Oprah Sued For Infringing "Touch and Feel" Patent

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Oprah Winfrey, or to be more precise, Oprah's Book Club, is being sued by the inventor/patent attorney Scott C. Harris for infringing upon his patent for 'Enhancing Touch and Feel on the Internet.' So Oprah's Book Club is now one of many people and entities being sued over this patent because they allow people to view part, but not all, of a book online before purchasing it. Mr. Harris also sued Google Books for infringing upon this patent. He actually was fired from his position as partner at Fish & Richardson for that, because Google is a client of that law firm and they had conflict of interest rules to uphold." It would be entertaining to see Oprah give very wide and mainstream publicity to the abuses enabled by our current patent system.

Update: 01/07 22:03 GMT by KD : The blog author Joe Mullin wrote to point out that the lawsuit was not filed by the inventor, Scott C. Harris, but rather by the shell company Illinois Computer Research, which seems to exist for the purpose of filing lawsuits based on this particular patent.

Comments

Would she fight it?

[yotto]

It would be entertaining to see Oprah give very wide and mainstream publicity to the abuses enabled by our current patent system.
 
It's more likely she'd just give him a car.

Re:Would she fight it?

[_Hellfire_]

It's more likely she'd just give him a car.

Oprah and this guy are in the pre-trial conference...

Oprah: "Look under your seat!"

Re:Would she fight it?

[muridae]

While she may be a media icon and corporate power in her own right, do you think her handlers are silly enough to let her counter attack this guy?

She makes money from the media, and the media companies like the current patent and copyright laws. No one in that business is going to step forward and say 'the system is broken.' I hope she does, but I don't consider it very likely.

Re:Would she fight it?

[causality]

While she may be a media icon and corporate power in her own right, do you think her handlers are silly enough to let her counter attack this guy? She makes money from the media, and the media companies like the current patent and copyright laws. No one in that business is going to step forward and say 'the system is broken.' I hope she does, but I don't consider it very likely.

She's in a position where if she does have "handlers", they probably need her a lot more than she needs them.

Also, saying "this is an abuse of the system" isn't necessarily an admission that the system is broken, only that it is imperfect. She could take the stance that fighting this is equivalent to working within the system to correct an abuse of it and that therefore it's not so broken at all. I'm not saying I personally feel this way, only that this is not necessarily the losing proposition you describe.

Wide?

[Gothmolly]

Did anyone else read that as : "It would be entertaining to see Oprah get very wide" ?

HAHAHAHA

[Anonymous Coward]

He filed a frivolous law suit against....Oprah

Like her or not, she is one of the most influential, and hence powerful, women on the planet.

Of course she will fight it. She will also win. A mouse just picked a fight with a dragon.

 

Re:HAHAHAHA

[ta bu shi da yu]

No, he's going to get roasted. I've been waiting for a patent troll to piss off the wrong person. Looks like that day has arrived. I guess I never thought it would be Oprah Winfrey though.

Re:HAHAHAHA

[religious freak]

Oprah is very rational in her business decisions, I've studied them a bit. Many times, in these cases, it doesn't make economic sense to hire defense lawyers - cheaper to settle... so I wouldn't count a settlement out. However, if this gains enough publicity (and I think it may have), she'll be forced to fight it, so as not to invite other frivolous lawsuits from those looking for a quick buck.

Re:HAHAHAHA

[Ethanol-fueled]

Not only Oprah's book club, but GOOGLE and SONY among others! This guy threw away a job with a law firm which had GOOGLE as a client!

Re:HAHAHAHA

[Jeff DeMaagd]

That's the thing though, I'm surprised more companies don't fight the trolls just to get a reputation among trolls that you're willing to go Thunderdome on them on occasion. Then they'll get the message to find someone else to mess with. The way I see it, the only reason patent trolling is profitable is because companies take a short term view of it and just settle, encouraging the prospect of a death by a thousand paper cuts.

Re:HAHAHAHA

[laejoh]

So what you're really saying is that Oprah is Trogdor in disguise?

OPRAH! Burninating the countryside, Burninating the patent trolls. Burninating all the peoples. And their thatched-roof COTTAGES!

Thatched-roof COTTAGES!

Re:HAHAHAHA

[Gerzel]

He may actually have a case.

It is theoretically possible that it is a good case even outside his own head.

It is possible still that he may win and status-quo be affirmed.

Oprah, Sony and Google are all powerful but they also all depend on IP laws themselves.

Re:HAHAHAHA

[Gerzel]

The problem is the companies often ARE the trolls.

They just do a slightly different version of trolling.

Fighting sets precedents. precedents set decisions, and while you may want a decision one day the next it will hurt you.

