AU Optronics Asks For US Ban On LG LCD Sales

eldavojohn writes "After a lengthy patent case, complete with countersuits, AU Optronics has asked for an injunction against all LCD products made by LG. While this may not sound serious, LG is the number one manufacturer of LCDs used in LCD TVs, laptop PCs and desktop monitors. A quarter of global LCDs shipped in March were LG brand. The bizarre part of the story is that LG Display struck first against AU Optronics way back in 2006 with a patent suit to the tune of $690 million, and in 2009, when the case finally went to court, AUO filed counter-claims of patent infringement that are now coming to fruition. So before you call AUO a patent troll, keep in mind that LGD shot first."

Comments

Tired of all the litigations..

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems the 'tech' companies have shifted their focus on making money by suing others rather than selling things.

And of course - when litigious bastards like Apple are hailed as Jesus Christ, you wonder if we have moved into a different era now.

Re:Tired of all the litigations..

[SimonTheSoundMan]

Hitachi/Fujitsu sued LG back in 2007. LG have always been ruthless in not caring about patents.

Re:Tired of all the litigations..

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

It seems the 'tech' companies have shifted their focus on making money by suing others rather than selling things.

Either way, tech companies are no longer making things anymore. Nowadays, that's all done by ultra-capitalists in China who don't give two fiddlers about Imaginary Property rights.

Re:Tired of all the litigations..

[russotto]

Hitachi/Fujitsu sued LG back in 2007. LG have always been ruthless in not caring about patents.

ROTFL. The linked article notes that LG sued Hitachi, not the other way around. And of course LG (and AUO and Hitachi and Samsung and all the rest) don't care about the other guy's patents; they don't even know about them. They're all working on similar products from the technological base, with engineers and researchers with similar education and experience; it would be a great surprise if there wasn't a lot of overlap. Particularly since their patent lawyers write the patents as broadly as possible (and often in obfuscating language) while still getting past the various patent offices (not a high bar!). No one is going around reading anyone else's patent filings for ideas.

Eliminate Patents.

[Darkness404]

Quite honestly, it is time to eliminate patents. As we've seen from countries with lax IP enforcement (AKA China), if you have a quality product, the knock-offs can't compete. The entire point of patents is to add to public knowledge, but that isn't happening. So really, we need shorter patent protection times, or just eliminate it all together.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[girlintraining]

...or just eliminate it all together.

The patent system was originally designed to protect the small inventor from a large business entity that could simply absorb the product into their existing product line and mass-produce it at a lower cost than the inventor ever could. This was done by creating a time-limited exclusive right and granting it to the small inventor specifically to prevent this -- thereby forcing the larger business to pay them for their invention (licensing) instead of simply copying the product and leaving the inventor with no return on his/her investment.

That need still exists today, and the principle behind it is still solid -- so solid in fact, that it's written into our Constitution as a specific right granted to the government. And you might recall, our founding fathers were quite stingy about giving the federal government much power at all even after the failure known as the Articles of Confederation. That speaks clearly to the need for patents and copyright.

The problem is that it's been mutated and corrupted into something businesses use to fight one another in endless litigation, and the patent office has been so poorly funded that there's no way for them to vet the process correctly. The only people who even know how to file a patent are lawyers and large corporations dedicated to the task. The patent office is so pathetic that they'll reject a patent if it's faxed in upside down. Imagine if Thomas Edison had the light bulb rejected because he put it in a brown envelope instead of a white one -- it's that kind of idiocy that needs fixing.

We don't need to eliminate patents and copyright; We need to restore them to their proper place and purpose, which is to protect individuals from corporations, not the other way around. And we need reasonable time limits -- and if you want to eliminate anything, start with that mother fucker Mickey Mouse and the corporation that owns it, because that's what started this whole trend towards a billion years plus the life of the author bullshit.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[Anonymous Coward]

The point of patents was to allow a company to recuperate R&D investments. So maybe we should let patents expire once R&D costs are covered (plus some percentage maybe to create an incentive) instead of a fixed period of time. Silly, obvious patents would then expire quickly. The current system is broken but that doesn't mean we should go to the extreme of abolishing it. The idea of patents is bad IMHO.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do agree with you.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[shalla]

"The entire point of patents is to add to public knowledge, but that isn't happening."

Only in the most roundabout way. The point of patents is to give the creator a period of time to profit off their invention before everyone can completely copy it for free. It's to give people a reason and reward for innovation--if you are the one who comes up with something and patents it, you are the one who has the right to decide who can use your patent and how (and for how much) for that 17 years or whatever. Without that protection, in theory, people have little incentive to innovate because as soon as they create something, someone else just copies it and they've lost their invention and any money they put into it. So yes, it adds to public knowledge in that it encourages innovation and publication, but it then protects those rights for a period. I do think the protection is important. One of the biggest problems with the patent system today is how corrupt it is, with the little guy getting shut out by corporations who claim to have invented things. I happen to think that little guy should be compensated for his time and effort.

So the problem is that the US patent system is corrupt, slow, designed for a 19th century national business arena and timetable (as opposed to 21st century international), and it bogs down in litigation. It certainly needs an overhaul. So does copyright. Frankly, though, so long as big business interests have the ear of Congress, neither of those will happen.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[Theaetetus]

As we've seen from countries with lax IP enforcement (AKA China), if you have a quality product, the knock-offs can't compete.

The widespread Chinese counterfeit market would beg to differ.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[v1]

if you have a quality product, the knock-offs can't compete.

