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Profiting From A Vague Patent HOWTO
tunabomber writes "IEEE Spectrum has an in-depth article about the rise of Acacia Research Corporation and its plan for enforcing its patent on 'Digital Media Technology' (which seems to lay claim to any technology that transmits audio or video digitally for entertainment purposes). You may recall that there was a story on Slashdot over a year ago about Acacia's threats and subsequent lawsuits against some small adult entertainment companies regarding their violation of the patent. There was also an Ask Slashdot posted a while back by the owner of one of these companies who had received a letter from Acacia Research demanding that they pay licensing fees. Both Slashdot stories asked how long it would be until Acacia went after the big media companies. Well, they finally did last week. It appears that Acacia just had to get enough companies (Disney and Virgin Radio, among others) to pay licensing fees before they could afford a legal adventure against the big guys. DirectTV, Comcast, Echostar, and Charter Communications are some of the defendents. Let the fireworks begin!"
Someone should patent the method for profiting from vague patents... then sue everyone profiting from vague patents.
Are there really some companies dedicated to entertaining dwarves ???
Trolling using another account since 2005.
In the age of digital cluelessness in the patent office, something like this was bound to happen sooner or later. It's hard to even tell if it's a win/win situation, because if they really go all-out on something as general as "patent of a device that broadcast digital entertainment" (paraphrased), the amount of heads that will roll in the process will make the french revolution look like a cakewalk in comparison.
Meanwhile, the sharks are rubbing their collective fins at the prospect, and ironing their armani suits no doubt.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
There are an umber of "ASCII art" utilities out there that "streamed" images to teletypes and terminals way back when. Some pretty racy images at times, too ;)
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
Is it just me or do these issues only seem to happen when some no-name corporation "remembers" that they somehow invented a wide-sweeping technology? It seems that when legitmate corporations enforce patent/copyright for things they actually invented from the get-go, nobody questions it. Is it human spirit to "take what you can get when they're not looking" or are these bozos just out to make a cheap buck?
I think that the reason they went after the online porn industry was to establish legal precedent.
After all, in court, isn't it simple enough to find bias against people who "harm society" to make judgements not based on the rule of law?
-PM
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
>1. Obtain vague patent
>2. Enforce vague patent
>3. ???
>4. Profit!!!
After all the articles we've read, there is clearly 1 superior way to profit. Everytime I've seen someone make one of these, this one applies. Same method. Everytime.
1. Become a lawyer
2. Profit
Talk about being in high demand? There will ALWAYS be some rich asshole who wants to sue another rich asshole.
Since when are Disney and Virgin not considered big companies?
Say this company files suit against Comcast, et al, and other big media behemouths. Comast et al will argue in court against the validity of the patent being awarded. Assume they're successful, and the patent gets tossed. What recourse does this company's previous licensors have? Are they capable of reclaiming their money?
is an effective deterrent against bogus patents. IE you have to pay the patent office a lofty fine if your patent gets overturned in court. However, I can't think of a system that would:
a) get through the special interest dominated congress and
b: Be effective at making huge companies afraid of the fine while at the same time not intimidating legitimate companies from applying for legitmate patents.
Scylla and Charybdis...
And yes, I do think there are legitimate software patents, for example if this company had developed it's own compression algorithm, and unique, and very specific, distribution method, then they probably deserve a patent for it, but if they just say they invented distributing entertainment digitally, then there is no basis for the patent and they should be punished accordingly.
I own the patents for the following vague ideas:
1) A method for translating program source code into a machine runnable format.
2) A method for displaying a computer's file system (see earlier patent for details) based on the top of a typical desk.
3) A number system based solely on the numbers 1 and 0.
4) A method for having sex with a computer (you know it'll happen one day... and when it does... I'm rolling in the cash)
Anyone have the number for a good (i.e. slimey) lawyer?
-m
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# Modus Ponens
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Personally, I feel that software patents should only be awarded if the source code is open. Not necessarily GPL'd, but open in that your competition may have a legitimate opportunity to view the design.
Seventy five years ago, if you devised a new engine for a car, your competition could buy one, rip it apart and copy your ideas. So patents made sense. But in closed source software design, the products are black boxes that frequently can be describe only on more general terms. So we get these patent applications for abstract functions.
IMHO, patents should only be awarded if a company is willing to open its source code to an extent. It can still be proprietary, but there must be the legitimate opportunity for someone else to be able to "look inside" to see how it works. If a company want to keep it's code closed, fine. But no patent.
Just my two cents.
No, the people who would lose are the ones who settle. Since they didn't fight it, they basically said "here is free money, stop annoying me." Most settlements don't include agreements about if this patent should "go away." Though frankly, I would want to make sure my lawyer worked like hell to get it in.
