Slashdot Mirror
MSNBC Looks At Patent Abusers' Victims
Camel Pilot writes "Patent claims have reached a new low when "inventor" Witold Ziarno sued the American Red Cross for using the web to accept donations. This MSNBC article discusses this case and how it was beat using web archives and prior art!
Also Pangia Intellectual Property has given up hope on extracting fees from small e-commerce websites for its supposedly patent on e-commerce. The only problem with the PanIP case is that they got away without having to pay for the legal fees for the defense in an obvious abuse of the system." (See this previous post for more on PanIP's dropped case.)
"...saying he had patented the electronic process by which the donations were made. Ziarno demanded a licensing fee from the non-profit agency for infringing on his patent, which he applied for in 1993 -- before most people had even heard of the World Wide Web."
This seams strange (in 1993?). For some reason, I do not think I understand US patents.
Webmaster of Infoweb
If the patent holder loses it's case in court, it's forced to pay the legal fees of the defendant.
Oh yes, they get kicked in the nuts afterwords.
Also, the patent office needs to be held accountable as well. Maybe they could fire the examiner that issued the patent.
I'm not saying that this is the difinitive answer, just some ideas to change things for the better.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
The main argument behind patents is that without them, nobody would have motivation to come up with new ideas and no research and development would be done.
I say bullshit.
Patents are holding developments back. If you have an idea for a better mousetrap build it and sell it. If someone else copies your idea then you'll just have to improve it, or find a way to make it cheaper than them, or whatever. You'll have to act quicker to make money on your ideas, and innovate faster. I think that's a good thing.
What I don't get is people who are shocked at how low other humans will go for money. Like no one ever tried to take advantage of do gooders before.
Note to self: No more arguing with the faithful.
what does it take to chase a charity for alleged patent abuse. How does he sleep at night?
Probally the same malfuction that gets the RIAA to request license fees from the Girlscouts to sing *puff the magic dragon*.
In reality, a charity isn't immune to license fees. It's good PR and good on your taxes to donate the license fees, but you are not required to do so. I wouldn't blame anyone for charging the Red Cross for legit license fees. I would however blame the US patent system for allowing jarheads to patent trivial things like donations on a god damned website, as if this is a new and unique idea.
I know this may sound like a troll, but it isn't. If the US legal system is so good, shouldn't the American Red Cross win in the end?
"You can justify anything by putting it in quotes, adding a famous name and making it a sig" - Albert Einstein
I would think any half decent human would not want to take a charity to court unless it was a major issue that was affecting them negatively. I don't think that the Red Cross accepting donations is really a great loss of income to the patent holders, so despite the legalities and even ignoring basic compassion shouldn't PR dictate that it's not right to sue?
How about an overly complex, ambiguous, highly exploitable system of law? (in other words, big government)
"Something can be simple, but we shouldn't be deceived by this," said Jack Slobodin, another patent attorney. "If no one has done it before or thought of it, it deserves a patent. Like the paper clip, or the Post-it note." And the inventor deserves compensation, Slobodin said."
Protecting the rights of inventors is a necessary part of the research and investment fields, said Slobodin.
Otherwise, he said, there would be little incentive for taking risks: "The inventor should have a key to the courthouse. There's a long, sordid history of big companies stealing the work of private inventors."
The same old hopelessly flawed logic and a very good example of it: To make paperclips available to the World, which is what you are expected to do in return for the exclusive rights to profit from doing so, you need to invest in a paperclip factory, it's workforce, distribution network and all the other expenses associated with manufacturing investment. There lies the risk - a very great financial risk and rightly addressed by the patent system. If you consider an equivalently simple software or business method idea, where is that risk now? Just what exactly is it that needs to be protected? The only investment risk that needs to be protected in this case is the investment in the patent application itself and the litigation expenses required to extort money from legitimate and honest businesses and organisations.
Just who do the legislators think they're protecting when they engineer a system that enables worthless parasites like PanIP to persecute small businesses and others even to gratuitously attack charities?
Why not directly base a patent on the ammount of R&D done and some 'market time' value: eg a stupid web patent such as donations on the net which obviously took someone back in the early days of the net all of 3 minutes to figure out would have a very low 'R&D value' and a very low chance of being granted or upheld aditionally the internet/computing industry moves very fast, so the patent would only be granted for say 1 or 2 years if it was granted at all.
:P ) and because the car industry moves abit slower (lots of people still drive cars from the 90's) it would get a value of say 8 years and the R&D value would be taken into consideration in upholding its patents and charging royalties.
If a company had spent 5 years and billions in R&D of an innovative new type of engine it would get a high R&D value (dont ask me how thats calculated
The patent system is to give incentive and it does that by giving just enough time for someone to use a patent as an advantage before its open to everyone.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Now, I have a track record of producing patentable ideas that are non trivial and leading edge. One of the things I considered was patenting some of them and starting a business based on the patents. But getting the patents would deplete my savings. I'd still need to have lawyers to protect and enforce them. That would involve getting a venture capitalist who would insist on getting most of the pie. That's a lot of work just to make someone else richer.
So, basically I just dump most of the stuff into the public domain to hopefully keep other people from patenting it and preventing me from using my own ideas. Looks like somebody may be picking up on one of them. I can't say too much about it, but if it works out, Microsoft is really going to be pissed at me.
1. An agency will be set up to oversee the state Bar... They will track how many frivilous suits a laywer is involved in and sanction attorneys who, say, take 5 of them to court that get tossed or they lose invoking loser pays. Sanctions should include suspensions and eventual disbarment.
The state bars already do this to a certain extent. And judges are given wide latitude to do whatever they want to lawyers who argue before them.
