Where's the petition against patent trolls, America? (Or has this been tried already / would it fail?)
Why Rackspace Is Suing The Most Notorious Patent Troll In America
81–90 of 103 posts
Re: Why Rackspace Is Suing The Most Notorious Patent Troll In America
#82I've said this here before more than once. The solution is for tech companies to fund a massive entity who's only purpose in life is to mercilessly sue patent trolls. Destroy them. Go after their patents. Invalidate them. Make it so costly to even attempt to enforce a bullshit patent that they will only dare take that step if they have a really good solid patent. If the top 100 companies in tech donated just ten mill…
For now it is very safe if you incorporate your company in India.
IP laws are little weak and innovation can thrive. If somebody wants to copy paste it can happen anywhere, irrespective of laws.
Re: Why Rackspace Is Suing The Most Notorious Patent Troll In America
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
> why more smaller and medium sized businesses haven't banded together to form some kind of larger entity to combat these trolls Well, one reason is that it may be illegal. We have antitrust laws that prohibit companies that make up a large percentage of an industry from coordinating in certain ways... this is an edge case but might be a problem. But the main reason is just that it is prohibitively expensive. It's re…
yet US has no problem with one company owning the majority of a market ( MS , Google ... ) so much for anti trust ... Small Companies could fund a non profit to help them against trolls, would it be illegal ?
I'm not saying that the antitrust laws are written the way I would write them if I were king, but they are rational, if you understand where they are coming from.
They prohibit independent actors from colluding to form a monopoly, but they do not prohibit a company from being successful enough in the marketplace to become an effective monopoly. However, if a company IS that successful, then the laws restrict what the company with monopoly power can do (for instance, they cannot leverage that monopoly to increase their power and market share in a different area of business).
My guess is that funding a nonprofit, something like the EFF or the ACLU but focused specifically on providing legal representation to those sued by patent trolls, would probably be allowed under the law as long as the nonprofit assisted ANY company attacked by a patent troll, not only contributors. If it assisted only contributors, perhaps it could work as some sort of legal insurance policy?
Re: Why Rackspace Is Suing The Most Notorious Patent Troll In America
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
> why more smaller and medium sized businesses haven't banded together to form some kind of larger entity to combat these trolls Well, one reason is that it may be illegal. We have antitrust laws that prohibit companies that make up a large percentage of an industry from coordinating in certain ways... this is an edge case but might be a problem. But the main reason is just that it is prohibitively expensive. It's re…
As an alternate thought, could companies encourage their developers to form an industry union--and then have the union sue?
That's a really unusual approach. The union has to represent the interests of the WORKERS, not the companies they work for, but one could argue that the workers benefit by not having their employers profits sucked away by patent trolls. At any rate, I can't imagine small technology companies encouraging their employees to form unions for ANY reason so I doubt it would be popular.
Re: Why Rackspace Is Suing The Most Notorious Patent Troll In America
#85Respect Rackspace! Maybe I should switch to you from AWS :)
Re: Why Rackspace Is Suing The Most Notorious Patent Troll In America
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
> why more smaller and medium sized businesses haven't banded together to form some kind of larger entity to combat these trolls Well, one reason is that it may be illegal. We have antitrust laws that prohibit companies that make up a large percentage of an industry from coordinating in certain ways... this is an edge case but might be a problem. But the main reason is just that it is prohibitively expensive. It's re…
yet US has no problem with one company owning the majority of a market ( MS , Google ... ) so much for anti trust ... Small Companies could fund a non profit to help them against trolls, would it be illegal ?
> Small Companies could fund a non profit to help them against trolls, would it be illegal ?
Someone could set up an insurance company specialising in patent-troll insurance.
