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Patent Troll Attacks Cable, Digital TV Standards
DavidGarganta writes "A patent troll firm in suburban Philadelphia, Rembrandt IP Management, is trying to force large cable operators and major broadcasters to pay substantial license fees on the transmission of digital TV signals and Internet services. The firm is apparently trying to get 0.5% of all revenues from services that supposedly infringe on the patents. The targeted companies include ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, Comcast, Time Warner, Cox, Charter and Cablevision. According to MultiChannel News, Rembrandt's assault is especially aggressive, even for a patent troll: 'It is attacking two key technology standards used by the cable and broadcast industries, CableLabs' DOCSIS and the Advanced Television Systems Committee's digital-TV spec. "If they're successful, this could affect everything from the cost of cable service to the price of TVs," said the attorney close to the litigation, who spoke only on condition of anonymity.'"
What the hell is a patent troll?
When I first read it I assumed it had something to do with internet trolling but the articles describes it as some sort of legitimate enterprise.
"I didn't go to Patent Troll medical school to be called 'Mister'."
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
Havent they learnt anything from SCO and other Patent Trolls. It never works... but the again they have nothing else to do.
Aren't patents wonderful? Spreading innovation everywhere!
No tyrant thrives when every subject says no.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Sooner or later, we'll save ourselves untold trouble if we vastly scale back the notion of Intellectual (imaginary) property to something relatively sensible.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
The targeted companies include ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, Comcast, Time Warner, Cox, Charter and Cablevision.
just look at the list of companies.
they may not get along with each other, but the last thing you want to do is force them to unite against a common enemy.
i think they just opened a can of woop-ass.
In their careers section they have the following description.
http://www.rembrandtip.com/careers.html
"
Analyze markets and companies to assess IP commercialization opportunities
Develop and model business cases and royalty analysis for specific licensing opportunities or industries
Perform competitive analysis breakdown and strategic direction of leading industry companies
Supporting analysis for new business opportunities around targeted patent acquisitions
"
Give me a freaken break! This company goes out looks at what are up and coming industries. Then it "creates" ideas and patents the heck out of them so that they can license and throttle an up and coming industry.
This is not even funny. Imagine coming up with some really cool idea, but to have it patented away from you. This is how industries are broken. Part of the problem with this is that lawyers can sue without restrictions. Lawyers can go fishing in the industry. They can patent, sue and see what sticks.
To make that go away, you can do the following:
1) Make lawyers work pro-bono (as they do in many countries). That is they can only charge so much.
2) Make lawyers pay if the lawsuit fails. For example, if say somebody brought up a lawsuit where they wanted 50 billion say, "if you loose you need to come up with say 1%". That way you can still sue, but you better have a good case. Otherwise it is going to cost you quite a bit.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
The concept is called adverse possession. In real property someone can aquire possesion of abandoned property
by open and continous use. Now you wouldnt want someone becoming the new patent/copyright holder but the negative part
"extinguishing the rights of the prior holder" would make perfect sense and help deal with both the problems
of patent trolls and abandoned copyrights as well as legalizing abandonware.
If a reasonable person knows or should have known their patent or copyright was being infringed on and takes
no action within say 3 years, their patent or copyright becomes null and void. Also a system could be set up
to allow "notices of intended infringement" to be filed with the copyright office, if the copyright or patent
holder does not respond within the required time then the copyright or patent would lapse and the work
would go into the public domain.
I knew this girl from my college that worked at Rembrandt.
She explained that the way that these operations work is they hire students with slightly above rudimentary technical skills from the local universities in technical courses of study. Their "discovery" process simply entails these students trying to reverse engineer the mechanisms that they hold patents for. However, since they're not trying to actually build the device, they usually stop when they have a guess that suits their needs.
To put it bluntly, they do not really know; it is a wild guess, and hope that they can litigate it successfully.
I agree. What makes this troll particularly disgusting (for the benefit of the non-RTFA'ers) is that it is based upon patents originally owned by AT&T which had agreed to license the patents to all for Fair, Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) terms. The patents got bought up by this troll company which is now refusing to honor those terms. If this is allowed to stand, then no company can ever rely on FRAND as a business assurance. Any patented process could get sold to an IP management company and be fair game for extortion.
I propose two short-term fixes.
First, FRAND terms should be able to be added to the patent itself, either originally or through some amendment process. That way, if it gets bought or sold, the IP holding compnay has to adhere to the original terms.
