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U.S. Supreme Court Deals a Blow to Patent Trolls
Anonymous Coward writes "Forbes is reporting that the Supreme Court has just limited the power of patent trolls to obtain permanent injunctions against infringers as a matter of course. The court has ruled that the principles of equity apply, meaning that a court considering slapping an injunction on the infringer must consider how much damage is really being done ... which in the case of EBay's Buy It Now feature, isn't much, since the company that owns this so-called patent only has it for the purposes of suing other people." From the article: "The high court's decision deals a blow to patent trolls, which are notorious for using the threat of permanent injunction to extort hefty fees in licensing negotiations as well as huge settlements from companies they have accused of infringing. Often, those settlements can be far greater than the value of the infringing technology: Recall the $612.5 million that Canada's Research in Motion forked over to patent-holding company NTP to avoid the shutting down of its popular BlackBerry service."
If they can't get simple terminology correct, how can we trust their reporting?
For those who're not following me, consider the following quote from the article:As they've written "owners of intellectual property" rather then "patent owners", the sentence actually means:This is clearly not true.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
...Creative just filed a lawsuit against Apple regarding the iPod.
Doh!
Apple lucked out. Creative can't get an injunction "just because" which could have been a serious blow to Apple's sales even if Creative ultimately lost the case.
This is yet another example of the upcoming "patently" evil Supreme Court, now stacked with far-right extremists and corporatists by BushCo. No checks and balances, controlling all three branches of govern...
Hmm? What's that? This is a good thing, and slashdot likes it?
Oh.
Hooray, Supreme Court!
(The decision was unanimous, by the way.)
Now let's watch until the big coorporations (I'm looking at you, Bill, and your adopted son Darl to!) ask the American Federal government to change this situation.
No really! This is just theft of income for some companies!
Positive things in the patent war never last. Mark my words.
Free beer is never free as in speech. Free speech is always free as in beer.
The problem with the "patent trolls" idea is that it's all but indistinguishable from the "small inventor with few resources" one in many cases.
This ruling does mean that if you're a small-time inventor that couldn't afford to implement your idea yourself, you can freely be ripped off by large corps that can, with impunity, since you wouldn't have made a lot of money without a major partner in any case.
Tell me again how patents are protecting the inventor against large corporations?
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
I guess this means my recently granted patent on "a method of maintaining a patent portfolio for the purpose of litigation and licensing" is never going to work out too well given I won't be able to the sort of injunctions I'd want against my targeted patent houses.
Well... back to the drawing board.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
I keep seeing comparisons of how RIM was "abused" in this manner. However, RIM is no stranger to using the courts to extort licensing fees either.
Granted, I think professional patent trollers ought to be shut down, but using RIM as an example of a "victim" in this process is a bit disingenius.
Won't this ruling hurt the garage inventor that doesn't have the business accumen to bring a product to market, but has the creativity needed to make new stuff?
Is the ruling, in essence, "patents were made to protect products, not ideas"?
Although I certainly regard this as good news in general for small businesses, it does bring up a concern.
Recently there seems to have been a rise in "patent trolling", I hope that this ruling does not cause "patent exploitation". I worry that, big business being what it is today, will use this as an excuse to further exploit other's patents without recourse.
If someone has a legitimate invention that they patented, they should be able to stop others from unlawfully using their work.
Not trying to disagree with the ruling, just saying that there are two sides to this coin.
I have a new idea and none of you can copy it since I have already patented it.
It's called 'Patent-It-Now' where you can take any new & obscure idea and instantly patent it for a small fee of $1999.99.
**Fees subject to change, please read the disclaimer for further details.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
But doesn't the ruling also hurt bona fide inventors, not to mention the many universities that fund their research and own the patents? To be sure, it plainly erodes the power that has been typically bestowed by a patent. Patent law unambiguously grants owners of intellectual property the same rights as regular property holders, including the right to exclude others from using their property. But the law also clearly states that injunctions "may"--not "shall"--be issued "in accordance with the principles of equity."