In an ideal world, maybe. (depending on the market) The problem is not focused on competing in the sales market so much as it is in the R&D arena. R&D is outrageously expensive, and has a very high probability at any time of generating zero return for all the money you dump into it. The whole idea of patent is to allow you a chance to recoup your investments when your R&D pays off. If you eliminate patents, it stifles innovation because companies start spending more time doing "market research" (corporate espionage and trying to reproduce the competition's products) and it ends up in somewhat of a "Race to the Bottom in terms of amount of R&D done because the profit margin for copying is much higher than innovating. In the end, everyone is watching everyone else like a hawk and nobody's making anything original.

Trademarks are somewhat involved with this because they help the innovators to reap additional benefits from their R&D by improving the value of their brand. Without trademarks and patents, brands lose their meaning. Just ask yourself how many things you buy based on brand. Not just technology... think even about the grocery store. Half of what you put in your cart is probably chosen by brand. How would you like to lose that choice? You wouldn't lose the choice, but you'd lose the meaning, as every brand of beans would taste the same.

The concept of patent and trademark itself is a very good idea, it's just implemented with laws made in a totally different world. (era) As with so much of today's laws, they are so screwed up from assumptions made 200 years ago that they are beyond fixing and just need to be thrown out and start from scratch with modern circumstances taken fully into account. People keep trying to "fix" them, but its like trying to fix a building with a bad foundation. If it's too broken you just have to knock the building down and put up a new one.

People that say "we need to get rid of patents!" only have it half right.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[shalla]

Gah. I hate when someone says what I'm trying to say much better than I say it while I'm off typing out a response. Nicely done.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[BitZtream]

You know, I keep hearing 'abolition patents' said over and over, but considering the current system, for all its problems, does actually function ... I've yet to hear any really compelling reason to abolish it.

Everytime a patent troll gets someone the company takes a hit, redesigns the product to not get hit by the patent and moves on. Patent trolls really do actually inspire invention just from trying to get away from the bastards.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[Solaris444]

I'd be inclined to agree, but all the western world produces these days is "Intellectual Property" so I seriously doubt that many politicians (well-informed or otherwise) would be willing to take such a step.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[Plunky]

So maybe we should let patents expire once R&D costs are covered (plus some percentage maybe to create an incentive) instead of a fixed period of time.

So yeah, these companies would never make a profit, just like hollywood movies never seem to make a profit..

A fixed time period is the only way. I don't even want pay-to-extend that people suggest for extending copyrights. I think that the date of creation is the date of creation and if we (society) want to grant exclusive rights for a period of time, it should be up when its up so there can be no doubt.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[Man On Pink Corner]

We need to restore them to their proper place and purpose, which is to protect individuals from corporations, not the other way around.

Sigh. No, their proper place and purpose is not to "protect individuals from corporations." It's

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.

All you have to ask about a given patent application is, "Is this going to promote the progress of anything but some lawyer's vacation-home equity?" If an engineer who's confronted with the same problem is likely to arrive at a similar solution, then the answer is "No," and the patent should not be granted.

If we could just make the USPTO understand that whatever solution is immediately grasped by the first person to confront a problem is not always worth a government-granted monopoly, we'd go a long way toward reforming the system. It has nothing to do with whatever anti-corporatist agenda you're pushing. The patent system is ridiculously broken, and I'm not sure it's possible to make it work equitably for all stakeholders from inventors to end users. But if it is, then that should be the goal.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[rtfa-troll]

Considering AUO is a chinese company, maybe we should ignore their patents until they stop ignoring everybody else's.

Well, perhaps that's just a little hypocritical. The USA has been running around the world getting everyone to follow their patents. You have to "set an example" if you want to be convincing. China is, in a real way, just following your lead from the times when you used to ignore European imaginary property. Maybe after a hundred years or so of you showing your respect for their property, they'll show the appropriate respect for yours. More hopefully, maybe you'll realise that most of the idea is stupid in the first place.

And, the government backed industrial espionage while we are at it.

Perhaps ignoring the "government backed industrial espionage" isn't the best way to counteract it. Maybe you could begin by asking the CIA to stop spying on European (and other foreign civilian) firms and handing that information on to US based companies. Once that's done, maybe some general international agreements for everyone to stop and penalties for those that continue, combined with arresting CEOs and CTOs of companies that fail to implement effective security measures would help.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[russotto]

You know, I keep hearing 'abolition patents' said over and over, but considering the current system, for all its problems, does actually function ... I've yet to hear any really compelling reason to abolish it.

Everytime a patent troll gets someone the company takes a hit, redesigns the product to not get hit by the patent and moves on. Patent trolls really do actually inspire invention just from trying to get away from the bastards.

Broken window fallacy. And you're ignoring all the companies where the company or product took a hit and burned to the waterline. And all the companies and products which were never brought past the concept stage for fear of infringement.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[Anonymous Coward]

"The patent system was originally designed to protect the small inventor from a large business entity that could simply absorb the product into their existing product line and mass-produce it at a lower cost than the inventor ever could."

You're confusing the situation today with that two centuries ago when patent legislation originated in the USA. There was no mass production. Guns with interchangeable parts didn't appear until some decades later, and the assembly line not until later still. The patent system was not about small inventors vs. large businesses, the point was to prevent inventions from being lost because the inventor kept it secret from his competitors and then got kicked in the head by a horse one day without ever having passed on the knowledge.

