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Apple and Intel Sue SoftBank-Owned Firm Over 'Endless, Meritless' Patent Lawsuits
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The problem in what you said is "lottery" and "frivolous." I agree that's what patent trolls do.
But the purpose of patent law is not at odds with a company purchasing valuable patents and making legitimate well-founded enforcement actions backed-up by proper economic and technical analysis.
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I... don't really know what to say to that. Some people you know are wrong.
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The same kind of argument that has people believing, and the government allowing, the NFL is a Non-Profit and maintains that status. Somehow people that believe this sort of thing exist in our world.
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The difference is intent. Patent trolls have no intent to create anything of value, only extract it from those who do.
Universities and research hospitals create patents with the idea they will be sold and made use of, they are not created to extract revenue via the courts.
Failed companies can be a grey area. Apple and others have a history of buying patents from bankrupt companies. There is the option to recoup some of the investment. Going to court after that depends on the legitimacy of the attempts to follow other paths, and the legitimacy of the claims being pursued. More often the patents are sold to patent trolls.
I believe that’s the British system. And yes that’s a big problem with the American system. It’s why Patent trolls can thrive in the US and why SLAPP lawsuits happen (a lawsuit that is intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition).
A patent troll complaining about patent trolling? Funny...
So shelling out 200k per kid to these schools didn't feed their business? Plueeese. They are big buisness
Not every patent obtained by a universities or research hospitals is utilized in the real world. Some are to just to get licensing revenue, to fund more research, rinse, repeat. When infringers fail to pay a reasonable license, lawsuit is the only option.
That same model applies to all of patents though. The point of patents is for businesses to create valuable assets out of thin air, which is what allows them get funding. Why would an investor put their money into a risky business if there was a chance they can lose it all? More investing happens when the worst-case scenario for an investor is they have to liquidate and monetize the failed-companies' assets - including their patents. Without patents, there would be A LOT less investing and a lot fewer startups getting the funds they need.
For all of that to work, patents have to be worth something. There has to be a market for patents. For them to be worth something, they have to be enforceable by any owner regardless of who that owner is. Without that, the whole house of cards tumbles.
Now there were some issues in patent litigation, but most of them have been addressed over the past decade. I work in this industry, and I think most of the problems have been solved recently by the Supreme Court and by the America Invents Act of 2011. A new procedure called the IPRs allowing accused infringers to challenge the validity of a patent at the USPTO for relatively low cost and with very high rates of success. The Alice decision basically re-defined what is patentable subject matter and a lot of vague software patents were essentially wiped-away. Between those two things, there is A LOT less trolly behavior out there today. There are a few more lesser rule changes and rulings that also helped things.
Apple is annoyed they get sued so much. But too damn bad, you don't get to be a trillion-dollar company with your hand in every single cookie-jar of the world economy and not be the target of a lot of lawsuits. Some of them will be frivolous, and that's fine because those can be easily fought off. I'd rather have a few frivolous lawsuits sneak through than unintentionally stifle a few legitimate ones before they have a chance.
So you’re saying the organisation, however you define it, has some other income - it provides a service and makes revenue without taking companies to court?
Fortress Investment Group. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious.
I generally agree loser should pay. But to play devil's advocate - the British system isn't perfect either.
In the US system, the risk to filing suit is low. In the British system, the risk to filing suit is high. This difference means the British system favors big companies that can afford to bare the risk, and discourages small companies that cannot bare the risk from using the justice system.
Imagine you're a small software startup under the British system, and Apple does something to harm you. You do an analysis and calculate that Apple should pay you $500k to make things right, and you have a 90% chance of winning. But if you sue Apple, they would hire expensive big law counsel and put up a vigorous defense. To Apple, it's worth spending $100k on a law firm because they think putting up an aggressive defense raises their chance of winning from 10% to 20%. That's a daunting risk for the small startup - sue Apple and there is a 10-20% chance you lose AND then owe them $100k+ in costs. That might be too much of a risk of the small company to bare, so they don't sue and just let Apple roll over them.
For what it's worth, the US has several fee-shifting laws already, where judges can award the winner costs when the opposing side makes frivolous arguments. It happens pretty often.
