That is a pretty crummy system. In the business of patents.
Surely the better way of expanding innovation is to ensure the patents are in the hands of those who are actually using them? If not, then any number of reasons can these patent-holding companies refuse to license their patents in the name of profit.
Putting patents into the hands of the highest bidder ensures that they go to the entity which values them most. That is basic capitalism.
And if patent holding companies refuse to license them, they make zero profits, so I'm not sure what the basis is for your last sentence.
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But their website states that the inventor of the patents does not receive any revenue from licenses.
Of course not. The inventor makes its profit when it assigns the patent to the holding company. If the inventor was able to make more profits by licensing the invention to third parties, it would do so. But they are inventors, and they are not licencors. It is called division of labor, and it is the basis of civilization.
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You shouldn't be able to patent a "time machine"
No worries then. You cannot patent a time machine any more than you can patent a perpetual motion machine.
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NPEs or Non Producing Entities should not be allowed to profit by suing.
They do not profit by suing. They are merely "made whole' by recovering what was stolen from them.
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You should never be allowed to sue the user of something.
If I use your song to make a movie soundtrack, I can be sued unless I license it. If I use your software without licensing it, I can be sued. This ain't rocket surgery.
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And they want everyone else to pay them for THEIR BRILLIANT IDEAS!!!!
Naw. They want those who use their property to pay them. Simple as that.
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They have no one actively marketing these patents. It's just a lawsuit factory.
If that is true, then how did Apple license the patent?
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If you know of any case where an inventor gets amply rewarded by a patent holding company
ISTM that each and every patent owned by a holding company was purchased from an inventor who thought that the sale amply rewarded them. If not, then why the heck would the inventor sell their patent?
Do you imagine that the inventors are victims? They liked the deal they got, or else they would have said "I want more money or i will refuse to sell".
Sheesh. This ain't rocket surgery.
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App developers are clearly customers. They are customers of an app service arrangement that distributes their product, in some cases entirely for free, and in other cases for a 30% fee. The App developers are clearly customers. No doubt or confusion.
Rocketman
The dev is a vendor. Apple is the customer.
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Who are the miscreants here? Apple? They've licensed the patent. iOS app developers? Can you sincerely call them miscreants for using an Apple SDK in good faith?
If the devs use a patented invention without licensing it, then they are thieves.
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First, Apple seems to believe they paid to cover the IAP servers.
Apple also thought that they had paid to use the iPad trademark in China.
Oops!
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A patent troll is a company who's only economic product is lawsuits, while manufacturing no products or inventing anything.
By that definition, Lodsys is NOT a patent troll, because they have a second "economic product". They license patents to third parties, like Apple.
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I think Apple needs to step in and get the Lodsys patent invalidated. And then Lodsys should be forced to refund all fees they earned off of this joke of a patent.
Unless Lodsys guaranteed that the patent was valid, what basis would Apple have to demand a refund?
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Lodsys's arguments are a bit like arguing that even though a radio station has paid for the rights to broadcast a song, the listening audience should also have to pay a licensing fee for the privilege of listening to that song.
Except for the fact that there is no basis in copyright law for charging listeners. Other than that, maybe the situations are exactly the same. But given that, the situations bear no resemblance whatsoever.