Personally, I feel it is highly unlikely in today's world that any individual's invention is going to be so specialized that it could not be discovered independently by someone else in less time than it would take for a patent to expire. The patent system today is nothing more than "neener neener, I thought of it first!", welfare for lawyers, and a tool used by big business to shut out competition.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[rtfa-troll]

maybe we should let patents expire once R&D costs are covered

That sounds fun. I can see lots and lots of parties^W complex development meetings in tech companies to ensure the costs are sufficient to never ever let the essential patents run out. I guess though the lawyers will get even more fun ensuring that you mostly pay copyright and trademark licenses whenever you want a new technology "IP" license so that nothing ever ever goes out of patent.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[clyde_cadiddlehopper]

The patent system was originally designed to protect the small inventor from a large business entity that could simply absorb the product into their existing product line and mass-produce it at a lower cost.

Wikipedia disagrees: "The Florentine architect Filippo Brunelleschi received a three-year patent for a barge with hoisting gear, that carried marble along the Arno River in 1421. In 1449, King Henry VI granted the first patent with a license of 20 years to John of Utynam for introducing the making of colored glass to England." Mass production didn't arise until centuries later.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[sjames]

The problem is that they ONLY seem to reject patents due to trivial procedural problems. If you correctly fax the patent while rubbing your belly, patting your head and hopping on your right foot, they'll grant it no matter how trivial and obvious it is to anyone even vaguely in the field. OTOH, if you submit a patent that results from a truly stunning insight but you were rubbing your belly counter-clockwise, no patent for you.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[Anonymous Coward]

The patent system was originally designed to encourage innovation and growth in industry. This was done by creating a time-limited incentive, granting it to the inventor specifically to accomplish this end.

That need still exists today, and the principle behind it is still solid, but it's been fucked over by corporate interests.
fix'd

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[Aldanga]

That need still exists today, and the principle behind it is still solid -- so solid in fact, that it's written into our Constitution as a specific right granted to the government. And you might recall, our founding fathers were quite stingy about giving the federal government much power at all even after the failure known as the Articles of Confederation. That speaks clearly to the need for patents and copyright.

Actually, not all the Founding Fathers were in fervent agreement about patents and copyright. In particular, Thomas Jefferson himself was very particular about giving any "dibs" on ideas. He believed that ideas cannot be owned, and still stated that it is not the right of any man to own an idea as far as it is without himself. It's hard to tell precisely from his letter, but it seems like he was not greatly fond of the idea of patents in any form.

Just because something is written into the Constitution does not mean every one of the signers agreed wholly with it. The US Constitution is an imperfect document formed by many imperfect men of different beliefs and opinions.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[nedlohs]

Not quite.

Each individual patent does not need "to promote the progress of science and useful arts", just the system as a whole. Some bad patents that are balanced by good patents for a net gain is still a system promoting progress.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[rabtech]

I have to say that I disagree completely; Patents are a good thing so long as patents are only granted for truly novel inventions. It seems to me that the majority of these patent battles would not be relevant if the patent office didn't approve so many business method, general, vague, or non-innovative patents. (I think there are also some reforms that would help protect small inventors against large corporations, without opening the floodgates to companies being pestered by individuals needlessly.)

The Supreme Court has been helping out a bit by setting some clearer standards for what constitutes a novel invention, but some of this broken stuff should have been fixed by Congress a long time ago. One of the biggest is the way the lower courts have distorted the concept of "willful" copying of patented technology, to the point that most companies have strict policies against employees doing any kind of patent searches if they think they have a patentable idea or if they want to attempt a workaround, because some courts have interpreted that as intentional and slapping triple damages on you. They would rather ignore the issue and not know than attempt to design around the patent, in which case the only real defense you have is to attempt to patent everything you can possibly think of to build up a defensive portfolio of patents, which of course doesn't protect against patent trolls.

If you think about that for a moment, isn't it exactly the opposite of the stated purpose of patents in the Constitution - to promote the progress of science and the useful arts?

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[nomadic]

As we've seen from countries with lax IP enforcement (AKA China), if you have a quality product, the knock-offs can't compete.

I disagree. If company X and company Y both manufacture product Z, which was developed by company x, then all things being equal company Y will always be able to undercut company X's prices because they don't have to spend the money on R&D.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[msclrhd]

Don't you mean: "Neener, neener, I *filed* it first!"

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[Darkness404]

Ok, put a Chinese iPhone and a genuine iPhone side by side and ask people which one they would prefer. Most people would choose the genuine iPhone because they got things right that the fake iPhones can't emulate.

About the only thing they can compete with is price and not much else. In the end it doesn't matter that the iPhone has all the patents or not it is the implementation that really counts.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[msclrhd]

Trademarks are there for identifying brands. This is so that someone cannot come along and create another product with the same name (be it software, hardware, fast food, shop name, shampoo or whatever). Protecting identity here is a good thing.

Copyright is about protecting the written text (be it a book or code or documentation), or audio or video. This is there so that people do not make copies of your work and sell them as their own. This protection is needed, but is currently too long. Maybe it should last the lifetime of the author(s). I don't know what benefit it has beyond that; maybe it should last an additional 5-10 years, after which, if no new material has been added by the inheritors it should go into the public domain, unless the author requests that it go into the public domain.

Patents are intended to provide a 5 or so year window for the inventor to have a lead in the market on something that is sufficiently novel and innovative. After that, others were allowed to produce similar products. Now, patents are a minefield and should be restored to what they were.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[brxndxn]

The idea of eliminating patents and intellectual property rights seem better than the current alternative.. The RIAA/MPAA has proven that they can be such litigious assholes over a non-universal 'right' that is not even accepted in countries with 94% of the world's population (according to the recent US research) that eliminating them seems more beneficial to society as a whole. The current patent mess in the technology world is infuriating. You cannot develop anything new and useful - even completely innovative - without some bullshit company that should not even exist suing you for bullshit reasons. Patent laws exist so the little guy can compete with the big guys.. Instead, the current patent law in the US is being used so the big guys cannot compete with the bigger guys - and the little guy is completely shut out.