Now I'm curious. Disney's lawyers are as infamous (or infamouse) as IBM's. What are they doing settling out of court for an iffy patent?
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Take for example IBM. They have patented everything related to object oriented operating systems under their Taligent/San Francisco project.
They could sue Sun (J2EE) or Microsoft (.NET), and just anybody using things like Object-oriented window area display system, pat. no. 6,750,858, Object-oriented event notification system with listener registration of both interests and methods, pat. no. 6,424,354 or Distributed object networking service, pat. no. 6,223,217, just to name a few.
Crazy. We have to figure out a better patent system which stills protect intelectual property but also protects us from this nonsense.
Really, this is GOOD. Let the big companies keep getting hosed by the patent system. Let them see how patenting IP and having closed source propietary software will constantly hose the ability to "do your work" and just keep costing money and money and money and money and be a serious PITA to actually DO anything. Eventually, doing anything even remotely fun, interesting, or productive will be so expensive that the system will crash and burn under it's own bloat. Let it become unprofitable to use patents and restrictive copyrights. Let them keepdoing what they are doing. The lawyers and licensing fees alone will start to make companies just stop being involved with it, eventually it might even get through to some legislators noggins that the patent and copyright system is completely broken and has been broken for a long time. It won't end until joe user all the way to joe big company needs to have a lawyer on a tether with them all the time, and just have their paychecks direct deposited to the lawyers account, and the lawyers cut you a small chump change allowance.
In other words, let it burn! I feel the same way about this as I do vulnerable windows machines. The quicker it gets to a ridiculous level of unusability level the quicker it can be fixed with a REAL fix which is a total replacement system, because sure as snot they won't fix it until then, just keep applying patches that just make it worse, because they refuse to address the core issue, which is intangible thoughts shouldn't be patented in the first place. It was an INSANE precedent to let the first intangible anything get patented.
Turns out one of the key objectives of this patent:
Seems to me that all current broadcasters I know of that are listed in the suit fail to meet this criteria of sending the signal in a fraction of real time, and hence, bye bye lawsuit. I wish they would, but I have to record only one show at a time, during the broadcast window, and cannot record anything else during that broadcast window, hence, I believe they fail to infringe upon this patent. of course, the obligatory: IANAL.The cesspool just got a check and balance.
If you are reading this from any part of the world aside from the United States, you already know this history. Hell, you're living it. That's why you hate us. That's why you either shake your head in disbelief or merely point your finger and chuckle. You see the black muck that is the personification of the stereotypical American. From outside the bubble, man, that is one ugly sight.
No one can argue that it is sickening how members of a rich society are able to chuck their conscience and morality out the window and shamelessly take advantage of a hampered and flawed system. All this without a hint of concern on how their actions may be affecting the lives of millions of unwitting countrymen. But, what is often overlooked is the long term detrement these actions have on the American economy.
Based on this kind of crap, who in their right mind would ever consider basing a business, of any type or any size, in the United States anymore? Even the stallwarts of the ecomony are picking up and moving. Offshoring is a big a problem as most folks think it is, regardless of what the "industry insiders" have to say about it.
If asshole "business executives" and their brigades of lawyers are further allowed to get away with this type of behaviour, who is going to be left? Folks in the service industries, that's it. And they'll be catering to people from other countries who stopped by for a visit to see all the carnage. And where do you think these idiots who are causing all the problems will be? Not here, that's for damn sure. They'll be at their beach house on some remote island far, far away from the garbage they left on the curb.
This isn't about being conservative or liberal, black or white, rich or poor to us normal folks. This is about a few talentless nasty bottom feeders ruining the most powerful economy in modern history.
Well, gee, thanks. Maybe I can have a slice of apple pie with the dung heap you're feeding us. That should make it all better.
Yes, they could either do that, knowing full well the jerk is gonna have their ass in court because the broken finger didn't heal straight and they want evidence they did it according to accepted procedure, or simply refuse to service him. Either way, he/she is a liability they simply cannot afford.
That day is coming, the medical profession really has no alternative. Most of them have no problem with the real part of the damages if they screw up, but the awarding of punitives that are often 100x the real, or more, by a court system that thinks medicine should be absolutely infallible, all neatly defined etc etc, is the real shame of our american justice system.
Medicine, and its diagnosis and delivery are still more art, prior experience and instinct than hard fact, a situation thats slowly changeing with the ever less instrusive methods of seeing whats wrong inside the body coming online, but those methods generally cost money, lots of it. And they have to be paid for. If you are outputting 75% of the gross income in malpractice insurance, thats just that much less to spend on keeping uptodate, so its a self-defeating spiral.
If refusing service to a lawyer saves the potential of having the rates raised by another $100k next year, thats $100k that could be used as a downpayment on a cat scanner or similar gear. It makes perfect sense to me.
Cheers, Gene