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$400 Million IP Experiment Making Some Nervous
BrianWCarver writes "IP Law & Business shines the spotlight on Intellectual Ventures, the IP start-up founded in 2000 by former Microsoft chief technologist Nathan Myhrvold. According to some estimates, Intellectual Ventures has amassed 3,000-5,000 patents, with the help of a $400 million investment from some of the biggest technology companies, including Nokia, Intel, Apple, Sony, and Microsoft. As the patent stockpile grows, so does the speculation--and the fear. IP lawyers and tech executives worry that Intellectual Ventures is less interested in changing the world with big ideas, and more focused on becoming an über patent troll, wreaking litigation havoc across industries with its patents."
I knew I should have patented the idea of patent-trolling. Dang.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
not in the EU, as software patent are (still) not allowed :)
A company of this size and portfolia could litaerally drag the entire economy to a standstill if allowed to patent everything. It's one thing to have a whole bunch of different companies pushing competing patents, but when several large (and supposedly competing?) firms get together and pool their patents into one collossus, then you can be certain noone else will be allowed to enter any market remotly connected. This is not a good thing.
--Idiots, Every single one of YOU, A flaming mass of conglomerated morons, hey wait a second, isnt that how RAID works?
Sign me up!
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
How does patent work internationally?
Imagine in 10-20 years, China becomes the biggest economy in the world, it ignores all the US patents, and just use those patents to roll out their own products.
For example, a patented medicine sold by an US company to Africa at $10 per bill, and the same "Made-In-China" pill cost $0.01, what is to stop Africa from buying from China instead?
Right now US is still powerful enough so that other countries must agree to certain rules/laws made in USA, in exchange for free trade deals, but when that strength faded, so will the leverage.
I draw this opinion from the recent, possible change of international whaling law, where Japan is about to gather enough votes to start commercial whaling again. So what is deemed illegal in the last few decades will soon become acceptable when the power shifted.
Please stop entering code 2,2,7,6,6,4
All your base are belong to us...
In soviet russia, parents patent you.
They are proposing adding a 5th octet as an interim move until v6 is widely adopted.
That doesn't sound far off from what they're trying to do: patent every neat idea they can. "Hey! A fifth octet. IPv5! V5... hey! Patent a 5 cylinder internal combustion engine! {repeat ad infinitum}"
Trolling is a art,
With the sheer volume of patents they hold, the smart move would be to avoid garnering too much attention from Congress and instead sell advantage to competing companies. In other words, their primary source of income wouldn't come from pure patent protection litigation, it would come from companies paying them to tie up their competitors' product lines with injunctions and patent violation suits. The 800 lbs. gorilla would get richer as a hitman than as a tyrant.
*** *** You're just jealous 'cause the voices talk to me... ***
Nathan Myhrvold is not a nobody. He has a rich history all saved on google. A little bit of research should show you whether is a nice guy who is trying to make the world a better place or an evil son of a bitch or somewhere in between.
Anybody who has been throught the early years of Microsoft's war on the IT industry knows what kind of a person he is. Suffice it to say he is not a nice guy trying to make the world a better place.
evil is as evil does
What Intellectual Ventures could do is create a patent pool for the present members of the club.
It works like this: Microsoft transfers its patent portfolio to IV in return for a license to IV's patent portfolio. This is no loss to MS because they've already cross-licensed everything with Philips, Cisco, etc. -- all of whom do the same. From the POV of club members, nothing changes, except perhaps that they spend much less money negotiating cross-licensing agreements and pay a bit to IV for the convenience.
On the other hand, now IV has practically all of that throw weight. Anyone not an "Executive Member" of the club will have to pay (dearly!) to use any of the IV portfolio. What's more, Mutually Assured Destruction doesn't work because IV doesn't actually do anything -- they can't be sued for infringing patents when they don't make anything.
The upside to the club (aside from convenience noted above) is that any of the "little people" who get uppity are now facing the combined throw weight of all of the patents in the world -- and the club members don't have to accept the public-relations liabilities.
It's a total win-win situation. For instance, if done right Microsoft could keep Linux tied up in court forever without ever themselves taking a PR hit. Sort of like the BSA except for suppressing potential competition instead of keeping customers in line.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
With patent auctions all over the place (even online), I'm not surprised about Intellectual Ventures.
If you are in the mood to swallow some Grade A tripe, check out their business plan.
1. Invention Labs.
2. Invention Research & Development.
3. Invention Library (tm).
4. Market Enablement.
5. Profit!
By the way, the "tm" after the Invention Library means trademark. Yes, they've even patented terms in their business plan.
