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Multi-Channel Communication Patent Up For Sale
OTDR alerts us to the latest software patent stupidity in the news as patent number 6,418,462, "methods allowing clients to perform tasks through a sideband communication channel, in addition to the main communication channel between a client and server," snubs its nose at AJAX, ftp, and decades of prior art and goes on sale next month in San Fransisco. "Singled out are AJAX mashups including Google Maps and Gmail, and Microsoft 'Live'... Also in the frame are Amazon's S3 and EC2 and clusters from Microsoft, VMware, and Oracle. eBay's Skype, Napster, and Microsoft's Groove are also listed as potentially infringing on the patent in P2P."
The problem with patent trolls is that the risk / reward profile is all wrong. The corporation structure protects the investors, and no one is criminally liable if the lawsuit fails. So, the people setting it up can decide how much liability to expose themselves to by how much they invest, but the upper bound on the lawsuit payoff is virtually unlimited. So, when deciding whether to make the investment, there simply isn't an entry on the risk / reward table below "lawsuit fails." The incentive for them not file the lawsuit has to be on par with the potential earnings in the calculation, and someone getting "well and truly burnt" won't do that -- the probability of a big win has to change, since the size of the loss is bounded. (Well, either that or find ways to make the penalties bigger.)