Red Hat Prevails Against Patent Troll Acacia

walterbyrd writes with news that Red Hat and Novell have won a patent case brought by a subsidiary of Acacia Research Corporation. The company had "accused Red Hat and Novell of infringing three patents that cover a computer-based graphical user interface that spans multiple workplaces, and lets users access icons remotely, according to court documents. A jury in Marshall, Texas, yesterday sided with Red Hat and Novell's defense that the patents were invalid." Red Hat's Michael Cunningham said, "The jury knocked out three invalid patents that were masquerading as a new and important inventions, when they were not. We appreciate the jury's wisdom and remain committed to providing value to our customers, including through our Open Source Assurance program. We also remain stalwart in resisting bogus shakedown tactics."

Comments

Epic patent trolls?

[kaptink]

Correct me if i'm wrong but these guys look like epic patent trolls - http://www.acaciaresearch.com/pressreleases.htm

Re:Epic patent trolls?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Acacia is living proof that ideas are not hard to produce; they are hard to implement. Apparently, Acacia Research finds actual labor too difficult.

Re:Epic patent trolls?

[calmofthestorm]

If you're too lazy to innovate, you can always use the legal system to steal other people's hard work. God bless IP extortion.

Re:Epic patent trolls?

[jedidiah]

Based on the information, it looks like Acacia was trying to claim ownership on things that have been done by Unix since before Acacia ever existed.

Perhaps when there are consumer products that classify as prior art East Texas finally get the hint.

Re:Epic patent trolls?

[cetialphav]

I hate to defend these guys because what they do is pretty sleazy, but "patent trolls" do serve a purpose. They create a market of selling IP. For those who believe that IP encourages innovation (I'm not one of them), then the existence of patent trolls means someone can invent something and have a buyer for the rights to that invention even if no one wants to market the product.

For example, say I invent a highly efficient electric car. This upsets a lot of existing businesses so it may be very hard for me to productize it. I may know that my invention will eventually win out, but I can't afford to wait that long. Well, I can sell this to someone who is willing to wait and profit from this.

The stories that generally show up on Slashdot are generally shake down schemes that take vague, poorly done patents and apply them to unwarranted things to make a quick buck. But that doesn't mean that everyone who is trying to profit from the patent system is a con artist.

Re:Epic patent trolls?

[blitzkrieg3]

I'm pretty sure they got the patent from Xerox, for rooms. The idea was that you use a room and house analogy for your window manager. So all offices applications are in the office room, games in the gaming room, recipes belong in the kitchen, etc. And you had to switch rooms via a door icon, no joke.

Re:Epic patent trolls?

[calmofthestorm]

The problem is that it used to be that an "invention" was largely self describing. The other day, I noticed a vice grip attached to the back of a pickup truck of some maintenance workers. This is the sort of thing where thinking of it is equivalent to knowing how to build it. This is increasingly less true, but patent law hasn't been keeping up.

If I sat around all day thinking up bullshit patents I could make a fortune off extortion as a parasitic leech on people who actually contribute to society. Ideas are a dime a dozen, the hard part is building them. Come up with a cool car idea? Great, now build one. Isn't so easy, is it?

If Apple decides to patent some technology essential to a smart phone (they probably have), and refuses to license it, this creates a monopoly not just on their particular invention, but on all similar inventions. I feel that patent laws were intended to give people monopoly on a particular good, not on all things that might possibly resemble or compete with it.

Of course, the solution here is cross licensing agreements and defensive patenting, but that only works if you're a huge corporation.

Re:Epic patent trolls?

[ffreeloader]

Well, I can sell this to someone who is willing to wait until the opportune time to create the car and profit from it.

What you're talking about is a company with deep enough pockets to actually be able to produce your car that can afford to wait to develop it.

A patent troll would never actually create the car. They only own patents so they can sue orgs with deep pockets that actually do produce something. They do nothing but look at products with the idea of seeing if they can apply one of their patents to the product and then claim patent infringement and sue. They produce nothing, but siphon off vast sums of money for lawyer's pockets and sometimes some for themselves too when they win.

In your example if a patent troll bought your patent they would hold it until someone tried to build an electric car like you had designed, and then sue them. Your idea would never come to fruition. It would be used as a hammer with which to beat on other inventors.

Jury ... Random people from around

[unity100]

i wonder how long until a bunch of them jury will succumb to the 'stealing' and 'intellectual property rights' or 'innovation' baits.

Way to go Red Hat!

[Bearhouse]

We appreciate the jury's wisdom and remain committed to providing value to our customers, including through our Open Source Assurance program. We also remain stalwart in resisting bogus shakedown tactics.