The interpretation of one word does not necessarily hurt a patent owner. It simply means the court has discretion to order an injuction, not that it is required to. If you're a legitimate inventor and you have a clear-cut case of infringement then this does not apply to you, but if you're a patent troll, only in it to bilk companies out of money enforcing patents you'd left mouldering in a drawer, then you may be out of luck unless you can prove your case. Frankly, this is the best thing to happen to the patent system in a while.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
This is positive even if it hurts the small inventor. This person I know works as a copyright lawyer. Coincidentally for Microsoft. Her job is to find vague ideas that have not been patented and patent them in as many countries as possible with the broadest most vague wording that could possibly hold up in court. Microsoft's idea is that 20 years down the road each patent will pay off itself 100 fold. So why is it okay to do something that hurts the small investor? Because now the small investor can't be sued when they come out with a breakthrough product simply because it infringes upon some BS patent held by a company with zero intentions of ever doing anything with it... well, except for using it to hold a small inventor hostage and take all his/her possessions.
All you need now is a new law, allowing patents to be annulled early if they are being misused. Physical property can be confiscated if it is misused, and proponents of the term "intellectual property" like to think that ideas can be owned like physical property, so why the hell not?
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Slashdot is patented under my name. Stop using it now or pay me $100 for each post added to this website since its inception. Thank you for your cooperation.
I was under the impression that EBay's Buy It Now was something users had been clamoring for from day one. I know I always thought, "It'd be nice to let someone pay immediately instead of dragging this out". It's basically an extension of "$XXX.XX OBO" into the online world.
Obviously, that's a bogus patent. Appending in the context of an online system shouldn't make it automagically patentworthy. Perhaps we should not allow ANY injunctions until the patent has been further reviewed by the USPTO. If the USPTO decides to revoke or invalidate a patent before the case goes to court, wouldn't that be better than letting it go to a high-profile court case and then having to read 35 stories about it on Slashdot?
True science means that when you re-evaluate the evidence, you re-evaluate your faith.
the company that owns this so-called patent only has it for the purposes of suing other people.
Why else would you own a patent?
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
So now a small company with little revenue is defenseless against big business, because if you're big you can pay for the lost revenue of a small company without blinking an eye. It was right the way it was: If you allow trading of patents as "intellectual property", then the cost of infringement must be the market value, not what the company that holds the intellectual property loses. Now the same patent has a different value depending solely on the size of the company that owns it.
RTFA? What FA?
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
"This subtle change doesn't destroy the shackles of our broken patent system, but it certainly loosens the bonds that tie innovation down. And perhaps most importantly, it demonstrates that the Supreme Court understands how oppressive the current legal system has become with respect to patent litigation. This decision is, perhaps, a portent of how the Court might feel about several other important patent issues it is schedulued to hear."
From Right to Create
Don't you get it? She used the word "unambiguously" right before saying something completely ambiguous!
Hahahaha.
Throwing aside the topic of software patents because this apparently applies to all patents, isn't this basically just forced licensing? I thought the whole point of getting a patent was so that you were the only one that could legally create instances of your invention. Now it seems you can get a patent, and your competition can go ahead and use it anyway? In that case, why not just chuck out patents altogether?
Won't this ruling hurt the garage inventor that doesn't have the business accumen to bring a product to market, but has the creativity needed to make new stuff?
Is the ruling, in essence, "patents were made to protect products, not ideas"?
No, the ruling doesn't in any way change what is or is not protected by a patent... it just changes what sort of immediate business-ruining action (through injunction) a patent holder can take while trying to get things sorted out. For someone that only holds on to patents for the purpose of suing productive parties actually making money on the technology/idea in question, it's a poke in the eye (good!). For someone that can legitmately demonstrate that another company is running around making money on their patented idea... well, this doesn't stop them from still forcing a change and collecting damages as appropriate, just as they'd always have done.