My work here is dung.
niché : a clichéd niche?
'They can't be screwing around with a bunch of ideas for that long,'
Why not? I've been screwing around with the idea of screwing around with multiple hot chicks since I can remember. Wish I could get a patent on that.
Gould & Fisk tried the same thing with the gold market. At which point, fundamental flaws in the gold standard and the Greenback became rather obvious.
Maybe we'll have the same corrections this time but without the economic collapse. Did I just suggest we've learned anything from the past? Very sorry, I'll stop now.
=^..^= all your rodent are belong to us
Here is an idea to protest against software patents.
Create an open source patent organization and start applying for software patents on behalf of open source coders for every little piece of innovation. The idea is to keep the threshold of what qualifies as innovation low to generate a huge list of patent applications.
Anything useless from "emphasizing email addresses containing a numbers in a word processing document" to "a real fancy way of optimizing inner loops in interpreted languages" to "a memory management code for NUMA architecture"
The important goal is not to get a software patent but to demonstrate the weakness of the system.
This will overwhelm the patent office. at best cause a change in thinking of policy makers. at least it will cause a headache for the patent mongers.
Alright patent bashing aside ...
As I understand IV from some people working with them (with the caveat that my understanding is not based on a direct relationship with them, but lunch conversations/rumor):
1) The $400M is NOT an investment. It is blackmail, like protection money. Company X pays IV for the costs of a patent portfolio with the understanding that IV will not sue Company X based on those patents (i.e. they get a license). So, Company X pays protection money to IV and IV gets new patents paid for to go sue others on.
2) There is no "speculation" that IV is a troll. As I understand it, that is their purpose.
3) IV doesn't invent anything. They buy blocks of patents on the cheap (especially if they get other firms to pay) from some other company's firesale. Usually these patents are an unusable mess and require massive clean-up. But, if you buy thousands of patents you'll hit gold eventually.
4) As a troll, if you don't have deep pockets, IV doesn't care about you (unless you have something to sell). This is cincontrast with real companies that often use their patents to prevent a second company from making a product. IV just wants money.
Imagine that Intel, AMD and IBM not only patented everything imaginable in the uProcessor space, but that they got together and cross-licensed all that tech.
On the face of it, this sounds advantageous. It allows more cool features in processors and alleviates those three companies from having to worry about getting involved in frivolous lawsuits with their main competitors.
Now perhaps Intel patented the XOR operation. Sure the patent is blatantly unfair, but since IBM and AMD can already use it then they have no need to fight intel's patent. THe only person who would want to fight it would be some new player in that space, but who'd have the resources?
If large corporations start broadly cross-licensing technologies then it'll effectively kill the little guy and sew up the market.
It's pronounced like "itch", not "itchay"
Wrong. The "i" is pronounced like a long e ("ee"), the "ch" is soft (like "sh"), there is no hard 't'. Phonetically, it is closer to "neesh".
The US Constitution recognized only individuals with respect to copyrights, patents, etc.. At the point where corporations were given equal status with individuals then all of the rights that had been held by individuals then became rights that corporations could also hold. Corporations can, with this accession, do things that no individual could possibly do. Therein lies many a disaster, many of which lie immediately ahead in the future. Every time a corporation petitions a legislator for a law that gives it more power, the rights of the individuals are the currency paid in this transaction. The eventual outcome of this, it should be clear to all by now, is that a few corporations will hold all the power and no individuals will have any rights except those that the corporations see fit to allow them to have to the extent that it fulfils the plan of the corporations to manipulate the people. As Ralph Nader has often explained, unless and until we people put an end to this individuals will find themselves with fewer and fewer rights, and corporations will grab more and more power over individuals. This is a war, folks. If you don't think so you are condemning your progeny to virtual slavery.
http://lwn.net/Articles/179597/
.NET implementation into the Fedora distribution. A set of Mono applications (Tomboy, Banshee, F-spot) also went in at that time. The move was generally welcomed, but a number of observers wondered what had changed to make the addition of Mono possible. The sticking point had been a set of patents on .NET held by Microsoft; presumably those patents were no longer seen as a threat. But no information on why that might be was released at that time.
Back in January, Red Hat reversed a longstanding policy and allowed the Mono
We missed it at the time, but Fedora hacker Greg DeKoenigsberg posted an explanation in late March. The answer, as it turns out, may offer some clues of how the software patent battle might play out.