Exactly why you should get your customers to pay RH for support, as I encourage mine to do.
'Free' software does not mean 'without cost'. The FOSS community needs people like RH, (urm, OK, and the slightly less 'not evil' IBM), helping out.

There's much discussion here & elsewhere about how to fix the broken US patent system.
How about changing the law so that punitive damages could be awarded against blatant patent trolls such as Acacia? (Don't get me started about the cynical, useless bastards at SCO).
Better still, how about making 'stifling innovation through frivolous patent suits' a Federal / criminal offense?

Re:Way to go Red Hat!

[larry bagina]

Better still, how about making 'stifling innovation through frivolous patent suits' a Federal / criminal offense?

Just what we need, a law to compensate for the failure of the federal employees at the patent office.

Re:Way to go Red Hat!

[Bearhouse]

Better still, how about making 'stifling innovation through frivolous patent suits' a Federal / criminal offense?

Just what we need, a law to compensate for the failure of the federal employees at the patent office.

That's exactly my point. It would appear that the patent office does not have the resources to effectively review new patents. Hence private organisations have to resort to the courts. But it's a one-way street - to me seeming like 'being guilty until proved innocent'. Some dick patent troll sues you. You then have to spend considerable time & money proving that they're a dick troll. (See SCO etc.) Time & money that you could and should be instead spending on innovating, creating jobs and better serving your customers.
Just saying that a bigger barrier to trolling than just legal costs could be a way of deterring frivolous cases.

Re:Way to go Red Hat!

[__aasqbs9791]

Anyone with money and a product or service (to some extent) has something to fear from patent trolls. The only defense is to have enough money to last through a trial, and that's only sometimes successful. I think we have a problem here in that patents are not screened well enough at the patent office. If I had a patent, I'd want to feel extremely confidant that it won't be invalidated by a court. And if I avoid infringing others patents, I'd want to be very confident that I'm not just avoiding invalid patents (waste of time and effort). But most of all (as a consumer), I'd want to be very confident that patents are actually promoting the progress of science and the useful arts. I have little to no confidence that any of these things are true now.

Re:Way to go Red Hat!

[cetialphav]

How about changing the law so that punitive damages could be awarded against blatant patent trolls such as Acacia?

The problem is that it is hard to argue to a court that Acacia deserves punitive damages. The courts start with the assumption that all patents are legitimate. They do not rank patents based on quality. They have all been reviewed by impartial technical experts and been blessed by the USPTO. It is extremely difficult to argue (and win) to a court that the patent office screwed up.

I think blaming people like Acacia misses the point, because this isn't about punishing people. The real problem is that too many non-innovative things are becoming patented. The problem isn't the patent trolls; the problem is the patent system. The trolls only exist because the system is broken. Punishing trolls does nothing to fix the underlying system.

patent trolling

[portnux]

Since the entire concept of patents is to support innovation, why not give patent a specific and limited amount of time to actually incorporate their ideas and if that isn't met the patent is invalidated? This I think would at least limit patent trolling.

Re:patent trolling

[Theaetetus]

Since the entire concept of patents is to support innovation, why not give patent a specific and limited amount of time to actually incorporate their ideas and if that isn't met the patent is invalidated? This I think would at least limit patent trolling.

Would be tough... Patents are a property right. We don't normally take peoples' property away if they're not using it in ways that we'd like, but maybe you could make an argument under Kelo v. City of New London that it's an eminent domain taking. Plus, it wouldn't be invalidating the patent - it would be assigning it to the government, who then releases it free into the public domain.

Texas and patents

[esocid]

Whoa. Did I just read "Marshall, TX" and "patents were invalid" in the same sentence? Someone should check that the earth's polarity just didn't go through a reversal.

Re:Texas and patents

[Anonymous Coward]

The polarity did reverse! Even twice! Look at it!

Re:Texas and patents

[harlows_monkeys]

Whoa. Did I just read "Marshall, TX" and "patents were invalid" in the same sentence? Someone should check that the earth's polarity just didn't go through a reversal

Defendants have been doing well in patent suits in Texas for a few years. The notion that EDT somehow unduly favors plaintiffs is a myth.

Note that the expected outcome of a patent suit is a win for plaintiffs, pretty much in any district, for the simple reason that it is plaintiffs who decide to bring suit. It costs a lot of time and money to get a case to the point of filing a patent suit, so the only ones that make it to court are ones where the plaintiff has spent considerable effort in determining that they have a decent chance of winning.

Plaintiffs choose EDT not because they think it favors them. They choose it because many other plaintiffs chose it, and so the courts there have experience with patent litigation. Patent litigation is complex, so both plaintiffs and defendants really want judges who are experienced in it.

