There already are. I work for a company that got hit by a patent troll and because the larger company in our industry settled with them we had to as well since we don't have the funding to fight it.
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Apple Won't Have to Pay $309M After Judge Accuses Patent Troll of Abusing System to Fleece Tech Companies
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Agreed. Right now there is a patent that was approved which essentially is a bookmark url icon on the Windows Desktop. I was hired to help write the tech specs and I quit cause it was ********. We were already on Windows XP and this has been available since Windows 98.
Note there are patents for the process of storage and managing urls including time data for videos (AKA every browsers Bookmark Manager and Youtube URLs.)
you have to be a really truly terrible actor for super-monolith Apple beating you being a cause for celebration. AND THIS QUALIFIES.
The whole world patent system needs a complete overhaul to prevent patent trolls, whilst protecting bona fide filed patents and where Apple like most large companies have not always been mindful of other bona vide patents.
The idea though that you can have an idea not file for a patent for years, wait until someone else has done the footwork and then file for patent infringement is ridiculous because by that token anyone could file a patent for future technology before the event, but without even being specific as patents are not that specific but more legalese.
Technology advances, and some science fiction indeed much science fiction at some stage becomes fact and its ridiculous then to base a patent without a timescale, without work on that patent having been undertaken at all.
A patent then can be more like a prediction and no doubt our resident Mac Gurus in the media would have a field day with their various predictions patented, like Today follows yesterday!
The idea though that you can have an idea not file for a patent for years, wait until someone else has done the footwork and then file for patent infringement is ridiculous because by that token anyone could file a patent for future technology before the event, but without even being specific as patents are not that specific but more legalese.
Technology advances, and some science fiction indeed much science fiction at some stage becomes fact and its ridiculous then to base a patent without a timescale, without work on that patent having been undertaken at all.
A patent then can be more like a prediction and no doubt our resident Mac Gurus in the media would have a field day with their various predictions patented, like Today follows yesterday!
Getting paid for someone else's work is what this really is.
I mean, I can tell you all day about the various applications and features that will probably get popular when VR glasses hit the market. But I sure as hell shouldn't get paid for predicting what those applications and features might be if I'm not the one who can actually make them work in practice.
And the whole thing of being able to stall the patent application process in order to extend the patent is a whole other level of idiocy.
Of course it had to come to this if the laws are so outdated. The system is practically begging for someone to abuse it.
I mean, I can tell you all day about the various applications and features that will probably get popular when VR glasses hit the market. But I sure as hell shouldn't get paid for predicting what those applications and features might be if I'm not the one who can actually make them work in practice.
And the whole thing of being able to stall the patent application process in order to extend the patent is a whole other level of idiocy.
Of course it had to come to this if the laws are so outdated. The system is practically begging for someone to abuse it.
If AAPL had lost why would you be happy. Whose billfold would they hurt? Definitely not Apples but all of Apples customers because Apple would be charging a higher price to their consumers. Apple would be eating it, we would.
I've long held a similar idea, basically that if the way to solve a software problem that's described in the patent is one of a handful of ways that many developers would have naturally come up with on their own fairly quickly, then the idea shouldn't be patentable - it fails either or both of the "novel" and "non-obvious" tests. It's not a brilliant insight, it's just how most anyone in the field would go about solving the same problem.
If you could patent, "well my idea for building a house is you build the foundation first, and then the first story on top of that, and then put the second story on top of that"... basically taking the obvious natural path and patenting it... it then makes house construction unreasonably difficult, as people have to find ways to do it without violating your patent.
The whole original idea of patents was, if you thought up an idea that nobody else would have come up with, then the government gives you exclusive rights to that idea for a (modest) period of time, so that you can develop and market it without having others swoop in, copy your design, and flood the market with those copies. In exchange for giving you that period of exclusivity, afterwards, the design becomes available for others to use.
And the original time periods were worked out at a time when basically every invention was necessarily mechanical, everything was manufactured by hand, and information moved from one place to another at the speed of horses. If software patents are to be a thing, using the same time period is not reasonable - information these days moves around the world in seconds, things can become outdated in a year rather than in decades...
Courts in the U.S. are courts of law *and* equity. Fairness actually matters in our legal system. Abusing the spirit of the law is an actual issue in many cases.