Now, the only reason I can see the ol' injunction still having merit would be when the patent holder can show that, say, every day the Bad Guys are doing business with the other company's patented idea, the other company is losing out on a future market that may just never come back their way. Some ideas only have a certain useful life, or once another company has made a market entry with it, it's the end of the opportunity, no matter what happens in court later. The ruling here provides courts with an opportunity to still review and act on such things, but not to reflexively grant an injunction just because someone says they should. They have to actually think about the situation. It's a good thing.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
So if I build a warp drive, and sell it to areospace companies, star trek cannot do the injunction thing because it has no working warp drive that its selling to space companies?
Often, those settlements can be far greater than the value of the infringing technology: Recall the $612.5 million that Canada's Research in Motion forked over to patent-holding company NTP to avoid the shutting down of its popular BlackBerry service.
If the Blackberry service wasn't worth $612.5 million to RIM, they wouldn't have paid, but rather shut it down. So that actually is an example where the value of the technology was more than the settlement - it would have made no sense for RIM to agree to pay more than the technology was worth.
Note that I'm using "service" and "technology" interchangeably here: The value of an technology is no absolute, but the amount of value that can be generated by utilizing it.
Well this is good news. It means that there is less opportunity for RIM jobs.
yeah yeah, mod me down for the horrible-punned-to-death-already.
"I have great faith in fools: Self confidence my friends call it." ~Edgar Allan Poe
Could read either way. On balance, the abuse of the patent system is harmful and needs to be addressed. That should be handled, however, by legislation, not litigation. Allowing the common law to change the patent system may briefly serve the greater good, but it is ultimately a bad thing, m-kay. Sadly, we're sort of left with no other options. Our esteemed reps in Washington are utterly obsessed with winning votes and power so they can ... enact policies to further secure their votes and power. One begins to wonder if term limits might have been a good idea after all.
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
...before we celebrate, let's just hope that the result of this isn't that big companies will simply ignore / attempt to perpetually delay a judgement in order to bankrupt the little guy.
After all, patent lawyers are among the most expensive lawyers out there and realistically, not everyone can afford to hire one for a year or two. And lawyers being lawyers, you'll have a hard time finding one that will stick around after you run out of money.
And really, patent trolls will still be able to hunt for judges (and more importantly, travel cross country to for the court dates) and will still send out threatening letters and generally act like the leeches that they are.
Meanwhile, the uspto will still grant stupid patents...
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
Many companies hoard pools of patents without ever having the intent of suing people, but only using them as self defense if they get sued. All and all, this limits the power of the defenders just as much as the patent trolls, but doesn't solve the fundamental problem with patents. If 10 million people own patents, and everybody uses those patents, then each person get's the value of one patent, but has to pay the license of 10 million patents. On the other hand, if there were no patents, then each inventor would loose royalities over one patent, but gain the value of 10 million patents. It is stupid to treat petnets like they have the natural limits of physical property. Patents simply won't work in a world of 5 billion people where everybody is nickeling, diming, and suing each other to death. That is, except to reward big large giants at the expense of killing off small innovators.
If the Blackberry service wasn't worth $612.5 million to RIM, they wouldn't have paid, but rather shut it down. So that actually is an example where the value of the technology was more than the settlement - it would have made no sense for RIM to agree to pay more than the technology was worth.
... it's still a $1k car. You're just going to be paying 5 times that. The value has been artificially increased, and only in relation to you.
I think you're a bit confused on the concept of "value".
The technology wasn't necessarily worth $612.5 Million. The ramifications of being shut down by an injunction were. This is called extortion in many cultures.
If I tell you you're going to pay $5000 for car with an actual value of $1000 or else I'm going to break your legs so you can't walk to where you need to go
- Roach
Your question implies that the goal of patents is to protect small inventors against competition. Let's not lose sight of the fact that this is NOT the goal of patents. Their goal is to increase the number of useful inventions to which the public has access. It is only incidental (i.e. a means to an end) that the method being tried to achieve this aim happens to be granting a temporary monopoly. Interpreted one way, this ruling by the supreme court says it's not right to create an idea and then simply sit and goal tend it... I don't know the court's reasoning (haven't read the article or the ruling) but this would seem to align with the idea of making useful things available to the public.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
OK, the point of communication is to convey an idea from one person to another. If the idea was conveyed accurately enought that you could point out the misspellings, you got the damn point.