Of course, that raises the question of how EDT got started in patents in the first place. I believe that it started when a particular judge there, with a background in computer programming, worked on a complex patent case as a lawyer, before he became a judge. He enjoyed the challenge, and when he became a judge, he made it a point to try to be assigned any patent cases that came up in EDT. That in turn caused more people to file in EDT, and so on.

Another factor is that there is not much federal crime going on in EDT. Patent suits are civil, not criminal. Criminal cases take priority over civil cases, because of the Constitutional right to a speedy trial in criminal cases. In a district with a busy criminal element (and the braindead "war on drugs" has ensured that there is a steady supply of federal crime in many districts), it can take years to get court time for a civil case. Hence, plaintiffs seek out districts that have light criminal calendars.

Re:Which Patents

[PatPending]

5,072,412, entitled “User Interface With Multiple Workspaces for Sharing Display System Objects" which issued on December 10, 1991

5,533,183, entitled “User Interface With Multiple Workspaces for Sharing Display System Objects” which issued on July 2, 1996

5,394,521, entitled “User Interface With Multiple Workspaces for Sharing Display System Objects” which issued on February 28, 1995

Source: http://www.groklaw.net/pdf/IPvRH-1.pdf

No. Patents are no property

[Anonymous Coward]

Patents are no property. Just a time-limited monopoly (sometimes even that is bad enough).

That's what the "IP crowd" want us all to believe: by repeating the meme "IP" they want copyrights, trademarks and patents to be at one level with property rights, to play the same stupid capitalistic games they are accustomed to play with their "assets".

And if we are not careful and swallow this meme, someday they'll succeed, bit by little bit. Laws, after all, reflect the values and beliefs of society -- laws will follow if we all swallow.

So: please don't talk about "Intellectual Property". Say "Intellectual Poverty", or whatever.

Remind your friends: there's no IP.

I'd like to

[zogger]

The same way that MS makes a few bucks..coming preinstalled on PCs. The consumer pays for the software, but never really sees it either the way it is packaged. I have no idea why red hat and canonical don't just sell computers, with their software preinstalled, guaranteed to "just work". Both companies are large enough to fund production runs of computers and get good wholesale prices over in asia, so they could be cost competitive. Heck, they could gauge interest in advance just by running a poll on their support forums to see if people might be interested, what types of hardware, what they thought would be a fair price, etc.

Re:yay!

[pcolaman]

Please tell me you are not mistaking this for Marshall the college. Not really aware of Football being a major thing that Marshall, TX is known for. It is known as one of the places where the Civil Rights movement centered out of in the south, but I'm not aware of it being particularly noted as a great high school football school, in terms of other Texas High Schools. A quick search online shows that most sites that rank high schools in their classification (4A) shows them to be a middle of the pack football school.

Oh but it is about punishing people

[SmallFurryCreature]

The west is being torn apart by the lack of accountability. The banks, the governments who failed to supervise the banks, the voters who elected the politicians who didn't do anything time and time again. We now have capitalists trying to tear apart European countries to make a quick buck. If a few pirates dare to interrupt shipping we send in war ships and blow their brains out, but if capitalist hold entire economies hostage we think this is good business.

Acacia is seriously hurting the economy because nobody can afford to do business without deep pockets to protect against them. It means no startup stand a change anymore once a patent troll comes looking and even big companies are constantly at the mercy of the poor saps who didn't manage to get out of jury duty.

When a flea bites you, you might shrug it off as harmless, but when you are being swarmed by parasites, you got to start killing them and go after their unborn children as well. Or you are going to die.

Ask yourself, what has been done to stop the banks and other industries from having to be bailed out again? Answer: Absolutely nothing. How many times do you think the US and EU can afford to do this? In Europe first it was Iceland that went belly up, and added a couple of thousand to Dutch and British tax payers. Now it is Greece, with the government there having deceived regulators who didn't check anything because they were not allowed but all the time we were told that the EU was good for us and that it worked so well. And now it is becoming clear that pretty much all of the garlic nations are in deep shit and just waiting to fall over. Oh goodie, we propped them up with countless donations when they joined because it would pay of in the long term. Well this is the long term and they need yet more cash.

And at no point is anybody going to jail. Or stripped of power and privilege.

If you don't punish people, you don't correct behavior. The system itself ain't broken, it is designed to be controlled from within, but when you no longer put sanctions on bad behavior and control, then it fails. Think of it as an engine. If I remove the oil, then the engine isn't broken, but it will be soon enough. The design of the engine is solid, you just need to replace the operator and put the previous operator as a warning next to it, on a spike.