Second, companies that are developing open standards should be allowed some kind of superpatent, where (presumably for higher fees) there is a public hearing at which the final standard is vetted, and challengers are given sufficient time to come forward with their own patents which may encumber upon the proposed open standard, and they can negotiate whatever terms are in their best interest, without restriction. Afterwards, though, if the superpatent is granted, no more challenges will be entertained. Anyone who finds a prior patent in their closet or falling out of their portfolio five or ten years hence will be out of luck.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
This is exactly what we need at this moment. This might be the straw that broke the camel's back because with so many potentially affected, and with HDTV the new "standard", we are going to see a backlash not from a single company but an entire industry that is now being forced to pay ransom to stay in business thanks to that standard. The way I see it is that the FCC(and any other FCC-like organizations in other countries) will take a decent portion of the heat for forcing the industry to use a non-open standard, that will then put pressure on the USPTO to make some real reform. Where it goes from there is a bit cloudy but I suspect this will be enough to force the Supreme Court to rule on this type of behavior; after all, patents are supposed to promote innovation, not stifle it.
0x09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
It's time to kill software patents once and for all. This is not what the patent system was intended to do. There's no investment by the litigant, other than monetary. It's not like the company involved is offering any value to the TV broadcast industry. It's nothing but a tax, worse than a tax because at least your tax money has some return. What Rembrandt is doing is a legal extortion racket. In any other setting this would be a crime.
Gotcha capitalism at its finest. Sickening. Enough is enough already.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Why should someone who holds the patent get a percentage of revenue not generated by the patent? Even if they win the suit on the point of ownership, etc. There is no legal reason for broadcasters to pay a percentage of revenue they generate from the combination of all the technologies and content they use.
At most they should get a percentage of sales of the devices that use the patent directly.... not Ad revenue or other licensing revenue for syndicated shows, DVDs, etc.
What actual devices implement this patented technology?
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Analog TV is set to be turned off, rendering many TVs useless next year, unless a convert is purchased.
So instead of turning off Analog and going all digital, leave analog on until the patent expires.
I'm sure a lot or Analog TV owners will be happy.
- Manufacture a product, and use the patent to keep others out of the market. I call this the 'passive' method, since the patent is not directly used to make money, the manufacturing is.
- License a patent to someone else, earning royalties. I call this the 'active' method, since the patent 'property' itself is the source of the money (rental fees).
The first proposed short-term fix ignores the passive method, which is the traditional way patentees use patents. It penalizes the 'good guys', who are just trying to recoup R&D costs, etc. And since R&D costs are involved, cue the pharmaceutical companies. They would never go for mandatory licensing, so this 'fix' will never happen.Second, if someone is developing an open standard, it's for the benefit of the public, right? So just take open standards out of the allowable subject matter -- no patents at all on open standards, and everyone can use them right away. Otherwise they're not really 'open', are they? Or is that too radical a proposal?
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
A number of people are saying that this patent troll company will get its ass whooped because of the companies they are trying extort. Perhaps. But here's a rather more cynical view that I consider at least as likely. It has to do with the other end of the incentives -- profit and loss.
Most if not all the cable and media companies have a virtual monopoly on providing you service. Consider, how many of us have any choice in which cable provider to bring service to the home? So, what happens in this situation is that because the company can pretty much raise your rates or reduce your service by say, shifting channels currently on the cheap "Basic" bundle over to the pricier premium bundles. They can pretty much write their own profits. So now patent troll company comes and wants $X piece of the pie. As a cable provider, they'd look at the cost and risk of legal action vs. shelling out the money for a new agreement. Result: they just jack up rates for the consumer and pay off the extortionist, safely keeping the patent system alive for their own future interests.
We the consumers would see another jump in cable rates or some such service change, but there's not going to be a straw to break the patent camel's back on this one.
The real problem, aside from patents themselves, is that patent trolls are immune to retaliation. Think about it. They have complete immunity. John W. Campbell, the editor of Analog magazine in the 1960s and 1970s had an interesting take on immunity and corruption. The old saw has it that "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Campbell suggested that was wrong, that it is not power that corrupts, but immunity: "immunity corrupts and absolute immunity corrupts absolutely." If I can do anything whatsoever that comes into my head, without there being any any chance of retribution, what is there to stop me? ... Nothing. Nothing at all.
... absolute corruption.
Unless some way is found to make patent trolls seriously liable to massive (and probably personal) financial retribution, they will continue to sink further into parasitism and corruption
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
"If they're successful, this could affect everything from the cost of cable service to the price of TVs," said the attorney close to the litigation, who spoke only on condition of anonymity."