Every once in a while, I see news on how people make so much money legally with frauds in the past decades. It is very inspiring. 🙂
Because in the U.S. system the test generally gets applied only once someone sues on the patent. Then the courts look at what a person of ordinary skill in the art, at the time of the alleged invention, would have known and how they would have combined the art known at the time in order to solve a problem.
The patent examiners apply the same test, but they have far fewer resources, and given the number of patents that are filed each year, some will get through that maybe shouldn’t have.
Additionally, in this particular case, you are looking at rules that changed in, what, 1995?
You’re not wrong in that PMC was working within loopholes in the law as written and the standard procedures of the USPTO, which they abused in the most egregious and predatory ways possible in order to make large profits.
Which is I suppose kind of the point of this ruling; if you make an absolute mockery of the intent of the law by abusing some loophole in its application, it’s within the powers of an appellate judge to invalidate decisions for that reason.
Worth noting is that a lot of similar patent trolls aren’t going for hundred-million-dollar paydays from Apple or Microsoft, they’re going for ten-thousand-dollar paydays from hundreds or thousands of small business owners who do not have the financial wherewithal to defend themselves in court. So the sort of precedent this sets doesn’t just apply to big companies with armies of lawyers, and you can bet if this company managed to get these ridciuous patents through, there’s someone else who would be willing to buy one and start slinging lawsuit threats at every small business they can find.
I was curious so poked around a bit into the actual patents (8,191,091 and 8,559,635).
Looking at the actual patents in question, it’s even more egregious than I was assuming. The two patents this lawsuit was filed on the basis of were both continuations of patents originally filed in 1987, continued multiple times until the legal loophole was closed in 1995, at which point they sat on the patents, which weren’t actually granted until 2012 and 2013, respectively. Indeed, even the 1987 patents were continuations-in-part of patents originally applied for in 1981.
Which is to say that these were patents based directly on 1981 filings (the opening process drawing of one of them shows a radio and a TV set as the primary components) being granted over 3 decades later, and well after the system being described had been in widespread use for years if not decades (if I read correctly, the entire pay-per-view cable box system of the ‘80s and ‘90s could probably fall under one of these patents).
It boggles the mind that the patent system ever allowed people to pull a con like this, although I guess I should give some credit to patent trolls willing to wait over 20 years for the payday.
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It’s good the judge tossed out the patent troll’s suit but should have also, to deter future patent trolls, should have fined them many millions for abusive patent litigation.
No, you really miss the definition of a patent troll if you think that. Has Apple abused patents...yes, as clearly they've had to pay others and of course there should be recourse for damages for those initiating or holding (and intending to use) patents or where those patents were used. However patent trolls are parasitic creatures who do nothing to create innovation, jobs or anything of real value.
Has Apple infringed patents unfairly in the past. Undoubtedly, but that is nothing like a patent troll, where they have no business apart from buying up in the main inventors patents where realistically that patent would never see the light of day in any commercial application either being to far in advance, or being so vague but capable many years after the patent of being interpreted as being infringed.
The whole patent system requires root and branch overhaul, both in the US and the world.
Rarely do innovators and inventors with or without patents see the fruits of their labour, but patent trolls are just parasites on all, just buying up as many patents as they can as a form of entrapment.
Wrong, they often don't use their patents, but thats not THE only definition:
Wikipedia: In international law and business, patent trolling or patent hoarding is a categorical or pejorative term applied to a person or company that attempts to enforce patent rights against accused infringers far beyond the patent's actual value or contribution to the prior art,[1] often through hardball legal tactics (frivolous litigation, vexatious litigation, strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP), chilling effects, and the like).
Apple is also a Patent Troll, simply as that!
Sad day at PMC offices today, but this shows how flawed the system is and this troll company has been abusing the system since 80's. This law firm naver made any new technology yet made an entire career in tech out of trolling people. In a sense this is brilliant on the other they are such a drag on society, who is the owner of this Troll firm?
Apple makes stuff never charges others for patents, apple never shares patents nor license sell or relicense them, they aquire patents to build products this law firm has been Abusing patent system to get money out of companies that were actually inventing real things. This firm is at this since 80's, such a shame. FOr 40 yrs they made a career out of stealing money from people by suing, imagine how many technology companies could have inventd great stuff much sooner but went under because of them. Such acts pull the technology progress backwards and pull entire Humanity back, they should be ashamed of stopping Human Progress. If i see the owner of this firm in the road he is getting a slap from me.
For some reason this scenario reminds me of large commercial real estate investment strategies. LOL