I think people are trying to make a simplistic moral distinction between "patent trolls" and "good patent holders" that doesn't exist. It is more a case of "bad" vs "worst". There are two sides to the "non-practicing entity" argument:
- Moral: they're mooching of other's efforts,
- From BigCorp's POV: Wah! Not fair! If they don't make products we can't use our usual defence of counter-suing them for violating one of our silly patents.
).There's not one ounce of natural justice behind patents, despite industry efforts to conflate patents with
"(Intellectual) property" and patent infringement with "theft". Patents are sold as a "necessary evil" to promote industry and protect the rights of inventors while also allowing the sharing of new scientific discoveries - but it is a long time since anybody has done any sort of cost/benefit analysis in that respect.
Maybe the idea could be rescued - make them non-transferable, introduce a small recurring charge (to make huge portfolios of trivial patents uneconomical), void on the death/bankrupcy of the holder, specifically exclude software, slash the amount of damages available, shift the burden of proof etc. Or maybe there are better alternatives: e.g. in the oft-cited case of medicines grant a fixed-term monopoly to whoever gets the drug through FDA-or-equivalent approval.
However, don't expect anything too good to come out of this case - most likely just a hefty out-of-court settlement that tells the "trolls" to "keep out of Mummy and Daddy Goat's way in future and we'll drop our case and leave you free to snack off all the Baby Goats you can eat".
Well said!
In my opinion, another version of "patent trolls" happen when a company pursue "defensive patents" (patenting ideas they have ZERO intention of using just so nobody else can use the idea). Before returning to academia, I worked for a company that was notorious for patenting ideas to throw road blocks in the path of their competitors. I believe this is an absolute abuse of the patent system and I would love to see some form of "use it or lose" that requires companies to show they are seriously pursuing the use of the patent within X amount of time or the patent will expire prematurely.
The implications may be huge, and probably not for the better. The problem is that this judgement then may be used as a legal defense for future claims that may be legitimate.
What if a small company is trying to go after contractors that did not fufill their end of the bargain- and end up going after 10, 20 of them? They could say, "Hey, this company is sending out tons of lawsuits that we feel is excessive. This case judgement is the reasoning behind what we think."
GRANTED I'm no legal expert but just wondering...
What if a small company is trying to go after contractors that did not fufill their end of the bargain- and end up going after 10, 20 of them? They could say, "Hey, this company is sending out tons of lawsuits that we feel is excessive. This case judgement is the reasoning behind what we think."
GRANTED I'm no legal expert but just wondering...
You do understand the purpose of patents, correct? They are to give the patent holder a monopoly for the manufacture of goods using the patent to encourage innovation. The use of patents without manufacture is inconsistent with the goals of the issuance of the patent. While licensing of patents is a valid use particularly in the case of essential technology, if a patent holder is not manufacturing, then they are not using the patent for its intended purpose. Apple does use it patents for the manufacture of goods and to extend the features of its products, so this is apples and oranges.
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Claims are fact specific. If the small manufacturer is actually using its patent for the manufacture of goods, even if those suppliers have breached their obligations, that company will still have a claim, it is not the same as what Apple is seeking to do, where the patent holder does nothing but collect license fees and never manufactured anything.
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Only in that they don't have the resources to properly review each idea presented for patent and cannot distinguish between obvious and new.
What proportion of Apple's entire patent portfolio do you actually know is used in this manner? As far as, I'm aware, when corporations become this large, they have hundreds of thousands, if not millions of patents. I doubt they're using over 50% of them directly in their products/services or indirectly through licensing.
Apple and Intel are in the right here. If you don't use the patent, you shouldn't own it. Period.
What is an “obscenely obscure patent? A patent when issued is valid, no matter your or anyone else’s opinion of it’s merits. USPTO has a process to re-examine patents if others believe they are flawed or granted in error.
I was just about to write this. They use literally 1/10,000th if not less of what they have. By the prior posters own argument those should all be invalid then.
Apple makes a product, and they pour treasure and time into the creation of that product. Are you REALLLLLLY unable to see the difference?