Regardless of spelling, communication was successful. You are doing nothing more than proving you are an intellectual weakling with no new thoughts of his own, whose only flexing of his mighty intellect is to point out when someoen else "fails" to follow a rule structure that is (mostly) inconsequential to the purpose at hand.
I'd rather make numerous spelling errors and be able to convey fresh and complex ideas than spell perfectly and only be able to rehash dribble that I didn't completely understand.
mentioned this case in reference to the patent issue with the iPod. Apple will be less likely, as well as other victims of patent troll companies, to settle under the threat of a court injunction. I heard this on the way to work this morning from some NPR analysts who were commenting following this ruling.
I see this as a small victory for patent reform. Perhaps this aspect of patent law will help to make the U.S. a little less litigious, or at least less frivilously so. I will just love to see these patent troll companies get their due.
w2^7me out.
Laywers would never do anything so blatantly against the interests of patent laywers. Same old, same old... become a judge and get very uptight about being *seen* to do the right thing. Sell out your old buddies in the lawyer trade... Take away legitimate patent-layer-bottom-feeder monies and make the domain of patents just /slightly/ less insane.
Yep, it's true what they say. You never remember your friends when you go to the top !
I always wondered.
Man, you really need that seminar!
So they got one right this time.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Patent laws need a change. People shouldn't get away with patenting ideas like MercExchange just did. "buy it Now" is an idea. It is not technology. Amazon.com's 1-click does the same exact thing.
Patent Law should be changed so only physical and exact things are patented. One should not be able to patent ideas. This includes software patents.
\
I think what happened to RIM is wrong, but I also think better examples can be found since RIM has also abused the same system they are now decrying.
To expand on your metaphor above. Do I think a convicted rapist deserves to get his sphincter reamed out in prison? No, but I suspect the victim might. So if you want to appeal to my sense of outrage over rape, using a convicted rapist as your example victim profile isn't likely to be successful even if it's morally correct.
You make this argument that Creative isn't patent trolling based upon past Creative actions (actually making innovative products). But this appear to be changing. Look at Creative's mp3 player sales trends. They are not doing well in the marketplace. And furthermore they made a huge flash memory buy to lock in prices when they were rising a bit back, and they are hugely underwater on it.
In short, many of these patent trolls are shells of companies that used to do actual innovative work. If you looked at them at one time you would have said they are in no way just patent trolls. And it is very possible Creative is following this path. Things may look different soon.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
You know, I'm seeing a bunch of comments about how this ruling might be bad for small-time inventors. I kind of see a problem with this line of thought, though, and that is the fact that the patent situation is already bad for these guys. The good part, however, is that the threat of patent litigation just got a lot better for the "guy in his garage".
>I think professional patent trollers ought to be shut down
They'r'e certainly not contributing much to society as things currently work.
What if the USPTO only granted valid patents and cancelled all the junk ones that are lying around? What if companies which hoard patents were to offer a search and licensing scheme, so that you could ask "Does anyone know a solution to this problem?" and they could say "Yes, here it is, $50,000 flat fee or $15,000/year"? What if they acquired patents by paying fair prices to inventors?
Then the "patent portfolio" companies would be performing a useful economic service, and we'd be so much better off that it would be worth dodging the flying pigs.
For the most part it is a pretty cut and dry decision stating that a 4-part based on the principles of equality should be applied before an injunction is granted. Specifically:There is an interesting part of Thomas opinion:This basically lays out that just because a patent owner has no intention of selling or making the product does not mean that they automatically fail the 4-part test. Presumably if they also have no intention of licensing the patent to someone they would fail the test, but this isn't specifically said in the decision. Might be something to watch for in the future.
Off to read the two concurring opinions.
"I have a porkchop, you have a porkchop. I have a veal, you have a veal".
