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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

#51

Post by throwawaykf05 »

cheepin wrote: post #35
x5n1 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... 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 allowin…

>Patents in all fields clearly slow down innovation by allowing the holder to slow down or stop derivative works.

This theory is not supported by empirical evidence. There is plenty of evidence showing how industries became more innovative with the introduction of patent protection. This theory may however apply to industries where innovation is incremental and where claim boundaries are hard to define, like software, but evidence is hard to come by and only now are we seeing some empirical studies on the matter.

Re: East Texas judge throws out 168 patent cases

#52

Post by Guvante »

throwawaykf05 wrote: post #49
jaredhansen wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And it's not like they are going to pay us more if they stop filing patents. This is actually not true at all. The cost here isn't in the filing of the patents; it's in the nightmarish patent system that results in absurd litigation and related expenses. If the patent system were reformed to avoid this kind of expense, the company would have lower operating costs, which would be distributed in some way. While it's p…

That sounds plausible, but we all know that if there's a bigger pie, almost always the spoils go to the owners and employees get peanuts. Google and Apple are sitting on billions in cash and yet they colluded to essentially keep wages down.

Short term profits are what firms live off. EBIT is sacred regardless of your cashflow. (I am in no way supporting this mentality, just re-emphasizing it)

Re: East Texas judge throws out 168 patent cases

#53

Post by throwawaykf05 »

adebtlawyer wrote: post #29
Alex3917 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the software patent trolls are pretty much going to be out of business in the next 12 - 18 months. It costs millions of dollars to run these operations, and most of them haven't been making any income for 2+ years now. All the smart trolls have moved on to trolling PTAB, and the dumb ones are just holding out hope that they either hit one last jackpot or else find some other way to monetize their portfolio.

> It costs millions of dollars to run these operations Are you sure? Litigation isn't always expensive if you're doing it in-house.

Or even on contingency. That is, lawyers will do this for free and take cut of the payout, if any. The good thing about this model is that nobody wants to waste resources on a fruitless lawsuit, so they will only go ahead with cars that have more merit relatively.

Re: East Texas judge throws out 168 patent cases

#54

Post by DannyBee »

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...

Unlike what others have said, the answer is no.

Patents are governed by a specific jurisdictional statute that made this crazy.

The history is detailed well here: http://patentlyo.com/patent/2007/04/patent_jurisdic.html

THe TL;DR is:

It used to just be: Any civil action for patent infringement may be brought in the judicial district where the defendant resides, or where the defendant has committed acts of infringement and has a regular and established place of business. 28 USC 1400

Then in 1990, Congress added: For purposes of venue under this chapter, a defendant that is a corporation shall be deemed to reside in any judicial district in which it is subject to personal jurisdiction at the time the action is commenced. 28 USC 1391

This eviscerated the previous limitations.

Personal jurisdiction is a little tricky to explain in a single post, but suffice to say, for internet companies most likely the target of trolls, they will generally be found to be subject to personal jurisdiction everywhere in the US.

Re: East Texas judge throws out 168 patent cases

#55

Post by DannyBee »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #11
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...

You can file in any jurisdiction in which you have legal standing to file, which means any jurisdiction in which harm has been done to you. If you patent something, and someone infringes on it, and sells the infringing device nation-wide, this means that you can pick any jurisdiction nation-wide to sue them in. Normally, you pick the one that you live in, so that you don't have to travel. But for patents, many people…

"You can file in any jurisdiction in which you have legal standing to file, which means any jurisdiction in which harm has been done to you."

No. What you describe in the first sentence is basically what the old rule was, pre-1990 (28 USC 1400). The current rule is much worse (28 USC 1391).

Basically, you have the effect right, but the description of the pre-reqs wrong :)

Re: East Texas judge throws out 168 patent cases

#56

Post by rebootthesystem »

Case after case we continue to see a pattern of apparent ignorance, incompetence or indifference on the part of the patent office.

I read through the claims. This patent should not have been granted. You can go back to the 1980's and find relevant prior art.

Are they playing "dumb" because of self preservation? In other words, if the patent office became really strict and only a handful of patents were granted every year they'd only need a fraction of the people, infrastructure and organization now in place. People would lose their jobs.

And so, if you want to keep your job, you issue patents like we are in the middle of a new scientific renaissance. More patents means more money being pumped into the system which, in turn, means you get to keep your job, your benefits and an amazing lifetime pension you did not pay for. You know you the patents you are letting through are crap but all you care about is your financial well being. You htink "Let the courts and those rich fucks sort it out" and move on.

Is it possible that the feedback loop at the patent office is such that volume, rather than quality, is what's remunerated? Never mind that this destroys innovation and causes huge financial losses across all kinds of businesses.

The fitness function might be such that optimization delivers exactly what we do not want as a nation but what the patent office, as an isolated organism, needs for survival.

Re: East Texas judge throws out 168 patent cases

#57

Post by [deleted] »

throwawaykf05 wrote: post #49
jaredhansen wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And it's not like they are going to pay us more if they stop filing patents. This is actually not true at all. The cost here isn't in the filing of the patents; it's in the nightmarish patent system that results in absurd litigation and related expenses. If the patent system were reformed to avoid this kind of expense, the company would have lower operating costs, which would be distributed in some way. While it's p…

That sounds plausible, but we all know that if there's a bigger pie, almost always the spoils go to the owners and employees get peanuts. Google and Apple are sitting on billions in cash and yet they colluded to essentially keep wages down.

[deleted]

Re: East Texas judge throws out 168 patent cases

#58

Post by Retric »

[deleted] wrote: post #57
throwawaykf05 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds plausible, but we all know that if there's a bigger pie, almost always the spoils go to the owners and employees get peanuts. Google and Apple are sitting on billions in cash and yet they colluded to essentially keep wages down.

[deleted]

Google is far from the highest paid per employees in the US.

New York-based law firm Skadden Arps, rakes in over $180,00 a year. But Netflix, Mozilla, and VMware are are all well known tech companies that top the list.

Google is not even in the top 10. http://www.glassdoor.com/blog/americas-15-highest-paying-com...

Re: East Texas judge throws out 168 patent cases

#59

Post by ww520 »

adebtlawyer wrote: post #29
Alex3917 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the software patent trolls are pretty much going to be out of business in the next 12 - 18 months. It costs millions of dollars to run these operations, and most of them haven't been making any income for 2+ years now. All the smart trolls have moved on to trolling PTAB, and the dumb ones are just holding out hope that they either hit one last jackpot or else find some other way to monetize their portfolio.

> It costs millions of dollars to run these operations Are you sure? Litigation isn't always expensive if you're doing it in-house.

Lawyer fee is expensive. Discovery is expensive. Patent discovery can run from weeks to months of expert time. Those can quickly add up.

Re: East Texas judge throws out 168 patent cases

#60

Post by AnimalMuppet »

DannyBee wrote: post #55
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can file in any jurisdiction in which you have legal standing to file, which means any jurisdiction in which harm has been done to you. If you patent something, and someone infringes on it, and sells the infringing device nation-wide, this means that you can pick any jurisdiction nation-wide to sue them in. Normally, you pick the one that you live in, so that you don't have to travel. But for patents, many people…

"You can file in any jurisdiction in which you have legal standing to file, which means any jurisdiction in which harm has been done to you." No. What you describe in the first sentence is basically what the old rule was, pre-1990 (28 USC 1400). The current rule is much worse (28 USC 1391). Basically, you have the effect right, but the description of the pre-reqs wrong :)

A quick perusal does not lead me to see how it's now worse. Could you explain why you think that?
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