slain. You Are Now Free to Rotate Your Smartphone

#35

Post by willchang »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #26
dthunt wrote: post #16

I am a strong advocate of the following principle: Defeat your enemies. Rackspace deserves some big props, here. More should follow their example.

It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation To call upon a neighbour and to say: -- "We invaded you last night--we are quite prepared to fight, Unless you pay us cash to go away." And that is called asking for Dane-geld, And the people who ask it explain That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld And then you'll get rid of the Dane! It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation, To puff and look impo…

In the same vein, the most bravado-laden thing an American president ever said was Madison announcing his intent to fight the Ottoman states that were sponsoring raids on American ships:

The United States while they wish for war with no nation, will buy peace with none, it being a principle incorporated into the settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, so war is better than tribute.

Re: Another Patent Troll Slain. You Are Now Free to Rotate Your Smartphone

#36

Post by MiddleEndian »

shittyanalogy wrote: post #28

This is fun and all but calling the patent troll slain is a bit optimistic. Most likely "Rotatable Technologies" was specifically created to sue companies for this patent so they could simply go out of business if things got too rough. The larger patent troll, I'm sure, considers this loss a normal part of doing business and will continue with other patents. This does not get any better simply because one patent was…

Rackspace's post does address this as well:

>We are still fighting some of the trolls that have come after us and we expect to win those cases too. Without changes in the law we believe that the only way to end the plague of patent trolls is by fighting every troll that comes at us – and we encourage all others to do the same.

with a link to http://www.rackspace.com/blog/a-sad-day-for-patent-reform-a-...

Re: Another Patent Troll Slain. You Are Now Free to Rotate Your Smartphone

#37

Post by scott_karana »

xster wrote: post #17
crhulls wrote: post #14

Startups can pool together to fight these guys. My company, Life360 got sued after raising $50m. They thought this meant we had money to write checks from, but instead we decided to use it to fight. We're basically being sued for allowing you to click a marker on a map initiating a phone call. This obviously should never have been patented, so we are doing all the legal defense work and sharing it with the startup co…

Wonder if it's possible to sue the patent clerk that admitted the patent application in the first place. Keep the fight even further from the homeland.

Wouldn't you have to prove that the patent clerk colluded with the applicant?

I don't think you would appreciate being sued for making a mistake at your job, would you? ;)

Re: Another Patent Troll Slain. You Are Now Free to Rotate Your Smartphone

#38

Post by darkarmani »

shittyanalogy wrote: post #28

This is fun and all but calling the patent troll slain is a bit optimistic. Most likely "Rotatable Technologies" was specifically created to sue companies for this patent so they could simply go out of business if things got too rough. The larger patent troll, I'm sure, considers this loss a normal part of doing business and will continue with other patents. This does not get any better simply because one patent was…

> The larger patent troll, I'm sure, considers this loss a normal part of doing business and will continue with other patents. This does not get any better simply because one patent was invalidated.

It definitely gets better as you raise the costs around the "normal part of doing business." The trolls still have the advantage, but the advantage is less.

Re: Another Patent Troll Slain. You Are Now Free to Rotate Your Smartphone

#39

Post by darkarmani »

crhulls wrote: post #14

Startups can pool together to fight these guys. My company, Life360 got sued after raising $50m. They thought this meant we had money to write checks from, but instead we decided to use it to fight. We're basically being sued for allowing you to click a marker on a map initiating a phone call. This obviously should never have been patented, so we are doing all the legal defense work and sharing it with the startup co…

HN posters can check out their list of patents or even better look up their pending patents and provide prior art to invalidate them before they are granted.

http://www.agisinc.com/Contact/Patents/Patents.html

The latest one seems like it could be invalidated by the "do it on a computer" rulings.

Re: Another Patent Troll Slain. You Are Now Free to Rotate Your Smartphone

#40

Post by darkarmani »

crhulls wrote: post #14

Startups can pool together to fight these guys. My company, Life360 got sued after raising $50m. They thought this meant we had money to write checks from, but instead we decided to use it to fight. We're basically being sued for allowing you to click a marker on a map initiating a phone call. This obviously should never have been patented, so we are doing all the legal defense work and sharing it with the startup co…

I'm sorry, but the US Army has been doing that since the late 90s. http://www.alu.army.mil/alog/issues/MayJun04/alog_revol_log....

They used satellite and VHF for communications. When I left they had very localized PCS phone networks and packet switched networks over radio. I find it very hard to believe there isn't prior art for all of this in the DoD.

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