In the US, we keep getting told that every adaptation of any existing technology is 'stealing.' But, isn't it stealing from the rest of society if a technological innovation based on a logical conclusion is patented and strictly enforced?

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[coolsnowmen]

Bah, spoken obviously as someone who doesn't actually try and make anything new and useful. Yes the consumer seems to lose out in the short run for patents, but that isn't the point. It is about the long run.

It wasn't about the lost of information due to unforeseen accidents. It is to prevent two eventualities of an America w/o patents.
Either the invention is impossible to reproduce and the inventor takes it to his grave, or someone sees the invention, which didn't exist until the inventor made it, and says hmm, that seem obvious how to do now, I think I'll copy him.

If it is a legit patent, then the fact is it didn't exist until the inventor thought of it, if it is illegitimate, then prove it and get it killed, don't just sit there and whine. There is nothing wrong with the idea of patents in modern society, only with people not making good decision on what is -- and is not-- new and Non-obvious.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[Miseph]

The Industrial revolution was already kicking in the late 1700s. The assemble line was still a ways off, but British troops carried guns with (theoretically) interchangeable parts in the War of Independence. One of our many beefs with England at the time was, in fact, that they were denying industrial technologies to the colonies, enforcing a system where they bought raw materials from the Americas at a discount, then sold finished goods back to them at a steep mark up.

One of the other big issues, unfair taxation, was similar in many ways: the British government created various rates and exemptions to favor certain well-connected, semi-nationalized corporations and conglomerates. For example, the tea tax behind the Boston Tea Party was the result of English attempts to preserve the British East India Company's monopoly on importing tea to both the colonies and England proper (where smuggled Dutch tea hugely undercut the official channels).

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[Anonymous Coward]

...or just eliminate it all together.

The patent system was originally designed to protect the small inventor from a large business entity that could simply absorb the product into their existing product line and mass-produce it at a lower cost than the inventor ever could. This was done by creating a time-limited exclusive right and granting it to the small inventor specifically to prevent this -- thereby forcing the larger business to pay them for their invention (licensing) instead of simply copying the product and leaving the inventor with no return on his/her investment.

That need still exists today, and the principle behind it is still solid -- so solid in fact, that it's written into our Constitution as a specific right granted to the government. And you might recall, our founding fathers were quite stingy about giving the federal government much power at all even after the failure known as the Articles of Confederation. That speaks clearly to the need for patents and copyright.

The problem is that it's been mutated and corrupted into something businesses use to fight one another in endless litigation, and the patent office has been so poorly funded that there's no way for them to vet the process correctly. The only people who even know how to file a patent are lawyers and large corporations dedicated to the task. The patent office is so pathetic that they'll reject a patent if it's faxed in upside down. Imagine if Thomas Edison had the light bulb rejected because he put it in a brown envelope instead of a white one -- it's that kind of idiocy that needs fixing.

We don't need to eliminate patents and copyright; We need to restore them to their proper place and purpose, which is to protect individuals from corporations, not the other way around. And we need reasonable time limits -- and if you want to eliminate anything, start with that mother fucker Mickey Mouse and the corporation that owns it, because that's what started this whole trend towards a billion years plus the life of the author bullshit.

I think you have patents confused with copyright.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[Anonymous Coward]

Feelgood bullshit. Instead of talking about how things should be, why don't you try to look at how things are and have been.

Patents are there "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts". After the first airplane flights in America, the American aircraft industry was being held back by competing patent claims from the Wright Brothers and Curtiss, whence new innovations came out of Europe until the government started needing war planes and stopped paying attention to patents.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[BasilBrush]

R&D is outrageously expensive, and has a very high probability at any time of generating zero return for all the money you dump into it. The whole idea of patent is to allow you a chance to recoup your investments when your R&D pays off.

If that's the idea, it's failing terribly. The patent office grants patents to ideas that can be thought up in a moment, are the most obvious solution to a problem, and/or have never had been implemented even in a prototype form by the claimant. When someone comes along who actually comes up with a real product so sell, they can be prevented from doing so by someone who came up with an idea in an afternoon, with no intention of creating a product themselves.

If you eliminate patents, it stifles innovation because companies start spending more time doing "market research" (corporate espionage and trying to reproduce the competition's products) and it ends up in somewhat of a "Race to the Bottom in terms of amount of R&D done because the profit margin for copying is much higher than innovating.

What you say is true of technology that takes a long time and is expensive to develop. But that accounts for a small fraction of what is patented. So some small fraction of patents are beneficial to creating innovative products. The majority are harmful to creating innovative products.

Without trademarks and patents, brands lose their meaning. Just ask yourself how many things you buy based on brand. Not just technology... think even about the grocery store. Half of what you put in your cart is probably chosen by brand. How would you like to lose that choice? You wouldn't lose the choice, but you'd lose the meaning, as every brand of beans would taste the same.

That's nonsense, as can be most obviously seen by your example. The world's most popular brand of baked beans has been make to taste the same way for far more years than any patent can possibly have lasted. There is no patent protection. Yet you still have brands, and different tastes of baked beans.

Technology patents are irrelevant to brands. All they need is to protect particular logos the look and feel of items. So called "Trade Dress", which is a different thing from technology patents. Take a Nike T-Shirt for example. They can charge more than the competition not because of anything that they can do differently - cotton fabric and stitching is available to all. But because of their logo and the unique look of the product.