>Because now the small investor can't be sued when they come out with a breakthrough product simply because it infringes upon some BS patent
Sure they can. The change here is that the plaintiff has to show some evidence of actual loss to get a permanent injunction. In my non-lawyerly understanding that's the way injunctions have always worked in the real world.
http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2006/05/supreme_co urt_v.html
There goes my plans to patent getting First Posts, telling worn out In Soviet Russia jokes, and goatse/tubgirl redirects.
Oh wait. They dealt a blow to patent trolls, not troll patents. Whew!
Having said that, this case closer J. Random Troll getting a patent for "barter - in space!" and then suing eBay because they have customers with satellite linkups. It's still a stupid patent lawsuit, but not for the reason you gave.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I've a bit of the lexdiexlicia and i quickly missread the headline:
U.S. Supreme Court Deals Blow to Patient Trolls
Pamela Jones has posted an article on Groklaw written by Theodore C. McCullough Esq that does an in-depth analysis of this case based upon many of the amicus curiae briefs. I've not read it in detail yet, but it looks highly interesting.
That should be handled, however, by legislation, not litigation.
In this case though, current legislation is adequate, judges are allowed to issue an injunction against the patent infringer to help resolve the dispute. What happened though was that the injunction became automatic as soon as the district court found the defendent to be infringing - this is what went beyond the legislation. This ruling actually returns power to existing legislation which was more flexible than how the district court was ruling.
Patents can be used a bit like nuclear weapons - you don't intend on using them, but the fact that you have them prevents somebody else from using theirs.
Same deal with patents - you'll think twice about suing somebody for patent infringement if they're likely sitting on a patent they can sue you for infringing.
Patents can also be used in trade - I'll let you use my patents if I can use your patents. Particularly handy agreement with a competitor to keep new competitors out of a marketplace.
paintball
Don't you mean, "Think of the children?" :)
Why is parent marked Insightful? If you'd RTFCD (... ... ... Court Decision) you'd see that SCOTUS said 'this lower court's been doing it wrong the whole time. They should have been doing it this way.' Theoretically this changes nothing: the lower court's rule (automatic injunction) was in fact the overreach here.
... is ultimately a bad thing, m-kay." proves nothing. Why in particular is common law bad as applied to the patent system? Common law is an important part of our law system and was deliberately included; you're either arguing that entire design choice was wrong (universally) or that there is something special about patent law which ought to make it exempt.
And besides - merely asserting that "Allowing the common law to change the patent system
What's the difference between a patent troll and an individual with a patent and no ability to produce something (yet). A patent is a handy thing to have when seeking VC so you can tell people what you need money for without getting ripped off. Now, if some big company rips off your idea, the court can just say "oh, it's OK because he doesn't make any money from this patent - he's a troll". The problem is NOT patent trolls, it's a system that grants patents for any stupid little thing.
If you invent something, and are unable to bring it to market (yet) and someone else brings it to market, you'll look like a troll if you go after them. You might even skip building/marketing your invention and just license it to big companies that have the ability to take the idea to market. If some nasty company reads your patent instead of talking to you, and develop the product on their own - and you sue? Now you're a troll.
Another issue: If this causes a reduction in troll attacks on big companies, the patent system is less likely to get fixed. These high stakes cases demonstrate that there is a problem. Let's fix the problem, not just make the cases go away.
That should be handled, however, by legislation, not litigation.
I agree. Unfortunately, our choice isn't between handling it judicially or handling it legislatively. Our choice is handling it judicially or not handling it at all. Congress has made it clear they're not going to fix a very, very broken patent system.
what about a patent on thinking yet?
that way if someone tries to get a new patent, you will be infringing on my patent of thinking and my patent on how to get a patent since you had to think to come up with a new way of technology and then a patent for it. i guess its time to apply for that..
http://www.scotusblog.com/movabletype/archives/200 6/05/more_on_ebay_v.html
FTA:
In short, the case is going back to square one with no instruction as to how to rule. The Court's only dictate is to follow the old four-factor test and to stop thinking creatively about how to improve the status quo.
