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Apple Preemptively Sues 'Patent Troll' to Address Threats Over USB-Related Power Patents
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Totally agree, in fact this almost comes across as Apple having a guilty conscience..
Dont forget Apples lawyers in court also accused others of copying the colours black and white of them!
Never mind the actual suit, how on earth can you take someone to court for NOT doing something YET and then demand your legal fees and costs get paid?
I'm going to take Apple to court and demand they don't set up a genius bar in my bedroom. I'll add all my fees in a big lump and demand the court award them to pay me it. Sheesh.
You have zero concept of how things actually work. Lawyers who represent the patent holders, more times than not, will not get paid
I don't know much about modern patent law, but as a medievalist, I do know a lot about the 1400s. Yes, there were definitely "company secrets" (or rather, guild secrets) back then. Many of these involved techniques for dyes in Flanders which were jealously guarded against English competitors, or alchemical processes for making explosives and firearms in Byzantium, or even methods of steel manufacture that various blacksmiths did not want to share with competitors.
Guilds were so notoriously secretive that, in medieval France, they would often have meetings wearing masks to do "company votes" anonymously or confer about artisanal techniques in disguise so that individuals could not be identified and later tortured into revealing the mechanical or technological secret by outsiders.
Often when guilds were disbanded or guild houses destroyed in unrelated warfare, all their techniques would die out with them. So, patents (in one form or another) were a method to prevent that destructive secrecy. The dude you were arguing with is quite right about the history. Patents were a compromise to ensure that an organization or inventor could have a temporary legal monopoly, but in exchange, that knowledge would be recorded and available to the next generation.
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Spot on, though I think there is still some wiggle room with the term “Patent Troll”. From my perspective PT’s are non-practicing entities that did not develop the patent, don’t make products based on the patent, don’t actively seek to license their patents, and do little more than wait around for another company to make enough money to sue.
As annoying as these are, I think the bigger issue is the definition of and scope of patents. If you truely come up with something unique... good for you. If you do nothing more than take a manual process and patent how it might be implemented ina data processing system... then we have a patent problem. This is why we (the US) desperately need to refresh the entire patent system.
I know I’m three pages late, but can we just copy and paste the last of the 25,000 patent troll MR arguments to this thread?
Can't understand why people defend these types of companies. If I come up with a brilliant idea but can't secure funds to make it, then my idea is just that. If I develop a product but it fails and Apple blatantly rips off my design, then THAT should call for action.
Of course i am sure there was an opportunity for Apple to buy up the patents themselves. Patents have value and it is one of the ways that the receivers handling a failed company realises value for the shareholders.
It seems to me the prime difficulty is the lax application of standards by the patent offices which have allowed things to be patented that really shouldn't be patented. A basic tenet used to be that ideas could not be patented. That things could be patented but business processes could not. You could patent a product or item to do a 'thing' but the patent would only be for your specific item to accomplish that 'thing'. If someone created a different item to accomplish the same 'thing' they would not be restricted by your patent. That's the reason the US and other Patent Offices have so many models. An example would be why there were so many different microprocessors at the beginning of the microcomputer age. No company could patent the microcomputer, just the parts that went into them.
In the 80's it was understood that one could not patent software. It was thought that the processes in computer programs were ideas and thus were not patentable. Programs could and were copyrighted as a means of protection. That changed and helped lead to where we are now.
Also, a patent had to be used by the patent owner in a reasonable amount of time from its registration, otherwise the patent would not be finalized. That's what "Patent Pending" was for. A notification that the item or items in question had patent applications filed for them to start the clock on patent approval.
That all seems to have gone by the wayside.
In the 80's it was understood that one could not patent software. It was thought that the processes in computer programs were ideas and thus were not patentable. Programs could and were copyrighted as a means of protection. That changed and helped lead to where we are now.
Also, a patent had to be used by the patent owner in a reasonable amount of time from its registration, otherwise the patent would not be finalized. That's what "Patent Pending" was for. A notification that the item or items in question had patent applications filed for them to start the clock on patent approval.
That all seems to have gone by the wayside.
Some of what you said is right, but it’s never been the case that a patent had to be used by the patent owner, nor is that what “patent pending” is for. There’s also no such thing as “registration.”
Agreed, but our two-tiered and insanely complex Judicial System is not a necessary evil. Meanwhile this money could be going to societies real problems IMO.
And without those research departments, would the iPhone have even been made?
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Maybe some people put the law above their feelings.
Patents are broken in the US and worldwide.
That wasn't a patent issue but a trade dress lawsuit. They're very different. It's also well documented and valid as customer confusion can and does arise from trade dress.
Or at the very least, require the owner of the patent to work on producing the products that need the tech involved in the patent - or be able to provide evidence that they have R&D people working actively on the tech to make new solutions to sell to the companies they would like to have as customers.
The current system is being exploited by the patent trolls and there is nothing the real producing companies can do often
Well, at least Apple is fighting this and didn’t become one of FISI’s b...licensees like Samsung.
If the company is sold as a going concern then the patents should go too.
I don't like the idea of patents going to patent holding companies.
And the case will be heard by his most honorable John Deed. And for the defense......William Garrow. The winner???? Apple