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Startup Seeks To Preempt Patent Trolls

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the wonder-how-long-that'll-last dept.

anaesthetica writes "The WSJ reports that a San Francisco startup is buying up patents with the promise never to assert them in order to help large corporations hedge against patent trolling firms. The company, RPX Corp, receives an annual fee in exchange for licensing the patents it has purchased. Cisco and IBM have already signed up for this service of 'defense patent aggregation.'"

8 of 117 comments (clear)

  1. Preempt them by nurb432 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    By being one..

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    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  2. This just in by TheSpoom · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Company buys up all other patent trolls, seeks funds from major companies while saying "we don't use them against you (if you pay us), honest!"

    News at 11.

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    1. Re:This just in by virtualXTC · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That's what I didn't get.
      If they "won't assert their claims" then why do you need to buy a license from them?
      If you do need to buy a license from them, how are they not trolls?

    2. Re:This just in by networkBoy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      maybe because the license fee is not extortionistic, but rather only covers the cost of staff?

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    3. Re:This just in by SydShamino · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I believe their claim is that they won't assert these patents against anyone. IBM isn't willing to buy out these patents to prevent their exploitation, but IBM is willing to donate a smaller amount of money to achieve the same thing. Cisco believes the same thing.

      I see this as companies doing something that is beyond themselves. It's in their own interest, yes - the have neutralized a series a patents at less than it would cost to buy them or fight off a lawsuit - but in the process they have protected other companies that didn't help fund the operation.

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      It doesn't hurt to be nice.
    4. Re:This just in by Piranhaa · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I can see it from both sides and I'm not entirely sure where I stand.

      Take these into consideration however:
      1) They need money in order to buy patents out. This isn't an ad driven service...
      2) They do have to buy out a LOT of patents (only if the squatter is in fact willing to give it up) to make this worthwhile.
      3) The patents were already held in hand, so it could have ended up in a multimillion dollar lawsuit OR the companies wanting to use them would not have been able to make a product with that particular patent, resulting in unattainable revenue.
      4) If the price is reasonable, it's basically a (cheap?) insurance policy. It's practically a guaranteed way to use any patent this company has.
      5) Companies don't need to request, or pay large amounts per patent, but rather pay into the pool and can use them ALL.

      These are just some of the facts that came to my head. What I want to know is what happens if a company decides not to buy in, or doesn't realize they are violating a patent, if they'll get slammed hard.

      Also, if these guys are just squatting on these patents and not producing ANYTHING with them, how will they hold up in court? IANAL, but I thought a company needs to show some effort in actually USING the technology for it to be considered VALID.

  3. Amazing by stinerman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If this isn't a wakeup call to Congress that our patent system is entirely and completely broken, I don't know what is.

  4. Re:Could we call it the General Patent License? by TubeSteak · · Score: 3, Insightful

    As I see it, patent pools like this turn patent law against the patent trolls in much the same way that the GNU General Public License and other copyleft licenses turn copyright law against some publishers of proprietary software.

    A patent cartel ("defensive pooling" my ass) only protects members of the cartel.
    It doesn't 'free' patents like the GPL 'frees' software.

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