First off, way too many non-innovative software patents are issued. 1-click is just an example. Basically, these patents fail the test for non-obviousness and should never have been patented. (The test for obviousness should include a question of, "if you were asked to solve this problem, how would you solve it?" If the same answer is likely to be arrived at by a significant percentage of developers, then it shouldn't be patentable.)
But some truly innovative things have been patented, and it seems like a reasonable idea to allow for patents for those things. An example I'll cite is the patents on certain encryption technology like RSA. While the RSA patent has hurt some software innovation elsewhere (particularly in the FOSS world), by and large the inventors have added an immense value to the software ecosystem and the economy as a whole, and it seems fair that they should be able to reap their just rewards. A short term monopoly on the technology they invented is reasonable, I think.
But it also seems reasonable to shorten the term limit on software patents. A ten year patent gives the holder a nice window to reap the rewards, while ensuring that the patented IP will eventually fall into the public domain before it loses all of its relevance. :-)
Trade secrets as an alternative to patenting don't work well, IMO, because they are too easily leaked or reverse engineered, and then the secret is worthless. The RC5 algorithm is an example of this, as are the work to reverse engineer the p54 softmac firmware or the broadcom wifi drivers on Linux.
Now, this case is great in that it may prevent submarine patents that have plagued the industry recently.
The other good news about software patents is that they do expire, and much earlier than copyright.
What? We only "harmonize" when it INCREASES rights owners rights? Arrrrgghh.
Re: All through this article, Ms Holzer uses the term "intellectual property owner" where she means "patent owner".
I checked TFA and the author uses the term "owners of intellectual property" twice, balancing this by referring to "patent trolls" three times.
Or course, I wish she'd called IP by its correct name, "Invention Piracy".
Reduce, reuse, cycle
P.S., if one is in an arguement with one's wife, this is not a nit, but a key concept.
"often, those settlements can be far greater than the value of the infringing technology: "
If the company couldn't have a product without infringing on a patent, then the value of that patent is the amount the company has made from the product.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Gee, I would have thought that /. would have posted a story about the fact that the PTO granted a rexam of the Amazon one click patent on Friday, but I guess I'll have to wait...
Disclaimer: IANAL (let alone an IP or Constitutional law Lawyer)
I have nothing to add to the details of this particular case, but I think it is at least interesting that this appeal, from the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) was a UNANIMOUS REVERSAL. Over the past 30 years or so, the CAFC (and predecessor Court of Customs and Patent Appeals) has pretty much been the interpreter of US Patent Law. But for a few, scattered reversals by the SCOTUS, what sayeth the CAFC, rules. And the CAFC has been, over this time period, the best friend that patent applicants and owners could ask for, oncluding, beyond this question of injuctive relief, lowering the bar on what is needed to overcome a determination of obviousness (you have to show "motivation" to combine two or more references), or expanding the scope of subject matter that might be patented (software and business methods).
This is an indication that at least some of the antics of the CAFC will not be rubber stamped by the SCOTUS. Of course this is not to say that the SCOTUS won't ratify these other CAFC expansions, but it goves some hope that this judicial loose cannon might have its muzzle plugged, at least a bit.
They should have just abolished patents altogether.
My company sells gasoline. I discover that an inventor has discovered a way to
make a car that gets 200 mpg. I offer him a kings ransom for his invention and he
sells it to me. I now plan on using the patent to keep anybody from making and selling
this invention so I can sell more gas. I guess this makes me a troll and this ruling makes
it unlikely for me to succeed on this plan?
NOTE...sounds like a your classic urban myth??????
Recall that NTP only sued Blackberry when Blackberry was quite publically rumbling that they were considering suing Palm and other handheld vendors (Sidekick) for similar features in their handsets.
One begins to wonder if term limits might have been a good idea after all.