3. The losing lawyer should have to forefit all fees to the WINNING party if loser pays is invoked.
That would be unfair. Lawyers have stringent ethical standards about their relationships with their clients. If your client comes in, demands you file a lawsuit, and there's at least some merit to the case, you're supposed to file the lawsuit. Lawyers advise against their clients doing things all the time.
You also, like many slashdotters, seem convinced that the result of every lawsuit is easy to foresee, which just isn't the case.
5. Contingency fees should be subject to a 75% tax.
Very, very dangerous, and of doubtful legality. A government that starts selectively laying taxes against people it doesn't like will eventually get to you.
6.Judges should have greater lattitude in disposing of frivilous cases out of hand, INCLUDING forcing the plantiff to show sufficient evidence in initial discovery to show cause for there to be a valid claim for trial (think SCO here). This should be based on the theroy that if you DONT ALREADY HAVE EVIDENCE TO TRY SOMEONE, you don't belong in court!
Judges already have this.
I think the big problem is people here (and elsewhere) overreact to what they hear in the media.
Like, the news will report "X has filed a lawsuit against Y over ", and people go crazy. "How can they do this? The legal system is BROKEN". All it means is that X went to the courthouse, paid a small filing fee, and filled out a form. It doesn't mean the case will get to trial, or the complaint will even survive the defendant's initial answer.
The second thing that people go berserk over is when the media reports some insanely high damages award. "200 MILLION?! Those damn lawyers!" Again, overreaction. And a weird laying of blame. Juries decide cases. Juries decide awards, too. If 13 people who know about the case much better than you, and have been informed about all the relevant legal standards to apply pick a number, sometimes that number is actually a fair one.
But let's ignore all that, and just go on the assumption that high awards are never fair. Even then the slashdot crowd and the general viewing public are jumping the gun. Many states have statutory caps on damages. Even in those states which don't have statutory caps there are constitutionally mandated ones. Judges have interpreted the 5th and 14th amendments to limit unreasonably large settlements, and will routinely knock them down substantially.
So before you get upset over a lawsuit, wait and see if it survives the defendant's motion to dismiss, or motion for summary judgment.
And before you get upset over a high damage award, see if the judge knocks it down first.
What 'loser pays' does, is remove civil lawsuits as a remedy against corporations, since corporations can almost always afford to pay any sort of legal fees a citizen could amass, but a private citizen is rarely going to be able to afford the corporations legal fees if they lose the suit.
If the private citizen's claim is correct, then in theory he or she should win, and hence loser pays is not an impediment to justice. (If you believe that the US court system is such that you can get away with anything if you have sufficient money for high-powered lawyers, that's a separate problem needing to be solved.)
How about an overly complex, ambiguous, highly exploitable system of law? (in other words, big government)
For the record, the patent system is not ambiguous. It is true that patents that are ambiguous or overly broad can slip through the system. But the system itself is well defined.
And it may not have occurred to you but every system is exploitable, just in a different way. If there weren't patent protections, people would be stealing legitimate inventions willy-nilly.
1. The loser reprsesents a corporation
2. The loser has means (more than a $5 million net worth) in the case of it being an individual.
Why should people with net worth up to five million dollars get a free pass? A lot of frivolous lawsuits are launched by people of relatively modest means. The television commmercials for personal injury firms aren't targeting people with millions in net worth--they're targeting working stiffs: trying to lure them into playing the lawsuit lottery. Perhaps the amount the loser pays should be tied to income--give judges some discretion here--but you can't go giving a free ride.
A defendant should never be subject to loser pays, only the initiator.
Defendants should be and are already subject to loser pays. Courts generally award costs to the plaintiff if the action is successful. This makes sense: if as a plaintiff you suffered genuine damages, and had to go to court to recover them, you shouldn't be out of pocket.
~Idarubicin
As I said, losing a lawsuit does not mean that the Lawsuit was frivolous.
There is a difference between a Frivolous lawsuit (suing McDonald's because I'm fat), and a Lawsuit with merit, that is lost (suing Ford for negligence relating to SUV Roll-Overs).
What 'loser pays' means, is that you must have an absolutely air-tight, 100% case before attempting a lawsuit as a private citizen or small firm. And if it's 100% air-tight, there really isn't any need for a trial now is there?
The whole point to a trial is to determine the facts when they are in dispute. 'Loser pays' removes that option from the private citizen, and makes corporations nearly untouchable, since a private citizen can't risk failure without facing bankruptcy.
If there weren't patent protections, people would be stealing legitimate inventions willy-nilly.
If there were no patents, nobody would even think of calling it "stealing"...
-- Qu'est-ce que la propriété intellectuelle? It is thought control.
And if there were no concept of the ownership of physical property no one would ever think of calling it "stealing" either.
Did you have some point to make?
When is some company that gets screwed by the incompetence of the Patent Office going to sue them for the damages they cause?
Xesdeeni
I'm glad people are shocked. I was shocked. When people stop being shocked by this sort of thing, we really are in trouble...
In the medical scanner scenario you have mentioned, the company might as well sell the machine after making the buyer sign an agreement in paper-and-ink --- no reverse-engineering, no disclosure, etc., just like today's NDAs. This is a bit of trouble involved, granted, but should be feasible for most things involved in "reasonable" patents today, such as a medical scanner or some new medicine, which cost quite a bit already. If the company still find it too much trouble, it may choose to do nothing and hope noone will reverse engineer their product too quickly (like the companies who don't want to spend money on applying for patents), otherwise I think it is a fair price for the company to pay in order to hoard its knowledge --- if your stuff is good enough people will still buy it even with the trouble of signing papers. Anyway the situation is quite similar to that with patents, just that everyone knows what are they allowed to do, and noone will get stabbed in the back.