Re: Why Rackspace Is Suing The Most Notorious Patent Troll In America
#87I've said this here before more than once. The solution is for tech companies to fund a massive entity who's only purpose in life is to mercilessly sue patent trolls. Destroy them. Go after their patents. Invalidate them. Make it so costly to even attempt to enforce a bullshit patent that they will only dare take that step if they have a really good solid patent. If the top 100 companies in tech donated just ten mill…
everyone company who joins this 'kill the trolls' fund would love this until one of their own patents are accused as trollish by another member.
If you're going to sue people for patent infringement you probably shouldn't be joining the patent trolling defense fund.
Otherwise, if you've only got defensive patents (or no patents) the patent trolling defense fund isn't going to do any harm to you.
Re: Why Rackspace Is Suing The Most Notorious Patent Troll In America
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
It looks like they are taking a different approach to the problem (though the bill still hasn't passed yet): > The next legislative effort will likely center around what is known as the SHIELD Act, which has been introduced by Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) and Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah). This bill would require plaintiffs to pay defendants’ legal costs if the suit is unsuccessful. -- http://www.rackspace.…
This will just cause the trolls to set up one shell corp per suit. If they lose, they just declare bankruptcy and vanish. There needs to be a personal, professional cost to the attorney who represents the troll. Trolling doesn't work if you can't find a lawyer willing to take the risk on your bogus "on teh interwebs" patent.
They'd have to transfer the patent to the shell company, which would then be transferred to the winning defendant in any bankruptcy. So at least they'd lose the patent they sued with.
Re: Why Rackspace Is Suing The Most Notorious Patent Troll In America
#89I've said this here before more than once. The solution is for tech companies to fund a massive entity who's only purpose in life is to mercilessly sue patent trolls. Destroy them. Go after their patents. Invalidate them. Make it so costly to even attempt to enforce a bullshit patent that they will only dare take that step if they have a really good solid patent. If the top 100 companies in tech donated just ten mill…
It looks like they are taking a different approach to the problem (though the bill still hasn't passed yet): > The next legislative effort will likely center around what is known as the SHIELD Act, which has been introduced by Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) and Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah). This bill would require plaintiffs to pay defendants’ legal costs if the suit is unsuccessful. -- http://www.rackspace.…
This will not work. If I don't have the money to mount a defense it doesn't really matter because there will not be a trial. I would have to reach a licensing agreement or close-up shop. This is yet another bullshit law with 23 different ways to circumvent it.
A better version of the law would have the troll pay for legal fees in advance. A bona Fidel estimate of fees is made and the troll has to deposit this amount with the court. If they loose, the court can pay the defendant out of that fund. Now you still have to have the money to defend yourself, but at least you know they won't be able to file bankruptcy and walk away. It also increases the immediate cost of troll operations exponentially.
The next step would be to reduce defendant fees to zero.
The next step would be for the patent office to become involved in some capacity and re-examine for invalidation.
Every time you sue someone for patent infringement you have to first PAY FOR a full expedited patent invalidation trial. In other words, you are free to use your patent to make stuff but if you want to sue somebody we will first re-examine it's validity. Tis is fair. The government granted the monopoly. Now the government is obligated to protect us from this monopoly by re-examining the grant when it is used to cause financial harm. Only if the patent passes the re-examination process is the trial allowed to take place. Every time you attack someone you face invalidation and having to make a huge deposit with the courts to cover all costs. That ought to slow them down.
Anyhow, these are random ideas from the vantage point of a non-lawyer engineer. I am sure they are flawed in a thousand ways. I truly don't think government is really going to fix this mess.
Re: Why Rackspace Is Suing The Most Notorious Patent Troll In America
#90I'd love to see a patent troll lose a case, but their breach of contract case seems a bit weak (without seeing the actual contract, since they didn't include 'Exhibit B' in the PDF). As I understand it: * Parallel Iron owns IPNav. * IPNav and Rackspace signed a contract saying that IPNav won't sue Rackspace without giving 30 days notice first. * Parallel Iron sues Rackspace without giving notice first. * Rackspace su…
Judges aren't stupid. I'd expect a judge to ignore the letter of the contract in such a brazenly obvious case of abuse.