The Real Toll of Patent Trolls
1–10 of 54 posts
Re: The Real Toll of Patent Trolls
#2Does anyone have a reference for how much trolls tend to pay inventors for their patents?
Trolls get a bad rap, and I'm opposed to trolling as opposed to licensing to manufacturers, but they're one possible form of middleman between inventors and infringers.
One major point of a patent is to compensate the inventor for doing something smart. If the trolls are "non-practicing", then they must have acquired their patent from an inventor. How much are inventors getting paid?
Re: The Real Toll of Patent Trolls
#3Reading stories like this literally makes my blood boil. I know it's been discussed at length, but still. This is pure economic leakage -- it's an unintended consequence of well-intentioned legislation and it's absolute BS that companies have to put up with the trolls.
Good on the guys for putting up a fight, as expensive as it is.
I feel particularly frustrated about this whole mess because I don't see an end in sight. I'm not convinced the new patent reform legislation is going to help (Or is it?) and it feels like an uphill battle for small businesses.
What to do?
Re: The Real Toll of Patent Trolls
#4Does anyone have a reference for how much trolls tend to pay inventors for their patents? Trolls get a bad rap, and I'm opposed to trolling as opposed to licensing to manufacturers, but they're one possible form of middleman between inventors and infringers. One major point of a patent is to compensate the inventor for doing something smart. If the trolls are "non-practicing", then they must have acquired their paten…
From what I understand they don't even pay inventors, they hire lawyers to game the systems with ridiculously vague patents that will get through and then sue people who actually invent thing.
Re: The Real Toll of Patent Trolls
#5Does anyone have a reference for how much trolls tend to pay inventors for their patents? Trolls get a bad rap, and I'm opposed to trolling as opposed to licensing to manufacturers, but they're one possible form of middleman between inventors and infringers. One major point of a patent is to compensate the inventor for doing something smart. If the trolls are "non-practicing", then they must have acquired their paten…
First: if an inventor comes up with some idea but decides that instead of producing products based on their invention waits for other people to come up with the same idea and get money from them (or has someone do it by proxity), then is that actually something we want to encourage?
Second: both the times an entity I was part of was on the receiving end of a patent troll, there was at least circumstantial evidence that the troll hadn't invented anything. The first time was when one of the students at my dorm came up with the idea of hooking up our laundry machines to the Internet for a senior project. Shortly after they got Slashdoted someone filed for a patent on the idea. The second time was when the place I worked went to some outside contractors, and they tried to file patents based on the designs we gave them.
Re: The Real Toll of Patent Trolls
#6> "Friedland isn't sure how word of the settlement leaked to Troll Town, but he says that after he paid the fee, he was inundated with infringement letters from trolls."
NPE's are, almost by definition, shell companies for larger interests. [1] If you paid one of those off, it's quite obvious and inevitable that any of the other NPEs in that 'family' that have half a case would not even have to wait for word to 'leak out', but would be explicitly notified and ordered to come after you.
[1] Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures has been reported to have a network of over a thousand such shell companies for this kind of thing. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100217/1853298215.shtml
Re: The Real Toll of Patent Trolls
#7Does anyone have a reference for how much trolls tend to pay inventors for their patents? Trolls get a bad rap, and I'm opposed to trolling as opposed to licensing to manufacturers, but they're one possible form of middleman between inventors and infringers. One major point of a patent is to compensate the inventor for doing something smart. If the trolls are "non-practicing", then they must have acquired their paten…
First: if an inventor comes up with some idea but decides that instead of producing products based on their invention waits for other people to come up with the same idea and get money from them (or has someone do it by proxity), then is that actually something we want to encourage? Second: both the times an entity I was part of was on the receiving end of a patent troll, there was at least circumstantial evidence th…
> First: if an inventor comes up with some idea but decides that instead of producing products based on their invention waits for other people to come up with the same idea and get money from them (or has someone do it by proxity), then is that actually something we want to encourage?
The idea is that the original inventor publishes the secret sauce via the required public disclosures and people either license the technology from him, he sues people who copy the technology without licensing, or he just cashes out and sells his whole interest to some other entity that does any of the above.
If someone else independently comes up with the same idea within a relatively short time frame, well in that case I don't think the patent should be granted. I think the legally sensible thing to do is to move patents in the direction of being an unfair competition type claim (unfair because you simply copy someone else's technology instead of developing your own).
Re: The Real Toll of Patent Trolls
#8Reading stories like this literally makes my blood boil. I know it's been discussed at length, but still. This is pure economic leakage -- it's an unintended consequence of well-intentioned legislation and it's absolute BS that companies have to put up with the trolls. Good on the guys for putting up a fight, as expensive as it is. I feel particularly frustrated about this whole mess because I don't see an end in sig…
One avenue would be a non-profit organization that takes membership fees from software firms and uses the pooled money to fight these legal battles, or make collective licensing agreements.
The shakedown side of the troll business model relies on their being able to absorb more in legal fees than their targets. If their targets could actually force them to follow-through on their legal threats, the profitability of this method might drop to a level where they don't bother.
It would, unfortunately, do nothing about the cases where trolls are confident enough to take their shots at Google, Apple, Microsoft, et al.
Re: The Real Toll of Patent Trolls
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
First: if an inventor comes up with some idea but decides that instead of producing products based on their invention waits for other people to come up with the same idea and get money from them (or has someone do it by proxity), then is that actually something we want to encourage? Second: both the times an entity I was part of was on the receiving end of a patent troll, there was at least circumstantial evidence th…
> First: if an inventor comes up with some idea but decides that instead of producing products based on their invention waits for other people to come up with the same idea and get money from them (or has someone do it by proxity), then is that actually something we want to encourage? The idea is that the original inventor publishes the secret sauce via the required public disclosures and people either license the te…
I find it extremely unlikely that someone can conceive of and take the time patent something so novel that someone, somewhere, hasn't already tried it at least once.
In those rare cases, it should be a requirement to produce a detailed description of the method by which the desired result is achieved, and that the patent would cover that specific method.
"Attaching a computer to a database" is not a method. A very specific driver format employing particular protocols is.
Re: The Real Toll of Patent Trolls
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
> First: if an inventor comes up with some idea but decides that instead of producing products based on their invention waits for other people to come up with the same idea and get money from them (or has someone do it by proxity), then is that actually something we want to encourage? The idea is that the original inventor publishes the secret sauce via the required public disclosures and people either license the te…
I find it extremely unlikely that someone can conceive of and take the time patent something so novel that someone, somewhere, hasn't already tried it at least once. In those rare cases, it should be a requirement to produce a detailed description of the method by which the desired result is achieved, and that the patent would cover that specific method. "Attaching a computer to a database" is not a method. A very sp…
That's at the heart of what it is to be a patent. It is neither an idea, nor a specific device. Its supposed to be a technique or method or something equally slippery - thus all the lawyers have something to argue about.