They aren't. California has term limits on its state assembly and believe me, it's worse. Our hobbyist legislature can't get anything done so the Governator tries to legislate by statewide referendum. The only thing worse than term limits is direct democracy on every niggling detail of state business, and term limits basically turned California into a giant direct democracy which does just that. In the modern world this translates into government by TV commercials.
Let us have our professional legilsators back! They may have been corrupt, but at least they knew what they were supposed to be doing.
Edith Keeler Must Die
You should know that corporations, big and not so big, will NEVER EVER buy a patent from some small inventor to stick it to a competitor.
I tried myself many times to sell my own very valid and potentially very troublesome patent to many companies - all they do is start infringinh immediately but they will NEVER give you a dime for your patent.
Call it some unwritten bussiness ethnics
- "Brewery best practice tells us that the optimum amount of hops in the beverage is
..."
- "Brewery best practice tells us that the optimum amount of hops in beverages is
..."
The first is correct because it uses the definite article, which implies the speaker and the listener have an already established understanding about which beverage in particular is being referenced (and thus does not require more specific language). The second does not have that key implication as it lacks an article. In fact, since it lacks an article, it versy specifically refers to beverages in general.Compare to the article quote:
- "Patent law unambiguously grants owners of intellectual property
..."
It is most like the second version of the brewing example, because it also lacks an article. (The quote is a slightly different situation merely because intellectual property is uncountable, so the singular form is always used.) Strictly speaking, this phrasing refers to intellectual property in general, just like my version of your brewing example.A more correct version would refer to "such intellectual property", or "this intellectual property", or perhaps "said intellectual property". Or, for something completely different, it could be rephrased to avoid using the term "intellectual property" at all.
You really know nothing about the case or the history. It was the Fed. Cir. who changed the rules, SCOTUS just put back in place what is the rule nearly everywhere else and has been for hundreds of years.
Also, the decision is squat, injunctions will still be issued in almost all cases, and on remand, it will probably be issued against Ebay.
...I'd like there to be a patent-related story in which the inevitable "I'm gonna patent patents, har-dee-har-har" joke doesn't get modded "+5 Funny".
You make a good point that the public good of widely available inventions exceeds the individual loss from inability to exclude others from the use of a given invention.
This is why we need a patent royalty clearinghouse to promote the use of patented technology and pay inventors a portion of the value they create without requiring them to negotiate on their own behalf, track down infringers, or wage costly lawsuits and wait many years for payment.
Since the benefits of unfettered access to technology are public goods, the costs of the royalties should also be borne by the public directly, rather than indirectly through higher prices of products made by companies who pay royalties and must compete against those who find it cheaper to infringe. To allow a royalty pool commensurate with the benefits of invention rather than fixed arbitrarily in the budget, the revenue to pay royalties could come from some mechanism such as a tax on wholesale sales with rates set according to the degree different classes of products benefit from patented technology.
For this to work, a robust, un-gameable mechanism for valuing the economic benefit of each patent is needed, preferably based on market principles, but in practice likely requiring a combination of voluntary system of manufacturers confidentially disclosing details of their designs to the royalty clearinghouse and a cadre of expert engineers to analyze products and identify the applicable patents. These engineers would have an incentive to rationalize existing overlapping patent claims and to challenge bad patents. Even a flawed valuation system would be far more fair and effective at promoting the progress of the useful arts than the patent system today.
In order to ensure that patents are actually used and thus earn royalties, patents would come to be written with much more clarity and information on how the invention can be profitably used, as opposed to today where obscurity is intentional for defensive, blocking and "gotcha" patents. A great deal of technology would actually be used instead of sitting on the shelf. Far more money would go to inventors rather than transaction costs and litigation fees. Although the lawyers would get a smaller slice, the pie would be so much bigger that they would still do well, and would do so by aiding inventors rather than infringers.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
Some of these patent troll companies used to be companies that innovated at one time.
So, you cannot say that Creative isn't a patent troll because they innovated at one time (even recently). You have to keep watching and see if they continue to innovate.
I said that Creative may have just switched from a real company to a shell company. We'll know as time goes by, by their future actions.