What brands are fundamentally is a promise of quality to a customer. They'll pay more for that Nike T-Shirt, because they'll expect that it will still look good after it's been washed a few times. Where as that generic T-Shirt is likely to twist, and the color will fade.

As with so much of today's laws, they are so screwed up from assumptions made 200 years ago that they are beyond fixing and just need to be thrown out and start from scratch with modern circumstances taken fully into account. People keep trying to "fix" them, but its like trying to fix a building with a bad foundation. If it's too broken you just have to knock the building down and put up a new one.

Agreed. I'd suggest the first requirement of a new system is that the patent examiner inspects an actual working implementation (prototype) of the claim being made. And secondly that if the invention isn't incorporated in a real product, that genuinely sells in the market within a few years of the granting of the patent, then the patent should be made void. These two should cut down on patent trolls a lot.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[jonbryce]

Eldred v Ashcroft says it is up to congress to decide whether or not it secures the progress of science and useful arts, and courts can't argue with them.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[BasilBrush]

Bah, spoken obviously as someone who doesn't actually try and make anything new and useful.

Non-necessarily. Working in the EU as a computer programmer, my ideas and creations have never been protected by patents. Software patents are not-enforcable in the EU. That fact has never stopped me creating stuff, either as an employee or when doing my own thing. Nor has it stopped any of the rest of the European software industry.

Now, is there something fundamentally different about software patents, or is it that patents are unnecessary? That's the question.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[Anonymous Coward]

by rtfa-troll (1340807)

Ah. A self proclaimed troll. That explains it. I'll respond anyways.

I'll say this once, right up front. I ought to repeat it frequently, but I won't.

Citation needed!

A few of your claims are outlandish, and others are "common knowledge"-- meaning things that people think might be true, but nobody has a reliable source for. The CIA, for example, could use a good bashing now and again, but they're not guilty of half of what their accused of. (Conversely: they're probably only accused of a small fraction of what they actually get away with.)

Considering AUO is a chinese company, maybe we should ignore their patents until they stop ignoring everybody else's.

Well, perhaps that's just a little hypocritical. The USA has been running around the world getting everyone to follow their patents. You have to "set an example" if you want to be convincing. China is, in a real way, just following your lead from the times when you used to ignore European imaginary property.

When was that? My lifetime? No? Their lifetimes even? How is this even relevant?

Maybe after a hundred years or so of you showing your respect for their property, they'll show the appropriate respect for yours. More hopefully, maybe you'll realise that most of the idea is stupid in the first place.

Some of "the idea" is stupid. It's not as dumb, though, as believing that 100 years is going to magically make a difference.

And, the government backed industrial espionage while we are at it.

Perhaps ignoring the "government backed industrial espionage" isn't the best way to counteract it. Maybe you could begin by asking the CIA to stop spying on European (and other foreign civilian) firms and handing that information on to US based companies. Once that's done, maybe some general international agreements for everyone to stop and penalties for those that continue, combined with arresting CEOs and CTOs of companies that fail to implement effective security measures would help.

We should be locking up lots of C-level execs (usually for fraud or worker abuse). Do we really want to live in a society where ANY executive is exposed to litigation based on security? Bank execs? Sure. Those who hold and keep private data? Sure. Those who callously think that identity theft is not their problem? Sure. But how about those whose only mistake is hiring the wrong employee (who has all the right credentials and interviews well) to prepare a security plan and execute it? Don't think that it can't happen. And what about those companies who require (through contract) that personal information be retained for billing purposes? They don't actually create and enforce the varied security plans. And the fact that they are creating an environment where security breaches will occur? Not their problem. Do you propose we lock them up too, or leave them alone? This all feels very Witch-hunty to me. I support more accountability to those with power, but how do you propose to keep such laws from being abused (and stifling legitimate business, and hence the economy)?

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[coolsnowmen]

If you nullify software patents, then you call into question all that is hardware patents, because there is NOTHING that can be done in software, that can't be done in hardware.

I feel that you completely ignored my comments on the implications of 'non-obviousness' being a criteria.

If I think of some userinterface that is new and non-obvious, why shouldn't I be able to patent it? Otherwise I make about 100$ on it until the first person who sees how it could be done undercuts me. W/O the income potential, why should I bother working on bringing this idea of mine to fruition?

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[gd2shoe]

Both of you bring up good points, but I think that it is "Man On Pink Corner" that identifies the vital missing piece. Individual patent examiners really should adopt the progress clause as a personal mandate. A lot of the problems could be fixed from within the patent office if just a few of them stood for principle. (They need an organizational refit, and their budget should be re-examined, but those would be much more effective if internal reform has already begun.)

Personally, I think the progress clause ought to be enforced by the courts*. The patent office gets its authority from congress. Congress gets its mandate from the Constitution (its authority comes from both the legitimate election by the people and the Constitution). Congress cannot delegate authority that it doesn't have, and the progress language reads as binding to me. The framers didn't include much that was extraneous, and those few words seem quite important. Note that it does not say: "The Congress shall have power to... secure for limited times... exclusive rights." Rather it says: "The Congress shall have power... To promote the progress of science and useful arts..." Let me say that again, for emphasis. They have power "To promote", not "To secure rights". They may promote by securing rights, but securing rights is subordinate to promoting. It is that way in the language of the Constitution, it should be that way in our legal system.

*(I won't be, but I can dream.)

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[BasilBrush]

If you nullify software patents, then you call into question all that is hardware patents, because there is NOTHING that can be done in software, that can't be done in hardware.