Back in November, the Open Invention Network (OIN) announced its existence. OIN is a corporation which has been set up for one express purpose: to acquire patents and use them to promote and defend free software. The OIN patent policy is this:
Patents owned by Open Invention Network will be available on a royalty-free basis to any company, institution or individual that agrees not to assert its patents against the Linux operating system or certain Linux-related applications.
The list of "certain Linux-related applications" is said to exist, though it has not, yet, been posted publicly. But Mono is apparently on that list. So anybody who files patent infringement suits against Mono users, and who is, in turn, making use of technology covered by OIN's patents is setting himself up for a countersuit. Depending on the value of the patents held by OIN, that threat could raise the risk of attacking Mono considerably.
tasty electronic music vittles
On the contrary; maybe having the economy dragged to a standstill is the only way to let the politicians realize the folly of the 'everything's patentable' world. If it would lead to change, the temporary stagnation might be worth it.
Just like skyrocketting oil prices have convinced politicians on the need for alternative energy sources. Sure an economic standstill works, but it's horribly painful for everybody (except for those who are profiting short-term).
What is really needed is an education effort on IP reform. Not just for the politicians, but for the public at large, so they can elect forward thinking leaders.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
The UKPTO is one of EU member offices known to actively *reject* attempted software and business method patents even if it has to go all the way to the high court.
In fact, they were recently held as a 'good example' by the FFII.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
But see, it is because of big government that corporations CAN buy legistlation. More gov't isn't the answer, less gov't is.
The problem with prior art is that a patent troll can doctor it up in BS and try to patent it anyhow. It will probably slip past the patent office. It's true that it won't hold up in court, but for a small business looking at a multi-million dollar fight to defeat a troll's portfolio of prior art, it effectively eliminates competition.
Here's a video interview with him on CNET: http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/redir.php?jid=2185 46b58b244f4f&cat=52079c37c3706e15
Basically, his rationale is that because companies don't permit engineers to check patent portfolios and many companies don't actively check patents against their own products a lot of companies are in trouble.
Personally, though I'm not quite convinced. I believe it is a way to squeeze out the small players in the market. There's something about this guy that after seeing the video demonstrates one thing: not trustworthy. His body language and voice show through right away.
I wonder how much it costs to join the "club" and I wonder what kind of contract you have to sign to get in.
The way to win the software patent undoing is to make programminhg so damn easy that its hard to find novel.
. php/Tagging_Prototype
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstraction_physics Yeah, its up for deletion but that doesn't invalidate it. But its really not original research either.
http://developer.osdl.org/dev/priorart/wiki/index
NB:
-If the invention is, e.g. "one-click shopping" the public will reply "who gives a fuck?! duh!" Hence the non-obviousness requirement.
This is why patent-trolling is not just name-calling. Many companies (and here it seems we have the epitome) have, as their business model, making-it-impossible-for-others-to-do-their-work-w ithout-paying-us-a-fee.
Patents are supposed to be about collecting-a-fee-for-helping-others-do-their-work- better. In particular: helping them do it better in a way they might never have imagined.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Back in the late 80's, I was contacted by the lawyers for Commodore Computer. They were looking for potential witnesses in a lawsuit someone had brought against the company. It seems someone had patented the XOR instruction as it was applied to on screen graphics, and claimed that an enhanced BASIC program for the C-64 violated that patent. At the time, I was a C-64 software developer with some friends in West Chester (C='s HQ).I was never called, more's the pity since it would have involved a trip to San Francisco, all expenses paid. I think the lawsuit was dropped eventually, but still, that sort of thing really sucks. The lawyer told me that Apple had already settled with the guy to avoid their own lawsuit.
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
If you are technically smart and invent something but you try to create a patent your self for low cost you are likely to be screwed by lack of knowledge of legal drafting. So you have high upfront cost to pay for that language or figure it out yourself.
If you are an IP lawyer with not much technical skill, its ok if your idea isnt really new. It does not cost you much to submit more than one application, and the wording on some makes it new. But that is determined later. You have low upfront cost.
the problem with this idea is that if they abuse it, they will either destroy the patent as a concept or be dismantled by the/a government as it was with other overly abusive megacorps.
Now, if you could figure out how to turn other people into robo-zombies who you could direct over IRC to pay the $75 for you, you might actually be able to work things out. Or you could do an algorithmic complexity attack: figure out how the patent office sends claims to examiners, target an examiner in particular, and pre-calculate your patents to just overwhelm him. Of course, thats not likely to be nearly as effective in real life, because the Patent Office (unlike most hash algorithm) can probably load-balance without appreciably affecting the speed of their systems (it helps that hash algorithms are assumed to be fast, and the Patent Office... ha, ha, ha).
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.