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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.'"

7 of 117 comments (clear)

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

    By being one..

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    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
    1. Re:Preempt them by rudeboy1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I see where this is going...
        Company buys up billions of dollars worth of IP (cheaply, due to the business concept), promising never to use it.
        Company gets bought out, at a reasonable price considering all they own, since they're "not really the IP owners".
        New company decides it's not bound by previous company's ethics, decides to call in the lawyers for the billions of dollars worth of IP.
        New company litigates the living shit out of everyone.
        New company buys out other companies using the money won from being sued for using their own IP.
        New company now owns 50.1% of the world.

      Can someone verify the whereabouts of Pinky and The Brain please? I'm getting a little nervous.

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      Raging in an online forum won't do anything for the world around you. To see change, you must take action.
  2. Patents patents patents by CopaceticOpus · · Score: 4, Funny

    Interesting business plan, I wonder if they patented it.

  3. 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?

  4. Could we call it the General Patent License? by tepples · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  5. 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.
  6. 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.