.50 BMG rounds for all fortune 500 companies.
I would like to point out, that in America when cable was first offered to the public, the ONLY purpose of buying it was so that you can watch TV WITHOUT commercial interruption. Else, it was the typical bunny ears with tinfoil wrapped around them, watching General Hospital on ABC or was it CBS, and have to watch a commercial every five minutes or so.
I think it happened in or around this order....
MTV proved to attract quite the audience, but most importantly, impressionable young soon-to-be Consumers. Marketing types, shall focus in on this, "untapped" market... or rather, the bucket for which they might shoot the fish; made of gold, with complimentary
MTV used to play music videos, as might be suggested by the name. Then came the trends focusing on teen appeal; the first commercials on MTV were Noxima commercials and they even used one of the female VJs.
As MTV was being raped by Capitalism, not to mention the Musicians and Artists--as by this time, it's been established that if a band can get a video to be played on MTV, they are as good as gold--other major networks soon followed suit.
HBO trying so hard to maintain the original concept, of a Home Box Office (hence the HBO), first resorted to in-house production, heavily laden with product placement or other dung such as plots or lines conforming tightly with social trends; like anti-racist tears, or commie-bastard themes...
Then with the marketers pouring so much money into Cable Television, a market they would have loved to defeat for many reasons, let alone the fact that it was a product that freed the Consumer from Advertisements to begin with, Cable television exploded.
Advertisers were SO ADAMANT in penetrating cable television, they did everything from attempt to bankrupt the networks (by means of connections, such as getting buddy buddy with the utilities companies--gas, electricity, phone--and all sorts of other avenues) to outright attempting to sue them for not allowing them slots for their commercials. Forcing the cable television networks to start airing commercials in disregard of the fact that the Consumers were paying for the service, and had expectations of what their product received would be.
Now, this might shed pity upon the cable television networks. And maybe it should. However, for those who still might wonder how this "hurts" the consumer...
Cost of Cable Television, and considering inflation, has only gotten more expensive; it never got cheaper, and that's likely by demand of the Advertisers who insist that if a Consumer has to pay for something, they'll take it more seriously.
So there is something amuck with the whole OP, as when I hear Attorneys blabber stuff like what I quoted... what garbage to fool the Consumer into a reason to jack up the price of Cable Television. When, the fact is, they make so much money from the Advertisers, they can afford to revamp their entire infrastructure twenty times and still come out heads over toes all the while giving it out for free to all those who might have a coaxial jack in their house, outhouse, doghouse or whateverhouse.
And where would the extra money go to; if they do raise prices under this false pretense? Who the fuck knows; but what I do know, who it will go to you probably didn't vote for.
patent trolls ARE providing a service. By purchasing patents, these patent trolls provide a market for patents which puts money in the hands of small time inventors, who don't have the resources to commercialize their inventions
You are outright "WRONG".
Patent TROLLS do not provide the service of "commercializing" patents. Patent trolls put no more money in the hands of inventors because they buy up patents that have, already proven technological worth because they are already included in technology. That's the TROLL's leverage. If the patent didn't already have proven or provable worth, the TROLL wouldn't have ever have been interested in the patent. Your fantasy that TROLLS help inventors commercialize anything is just that: a *fantasy*. Get over it.
The problem is *both* the patent system, AND those who abuse the system (TROLLS and those who use patents to put other companies out-of-business).
It's one thing to award a patent as a reward for inventing something and to give the inventor a reasonable time to obtain compensation for their ingenuity. It's patent abuse to use them for most other purposes.
Stop claiming patent and copyright bogosity protects or rewards "the little guy", the garage inventor or a garage band. It's the corporations and trolls who benefit -- and they benefit WAY too much.
Sorry if my tone is harsh, but abusive corporations need to be STOPPED. At the very least, they need to have their "personhood" status revoked. Inventors & creators should be rewarded to encourage them to continue in order to benefit society -- that's was the entire point of exclusive licenses (patents and copyrights). They've gone way beyond that intent, to the point that entire artificial markets have been created solely to manage these non-physical, "Intellectual Properties". It is a drain on society, benefiting society very little, but hurting society forever into the future by limiting, draining and destroying resources that could have been used to benefit society in NEW ways, rather than by researching new ways to extract money from older patents and copyrights.
No one of this generation really cares because they'll all be dead, but all the resources we waste in pointless legal wrangling and warring will end up costing humanity dearly in future decades and centuries. It's all so much a waste!