Indeed I DID call into question hardware patents. I'm far from convinced they are necessary. Indeed I could point you at an American company, that develops novel and non-obvious chips including a unique multi-core microcontroller. They've never applied for a patent for any product or technology, and they are possibly the most creative small company I know. The company is Parallax, and the microcontroller is the Propeller.

I feel that you completely ignored my comments on the implications of 'non-obviousness' being a criteria.

That's because I agreed with it, as far as it went.

My post basically called you out on your insult to the pervious poster: "Bah, spoken obviously as someone who doesn't actually try and make anything new and useful." It's simply an untrue categorization of people that don't agree with patents that they are not people who work on creating new and useful technology and products.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[gd2shoe]

The US Constitution is an imperfect document formed by many imperfect men of different beliefs and opinions.

I really wish that people would remember that. The Constitution is a great document, but it isn't infallible in either method or ethics. We should always be on the lookout for better ways to live and act. Because of the protections it affords, the Constitution should not be changed lightly. We must, however, remember that it can be changed, and that the framers did get a few things flat wrong: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-fifths_compromise

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[coolsnowmen]

my parent poster- gave an untrue characterization of the need for parents. He is a disingenuous at best, a liar w/ a straw man at worst. My parent is blind to the protections small time inventors do require if they ever actually want to make a dime on their ideas. Not all of us are independently wealthy.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[Man On Pink Corner]

True. I think a lot of people looking forward to the Bilski decision are going to be disappointed for just that reason.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[Nefarious Wheel]

Girl in training - or secret Heterodyne Heir? Brilliant.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[kocsonya]

"If you nullify software patents, then you call into question all that is hardware patents, because there is NOTHING that can be done in software, that can't be done in hardware."

You say that anything that can be done is SW can be done in HW too. Yes, that's true. On the other hand, if there are things that you can do in HW that you can not do in SW, then that means that unpatentability in SW still leaves a part of HW to be subject to patent.

A new way of doping the Si is a HW process that has no equivalent SW solution. It's not a mathematical abstraction, it's applying chemistry and physics in a novel way. So nullifying SW patents have absolutely nothing to do with it. If the Si doping is too low level, you can start coming up on the HW scale and at every level you will find HW solutions that have no SW equivalent. You can compile SW into
gates (and you can realise any logic circuit as SW), but anything to do with how you create gates, how you (physically) connect them and so on are things that has no equivalent in SW.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[BasilBrush]

I don't see anything wrong with the points that poster made, nor do I see you making walid arguments that he's wrong. Just insults.

Why should you have a right to earn money from ideas? Ideas are worthless. It's good implementations that are worth money. And you can earn money from good implementations without ever filing for a patent.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[shutdown -p now]

It's first-to-invent in U.S., not first-to-file.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[kz45]

"Quite honestly, it is time to eliminate patents. As we've seen from countries with lax IP enforcement (AKA China), if you have a quality product, the knock-offs can't compete. The entire point of patents is to add to public knowledge, but that isn't happening. So really, we need shorter patent protection times, or just eliminate it all together."

I can't wait until we eliminate patents. Mostly because It will give me the opportunity to cherry-pick smaller companies that are just starting out. Since they probably don't have the resources to properly market and or release their patentable product, my much larger company with the money and the resources can take their idea and re-sell it before they get off the ground.

You think it's bad now, think about a market where the little guy has absolutely no protection. Patents work both ways. It seems like you don't care because you have never created anything that you want to bring to market (and protect).

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[tom17]

I think what you mean is, "me too".

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[Anonymous Coward]

the rest of the European software industry.

Wait, what? What European software industry? I'm not even trying to troll here. I actually wish you people could create something worth using. I'm sick of MS, Apple, Oracle, Quicken, Adobe, et al. But as far as I can tell there is no European software worth even taking seriously much less use.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[Eskarel]

Your caseis true of most programmers, but not all. The work of most programmers isn't(or shouldn't be) patentable in any country. Just as the work of most engineers and other people who create physical machines isn't covered by patents.

That doesn't mean that there aren't engineers, programmers, doctors out there who are creating work which should be covered by patents. A software application is just a process and if that process is sufficiently innovative and non trivial, then it shouldn't be treated any differently than if that same process were carried out by a physical machine.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[rolfwind]

The patent system was originally designed to protect the small inventor from a large business entity that could simply absorb the product into their existing product line and mass-produce it at a lower cost than the inventor ever could.

Citation please.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually Edison didn't invent the light bulb - he just found a filament that worked better than previous filaments. Just like today, it's all about media hype and mass production - with last in, best dressed.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[SanityInAnarchy]

The problem is that it's been mutated and corrupted into something businesses use to fight one another in endless litigation,

The thing is, this isn't new. The steam engine is a perfect example -- two competing inventors form corporations, and each independently develops their own unique significant improvement to the steam engine, but as they aren't willing to cross-license, the industry is held back until one of the patents expires, at which point both improvements can finally be combined into the same engine.

This still happens today. Why can't I have a laptop with a magnetic power cord and an upgradeable video card in the same machine? Or a magnetic power cord on a netbook? Because Apple doesn't want to make upgradeable video cards or netbooks (they think the iPad fills that niche), and I'm sure they've patented the magnetic power cord, which means I have to wait at least 10-15 years, even though the technology exists today to do what I want.

And we need reasonable time limits -- and if you want to eliminate anything, start with that mother fucker Mickey Mouse and the corporation that owns it, because that's what started this whole trend towards a billion years plus the life of the author bullshit.

