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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."
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.
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.
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.
You realize, I assume, that many lawyers out there are completely willing to take on a case like that, presuming it's reasonably clear cut, for both the notoriety of successfully taking on a big company and for a cut of the damages?
Most of the cases of a "small inventor" being "abused" by big corporations are actually little more than a "small inventor" signing undesirable contracts and then attempting to reneg on them. If a big company is egregiously abusing a person's patented ideas (which also involves significant financial damages), 99% of the time the case will be fairly clear cut, there will be a lawyer willing to get in on it for a cut of the damages, and the entire thing will be adequately resolved.
If people took a little more time to think through their decisions when dealing with big companies, especially when entereing into contract deals with them, many of the world's "unfair abuses of the little guy" would be readily avoided.
This ruling doesn't let patent violators off the hook, it just removes one tool of the patent holder - the injunction. If a corporation has to fight a lawsuit while not being able to sell their product, they are more likely to settle on the spot. For a similar practice, see "Blackmail".
This will only hurt the patent holders who are looking for a big payout. Patent holders with legit claims will still have to go through the same legal proceedings they always did.
Actually, the phrase "Patent law unambiguously grants..." tells us that the intellectual property being referred to later in the sentence is patents, not any other form of IP. If I say "Brewery best practice tells us that the optimum amount of hops in the beverage is ...", you wouldn't complain that "beverage" wasn't specific enough, would you?
Oh no... it's the future.
Well, maybe. Creative could argue that this costs them plenty in their core business, since iPod sales are obviously crushing Zens. The Court said you should consider how much it is going to harm the company requesting the injunction to continue the alleged infringing to continue. It costs Creative plenty to wait and let Apple continue selling iPods for however long it takes the trial to occur.
Of course, this assumes the courts will even consider Creative's suit valid, but having been granted a patent implies validity. Then again, Apple legal has had a couple of successes lately (TigerDirect, Apple Corps, etc) with trademark disputes, so we'll see how far this goes.
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!
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.
If I say "Brewery best practice tells us that the optimum amount of hops in the beverage is ...", you wouldn't complain that "beverage" wasn't specific enough, would you?
If I read it in "Beer Drinkers quarterly" and I knew the brewery in question produced light, old & decaf beer, then I would complain that beverage wasn't specific enough.
Its all about context you see. Forbes (of all places) should know better.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
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.
"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
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.
Patent law definitely does not grant "the same rights" as those granted to "regular" property-holders.
For example, patent-law says that patents *expires* at which point your patent becomes public domain, free for anyone to use as they wish. "regular" property-holders do not have to hand over their property to the public after the property "expires".
There's a million other differences too, claiming that a patent gives you the same rigths over a technique as those a owner has to a regular property is a lie. It'd be confusion, but it's inconceivable that a writer for the *legal* section of a magazine is unaware of any of these differences, so the only explanation is a deliberate lie.
Why they lie is anybodys guess. *MY* guess is that they *wish* it where more like they *claim* it is. If you can manage to convince the public that something is already law, that public is likely to protest less when it becomes more and more true.
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.
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
Hmmmmn, let's have a look at the original sentence again.The fact that it says "unambiguously grants", strengthens the following "intellectual property."
Additionally, the use of four words (owners of intellectual property) where two (patent owners) would do, shows... well I'll say 'confusion' (but I'm thinking 'bias').
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
This ruling doesn't let patent violators off the hook, it just removes one tool of the patent holder - the injunction.
What other tools do they really have, though?
"okay, negotiate a fair contract with me for stealing my patented idea."
"Uhhh... No."
"No???"
"No."
"If you don't, I'll sue!"
"If you sue, we'll stall and appeal so long even your grandchildren will live six feet under before you ever see a penny. Assuming you don't bankrupt yourself and need to drop the case long before then."
"Ummm... Okay, buy me lunch then and we'll call it good?"
"No."
An injunction on infringement gives both sides a strong motivation to quickly settle. Disallowing such injunctions only gives the owner (not the infringer) a motivation to settle ever.
Now, I fully agree that we need some solution to the problem of patent trolls, but this seems far more like a slap at all the small inventors than the big boys that can afford prolonged litigation.
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.
Actually, that may be that case in some isolated cases, but in the vast majority, it is quite clear when you see a patent troll that that's exactly what he is.
Hm, want a checklist?
* Companies is a law firm
* Company holds several or many patents
* None of the inventors actually work for company, all the patents were acquired
* Company does not actually produce any of the patented products
* Actually, company doesn't produce anything
* Company prominently features "licensing" in its revenue report
5 or more checks and you have a 95% certainty that you have a patent troll.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Rediculous: A word indicating the writer is ridiculously ignorant.
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.
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.
And without an injunction, there is no reason for the big company not to drag the lawsuit out until hell freezes over or the small inventor goes bankrupt, whichever comes first. The way I see it, if you have no case whatsoever, you're no threat to big business. They have more and better lawyers and they have the resources to see it through. Do you really believe that Microsoft doesn't get each and every injunction against a small inventor, even if their claim borders on insanity? Now imagine a 5 person outfit trying to get an injunction against Microsoft...
If they really are infringing, why the heck wouldn't you want the rightful owner of the intellectual property to be able to shut them down? Who is going to say what their infringing behaviour does to the market value of my invention? Maybe they get a head start and make it almost impossible for anyone else to overcome that barrier of entry to the market. Who am I going to sell to then? If you subscribe to the whole "intellectual property" idea, then at least be consistent.
So they got one right this time.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
how actively are they trying to develop their patent?
Let's say you're a CompSci researcher and figure out a really nifty new way to route calls in a cell phone network, for example. Chances are, you don't actually own a cell phone network (no, not even of you look really hard under the couch). The only way you can make something from your idea is to approach one of the existing, major mobile developers. Having a patent is a way to protect yourself from just being ripped off. Except it isn't, anymore.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Patent trolls aren't merely an unfortunate byproduct. They are pretty much nullifying the value of the current patent sytsem. Patents exist to suit a particular public policy objective. It's about time the Supremes started acting like it.
Patents don't exist to benefit patent owners. PERIOD.
You are engaging in the same sort of sly deception that Forbes did.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.