Re:HAHAHAHA

[rolfwind]

Walmart makes it a policy to fight each and every lawsuit to discourage others from taking them on. Settling may be cheaper in the long term, but what if settlements bring out more leeches hungry for a little blood?

Anyway, I'm sick of hearing about patents over common sense shit. It's not the underlying technologies that patented, just the applications they now allow (often internet versions of common real life things). I don't like Oprah all that much, but I hope she crushes this little flea.

Re:HAHAHAHA

[Andy_R]

Queen Elizabeth II, and (unless we fix the copyright laws in the next few years) J K Rowling.

Re:HAHAHAHA

[swillden]

Take away her TV program and her power: would evaporate.

Her primary source of power isn't money, it's that people watch/listen to her. Until her power evaporates, no one is going to take away her TV program.

Re:HAHAHAHA

[dlaudel]

Just look at paris hilton! What did the 'infamous' sex tape do to her? Shot her popularity through the roof!

I really hope we don't end up with a similar video featuring Oprah.

Re:HAHAHAHA

[Hoi Polloi]

Actually she is very popular with woman in the Middle East. In countries like Saudi Arabia copies of her "O" magazine are in great demand.

Re:HAHAHAHA

[darkmeridian]

That's not true. Companies settle because there is typically too much to put in the hands of a relatively uneducated judge and jury, even when you factor in the value of preventing future lawsuits. Patent litigation typically involves a company's most profitable products. Losing a litigation, or even being enjoined from selling the products while the suit is pending, would be disastrous to a company's business. Averting future lawsuits has no value if the current lawsuit bankrupts the company. Also, if you fight to the bitter end and happen to lose, and have to pay a large bounty, there really was no prevention anyway.

In many cases, the risk is simply untenable on any measure for an intelligent company to litigate patents to a verdict. Frivolous lawsuits are typically brought by "non-practicing entities," the polite term for patent trolls, in pro-plaintiff districts such as the Eastern District of Texas. Taking on all of the patent trolls is ridiculous because they only risk their legal fees while the defendant risks their livelihood. For instance, RIM refused to settle a patent infringement lawsuit targeting the Blackberry until the court threatened to shut off all Blackberries in the United States. RIM had to pay NTP $612 million to settle instead of the $20 million NTP was demanding before the adverse ruling. Microsoft lost a patent infringement lawsuit for $1.52 billion that was later reduced on appeal to $500 million. If you assume they could have settled the lawsuit for $10 million, the general counsel who lost the company $490 million would have a hard time explaining how that was worth the prevention, in light of the fact that paying out $500 million encourages even more patent trolls to fuck with you.

In a game theoretical sense, you may want to fight everything to the end. But settlements are usually fair in broad strokes degree because you have businessmen and lawyers calculating the validity and odds of various claims. Otherwise, you have a judge and jury who do not know that much trying to learn the law and the technology deciding the future of your company. If the judge decides to enjoin your product or the jury rules against you for $1 billion, you are shit out of luck.

Re:HAHAHAHA

[chimpo13]

It will be called, "A Day at the Oprah".

Re:Unlikely

[jbolden]

This is patent not copyright. Big content would love to see the patent system tightened up. With the possible exception of drug companies and the democrats already hate them.

Re:Unlikely

[value_added]

Yes, that would be entertaining -- but most unlikely. The sad truth is, Big Content is to Democrats as Big Oil is to Republicans.

Actually, the pertinent truth is that she is being sued, and if her lawyers are doing their jobs, they've advised her not to say anything publically that would jeapordise her case.

This is a title, since I must have one

[greentshirt]

Republicans always find a way to blame something on Democrats. Democrats always find a way to blame something on Republicans. Jews kill Arabs, Arabs kill Jews, people sue over patent infringement and lawyers are often assholes. Oprah seems too busy talking about getting fat again (and acting like it's some kind of horrible fate worse than death) to really do much publicizing of anything else. Tonight on Larry King live, he had 3 guests, Oprahs personal trainer, her spiritual adviser and some other guy, talk at length about GASP, OPRAH GETTING FAT. What the hell is wrong with our world, I don't know where to begin anymore.

Re:This is a title, since I must have one

[McGiraf]

"Tonight on Larry King live, he had 3 guests, Oprahs personal trainer, her spiritual adviser and some other guy, talk at length about GASP, OPRAH GETTING FAT. What the hell is wrong with our world, I don't know where to begin anymore."

TV != World.

I do not watch TV. So I can't judge of the state of the world by watching Larry King show. There is not much Oprah in my world, fat or thin.