While I agree, I have a much bigger problem with patents than copyright. It's not difficult to come up with a story which doesn't violate copyright (even with the obscene length of copyright), and it's not difficult to license something creative-commons or public-domain. Yes, it's our culture, and we want it back, but we can always simply create new culture outside their control.

It is insanely difficult to come up with an invention of any sort, including (especially!) software, which doesn't infringe on current patents, even with their relatively short span compared to copyright.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[Zugok]

"The entire point of patents is to add to public knowledge, but that isn't happening."

Only in the most roundabout way.

I am quite sure patent comes from the Latin, patere meaning open. That being the case, the meaning of patent really has been bastardised. I onder where this leaves software patents if they are not open source then...

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, if you can swear behind a reference and show that you didn't abandon the project, then the date of invention is the earliest date of continuous development leading up to the filing, not the date of filing.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[Pinky's Brain]

The problem with non-obviousness is that lawyers argue that it is impossible to judge in hind sight. So they come up with all kinds of "alternatives" which essentially always come down to "No prior art? Then it's not obvious." in practice. Or in other words :

"It creates a class of speculative schemers who make it their business to watch the advancing wave of improvement, and gather its foam in the form of patented monopolies, which enable them to lay a heavy tax upon the industry of the country, without contributing anything to the real advancement of the arts."

My view is that the only reasonable obviousness test is a purely subjective democratic decision by a jury of the inventors peers. In the old days when being up to date with the state of the art in multiple fields was much easier than today idealistic well educated patent examiners might have been a decent alternative, but idealism is dead and besides ... the patent examiners have to follow the lawyer tests to determine obviousness, so they can't use good judgement any more even if they had it.

The idea of patents is defensible, but the reality of lawyer corrupted patents where non obviousness is a non issue (or at best a crapshoot, where it's judged by a jury of idiots in Texas) is not. We need something better ... and as long as we don't get something better the world of software is better off without them.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[Anonymous Coward]

No he doesn't neener neener, I filed it first has been patented. He used the thought of it first variant as it was in the public domain :P

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[jonbryce]

Bilski is different because it isn't a constitutional case. Congress has decided that mathematical algorithms and business method patents don't secure the progress of science and useful arts and have excluded them from patent protection. The issue is whether or not a computer program that works out the price of derivatives and buys / sells them in response to trades with customers comes under these categories.

In Europe, which has similar exclusions from patentability, a similar case was heard, and it was decided that if the same task could be performed by a "little man" in a control room, following instructions, then it can't get a patent.

Now this company could employ someone, or a whole team of people, pass them details of all the trades the company makes and give them instructions as to how to work out the price of the derivative and give them procedures to decide whether or not to buy or sell it. So if this case was being heard in Europe, the "little man" defence would apply.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[celtic_hackr]

While I agree with your premise. Your example sucks. For one thing, when I go to the grocery store, I usually look for the cheapest brand of food, with the same ingredients. Canned corn is canned corn. The only thing that brand names might have is genetically altered corn, and hence, I'd be more likely to shun a name-brand due to that. Furthermore, name brands are more hurtful now too. For example, I shun *ALL* Sony products. If I get one as a gift I return it to the store and get something different. NAme brand works both ways. With the advent of the Internet, it is even more precarious.

I do think we still need patents, but we need new rules to set definitive rules to narrow what a novel and useful invention is. Example: lithium ion batteries was novel, all the variant chemical combinations of making them are not.

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[TheRaven64]

He might not have invented the lightbulb, but he did conquer Mars...

Re:Eliminate Patents.

[Anonymous Coward]

"gave an untrue characterization of the need for parents!"

Yeh baby!

Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

A claim asked is not a claim received.

Re:Well...

[pitchpipe]

AU Optronics has asked for an injunction against all LCD products made by LG.

I asked for a pony! Film at 11

Doesn't Look Good For LG

[WrongSizeGlass]

FTFA

"The court concludes that AUO has established by preponderance of the evidence that LGD literally infringes the patents asserted by AUO in this action, and that LGD has not established by clear and convincing evidence that the asserted patents are invalid," wrote Judge Joseph J. Farnan Jr., in a 77-page verdict.

If you're LG that is not what you want to hear.

This could be good if LG takes it in the chin....

[Immostlyharmless]

Might make sure that people aren't drawing attention to themselves, if LG hadn't started the fight, perhaps AUoptics might not have stepped in to finish it. Perhaps this will have a bit of a chilling effect in 'throw the first punch' lawsuits where it's not entirely sure where their own patent portfolios stand.

Patent and copyright litigation

[girlintraining]

They spend millions upon millions fighting in a broken system that for each side amounts to a crap shoot, endless appeals, and slowing down the entire production cycle with needless approvals and cross-checking to attempt to deflect or marginalize the risks, raising the cost of entry into the market, and do you know who pays for all of this?

You.

This isn't bad news for Optronics, or LG -- it's bad news for us. The consumers. Because regardless of who wins, there'll still be LCD displays being produced, and they'll be just that much more expensive now to cover the costs of the elephant mating going on between these two massive corporations. That's why the system needs reform -- not because arguments that are pro- or anti-intellectual property have any validity, but because the way it's setup now costs too damn much.

Re:Patent and copyright litigation

[Rogerborg]

Bingo. Lawyers are the new priests; worthless parasites who spout esoteric gibberish, and the cost of their tithe is built right into the economy.

Actually, I doubt there were ever as many priests per populace as we have lawyers now. As with the Reformation, the only real solution is to cut them out of the loop, and just ignore them. Just get on with business, shred any legal demands, and when Men With Guns do finally come to sieze your assets at the behest of their masters, fold the company. Hell, burn it to the ground rather than let them get their pound of flesh. They must be starved into finding real jobs.