And I never said Creative's patent should be anulled based upon their potential future behavior. I never even said known patent troll companies' patents should be anulled based upon their behavior.
However, I do feel Creative's patent is BS, just on its face. It's entirely obvious and menu systems were in wide use before they applied for it.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
The difference is huge. One (socialism) is an economic system that can be married with any of several political systems, such as Representative Democracy in Sweden or Fascism in the former USSR. The other (fascism) is a political system that can be married to any economic system, such as Syndicalism (Nazi Germany) or Command Socialism (USSR, again).
Now, since you were being flippant, and I have no idea what your personal economic and political proclivities are, I can only assume (making a wild and unjustified guess to give you the benefit of the doubt) that you are some form of Libertarian, since that is the only ideology that would view those two disparate systems as functionally equivalent (according to Libertarians, private property is the guarator and the basis of freedom, since it provides its owner with the means to exist). Me, I tend to agree, when it comes right down to it (though Libertarians tend to sound a bit doctrinare about it, and don't tend to make room for the rare but obvious exceptions).
Cheers.
All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
This is yet another example of the ...Supreme Court, now stacked ... No checks and balances, controlling all three branches of govern...
Your statement is yet another example of the abysmal state of education in the US, and the misunderstanding of the governments' functions that has resulted.
"Checks and Balances" has NOTHING to do with anything INTERNAL to one branch of government. It refers to interactions between the three of them. (Details vary, but the running theme is that any two can rein in the third.)
In particular, it has NOTHING to do with the two major parties having roughly equal participation in any branch, or with some hypothetical prohibition on all three branches being controlled by members of the same party.
What it is about is keeping a single person or a handful of people in one branch from getting out of the control of the people themselves and running wild. The Checks and Balances create various requirements that one branch must obtain cooperation from others to act, or that some consensus of members of two branches can override the actions of a third, remove its personnel or funding, or directly intervene in its actions.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
If Creative had a patent for portable music players, yes, this would be considered their "core" business somewhat, and the injunction would be valid. But this patent only covers the GUI, nothing else, so this is not enough. Basically, yeah, this is blatant patent trolling on Creatives part and will ultimately lose them a lot of money and be tossed out.
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If you have several product that are new and want to start manufacturing there is somebody sitting there with no physical product but just some stupid idea that they have with no concept on how build. And you have to work around them or pay them to give up the damn patent.
These Patent trolls are as big as a pain in the butt as those people at sourceforge who sit on programs but never code.
I hate to reply to my own comment but this isn't really that off topic. Firstly, it was intended as a joke, maybe none of you mods got it: but here's the setup. Patent trolls are companies that produce nothing and research nothing, therefore there are no factories to worry about... Shutting down patent trolls does nothing negative to any worker because these companies are only composed of patent trolls. The intention was to make a joke on that. Maybe I was expecting a bit much for people to follow that train of thought and it wasn't funny. But regardless, it's hardly off-topic.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
What would you call the companies that acquire patents (not by their own innovation) and then use them as leverage to charge exorbitant liscensing fees?
...but they found out my parents were married ;-)
Libertas in infinitum
Stab your friend in the throat and put them, and the rest of us, out of misery!
The world needs LESS attorneys, not MORE!
Thanks!
Libertas in infinitum
I would be remiss not taking a free shot at Contemporary Conservatives' bare butts, attired in full dress uniform hospital gowns, when they come into my line of sight.
As Slashdotters reparse the Forbes article, not one seems to realise just why they used term "intellectual property". Could it possibly be that as a publisher, they are intent upon making copyrights interchangeable with patent protection?
Conservatives often rally around the concept of "original intent". Nothing could be more absurd than to posit that Contemporary Conservatives actually practise what they preach.
Originalise This MFs!:
Free Mickey Mouse!
Rush Limbaugh is a perfect real world example of an oxycontinmoron
When a case involving DRM or *AA lawsuits based on bot-gathered information gets to SCOTUS, we're going to need all the good will on their part we can get.
Tech Public Policy stuff