Re:This is a title, since I must have one

[Seriousity]

But don't worry, all Oprah has to do is ask the universe to take away her weight! She knows the Secret
With the Law of Attraction, Oprah and anyone else who is willing to blindly fork out their money is GOD*

1. *Any comparison to omnipotent, omniscient or all-knowing deities is unintended.
2. **Neither Oprah Winfrey or The Secret co. are responsible for any psychological damage incurred from the use of The Secret.
3. ***If you believe in the "law [sic] of attraction", I have a small bridge for sale in Pennsylvania, special price just for you.

Re:This is a title, since I must have one

[mdielmann]

There is not much Oprah in my world, fat or thin.

Trust me, there's more of her in your world than there was 6 months ago.

Only in America.

[joocemann]

The land of too many lawyers without enough viable work to find.

Oh the opportunities that have been missed or shut down for fear of litigious people and the grinning lawyers that represent them.

As true as this is, I will probably be modded a flamer.

Re:Only in America.

[exley]

-1, Gay

Re:Only in America.

[Sentry21]

In this economic depression, it only makes sense for people with no skill or talent to take money from companies that actually provide tangible benefits to society and take part in our economy in exchange for doing no work and little forethought.

The American patent system is designed to reward inventors, even if they never have any intention or desire to make anything of their patent, by ensuring that anyone can patent anything. As a result the secret to success, like in relationships, is finding your perfect match. They're out there somewhere, and they're infringing on a patent that any sane person could come up with over a pint of Guinness and a plate of chips. Go get what you've earned, tiger!

Re:Unlikely

[jonwil]

The big content providers would likely love to see a much looser patent system, then they wouldn't need to pay royalties to the patent holders of e.g. MPEG for all the content they distribute.

Summary of the patent

[Michael Woodhams]

I've just skimmed the patent. The basic situation is they have the entire book on computer, you can choose any pages to view, but once you've viewed a certain number, it won't let you view any more. There was also a bit of stuff about supplying image and text in different formats/resolutions, and (I think) using keys to scroll around the image of one page.

How do they know that it is you, not someone else asking for more pages? They specifically include the use of cookies, but allow for other methods. There is no mention of (e.g.) using IP addresses, but I expect this would be covered. The interesting problems (How do you know the user isn't deleting the cookies? How do you know whether there are 200 people behind that single IP address?) are not addressed.

IANAL, and I didn't read it carefully, so I might be wrong about some details.

Prior Art?

[mutantSushi]

This is the operating procedure of an Ice Cream shop. Yes, you can sample this. That too. That. That.... But once you've had "enough" samples, you need to buy something. So the only specifics he's proposing in the patent are: Using Cookies exactly how browser cookies are supposed to be used. I hope Oprah makes a show out of this, and connects it with the rest of the IP-ocracy. Y'know, invite on some poor moms sued by the RIAA, farmers fucked by GMO-Corps, doctors from 3rd world countries that can't afford the drug mafia's prices...

Re:Prior Art?

[Kalriath]

This is the operating procedure of an Ice Cream shop.
Yes, you can sample this. That too. That. That....
But once you've had "enough" samples, you need to buy something.

So, essentially, this patent is... "Something that's already happened for hundreds of years... on the internet"

Re:Unlikely

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to be careful with regard to "loose" and "tight" w.r.t. the patent system. Patent lawyers tend to view a "loose" patent system as one which allows patents on everything and a "tight" one as one that's very restrictive about what can be patented. People who oppose patents (i.e. any sane programmer or engineer) tend to view a "loose" patent system as one that allows a lot of actual progress to be made - i.e. strongly limits what can be patented, and a "tight" patent system as one that is very restrictive to people who want to just get things done - i.e. allows patents (monopoly grants on doing stuff by definition) on everything.

Thus, both sides were initially calling for a "less restrictive" patent system in the european software patent debate, thoroughly confusing politicians - the pro-software-patent patent lawyers and corporate types were talking about a patent system that allowed them to patent more stuff i.e. was less restrictive about what can be patented, and the anti-software-patent software writers and such were talking about a patent system that was less restrictive to people who write software due to not allowing software patents.

Mod "Insightful", not "Funny"

[zooblethorpe]

Regardless of the underlying ironic humour in the parent post, Kalriath really comes across (to me at least) more as insightful than funny. This case is another prime exemplification of how bizarre the legal situation becomes once any activity takes place via the internet, as if engaging in business online somehow changes everything (beyond just the medium of exchange).

Cheers,

You have ignored the otherside of that idea

[arse maker]

Sure, they maybe getting a reputation of being people who settle out of court.. but imagine if they fought and lost. It would be huge. Can they risk that? Im sure its an important part of their risk management assesment when deciding what to do.

The increased payout for a loss, the increased publicity showing your company losing, breaking the law. Its a huge risk to take, while its easy to think these cases are thin and you cant lose, thats not true, just check the news.