Re:Patent and copyright litigation

[Dachannien]

Well, the question is a bit more complicated than that. Yes, patents result in goods being more expensive due to the monopoly-or-royalties effect on prices. (The legal costs of "elephant mating" pale in comparison to the eventual elephantine damage awards or settlement that may result.) But the other question that must be asked is whether the economic incentive of patents is necessary (or even just helpful) in inducing companies to develop new products in the first place. Unfortunately, it's extremely hard to quantify this, in part because we've never had it any other way.

Similar arguments can be made concerning price controls on health care (particularly pharmaceuticals). If the US imposed nationwide price controls on medical procedures and drugs, the incentive for developing those procedures and drugs would be substantially reduced. Yes, most people would be able to afford cutting-edge treatments then, but the difference is that the cutting edge would be in a different (less advanced) place. Imagine if MRI had been delayed by 20 years or so, for instance.

Re:Patent and copyright litigation

[rotide]

People _love_ to bash lawyers but the fact of the matter is that someone has to _hire_ the lawyer before they sue/defend/etc/etc. So get pissed at LG or AUO. The lawyers didn't start this fight.

Re:Patent and copyright litigation

[ScrewMaster]

Hell, burn it to the ground rather than let them get their pound of flesh. They must be starved into finding real jobs.

I agree, and if those lawyers were working in that plant while you burned it to the ground, well ... let's just say it's a win-win situation.

Re:Patent and copyright litigation

[sznupi]

Well, if those lawyers were so crystal clear and professional, they should be able to see that LG case was weak...but that wouldn't result in charges related to trial.

Re:Patent and copyright litigation

[Imrik]

It may not be necessary for companies, but it is necessary for individuals.

Re:Patent and copyright litigation

[Abreu]

Yeah, but a lawyer should be able to say: "its silly to sue your neighbor over that avocado tree, have you tried talking to him?"

Re:Patent and copyright litigation

[Anonymous Coward]

who pays for all of this? You. [...] they'll be just that much more expensive now to cover the costs

Yes, because as we all know, companies are completely immune from market forces and price elasticity of demand once they've lost a patent lawsuit.

Re:Patent and copyright litigation

[rtfa-troll]

And who wrote the law that allowed the person to hire the lawyer to sue? Hint; most politicians have law degrees. This is not a coincidence.

Re:Patent and copyright litigation

[sjames]

The problem is wider than lawyers, but lawyers are the ones supposedly charged with the responsibility to not let their profession become a pox on society. When they fail, the judge is supposed to sanction them, but judges are just anointed lawyers and are also failing.

Truly, a few bad apples have given the other 1% a bad name.

Re:Patent and copyright litigation

[sjames]

Imagine if MRI had been delayed by 20 years or so, for instance.

That's what NSF grants are for. They would cost us all a LOT less.

Re:Patent and copyright litigation

[dpilot]

> Bingo. Lawyers are the new priests; worthless parasites

Isn't this a fun quandry.

The Law and Government are the evolution of what started in the 1200's with the Magna Carta. Prior to that we had Kings, and what the king said, was Law. (Not exact with all of this, but the general gist.) In essence, Law and Government are recognition that a society works better that enables and rewards more of its populace, not just a hereditary few. Absent Law and Government, we'd mostly be farming, sometimes having wars when egotistic kings got on each others' nerves, etc. They are what makes the society we have possible.

So who are today's underlying bogeymen?
Lawyers and Government.

Unfortunately, when corruption sets in, that's true. But WE have to understand that both institutions are there to serve us, have enabled us, and have enabled this thing we call human progress. WE have to recognize that the corruption is the problem, not the institutions.

Re:Patent and copyright litigation

[sznupi]

We also have to recognize that, ultimatelly, governments (especially in so called "western world"...though not nearly only there, it's not so simple) and generally public institutions and...company practicies are just a reflection of the society; also corruption in them and what you have there.

Or where do you think people in those structures come from?

Re:Patent and copyright litigation

[Anonymous Coward]

Hahahah everyone loves to bash those darn lawyers and their evil-doing ways. Oh except those ones down at Legal Aid who protect battered wives. Or the ones in Law School Clinics who represent the poor against giant corporations. Or the ones at the ACLU arguing on behalf of the constitution. Or the ones at the EFF who fight for things we like. Or the government ones going after companies who pollute or exploit or violate or whatever else have you. Or that one who protected your interests in that road accident. Or the public defender who kept your innocent buddy out of jail. Or the public prosecutor who got that murderer put into jail. Or that one who went after the government for that thing it was doing wrong.

Yeah those guys are complete wastes of space.

Re:Patent and copyright litigation

[dpilot]

I've come to the conclusion that "human nature" isn't good enough any more. We have bigger, more powerful, more destructive toys. It's time that we have to become better, to handle them. Failure to do so will be self-correcting, probably painfully.

Re:Patent and copyright litigation

[Anonymous Coward]

For every good example you can give, there's a "bad" guy on the other side, isn't there? And then there are the cases where both sides are bad...

Re:Patent and copyright litigation

[Eth1csGrad1ent]

so there are good drug dealers (your pharmacist) and bad drug dealers (your coke supplier)... sorry, but I don't have a problem bashing bad drug dealers - or bad (IP) lawyers who make gazillions of dollars arguing about who owns the air we breathe.

Re:Patent and copyright litigation

[tepples]

Yeah, but a lawyer should be able to say: "its silly to sue your neighbor over that avocado tree, have you tried talking to him?"

It's standard practice to talk to an alleged infringer first. It comes to a lawsuit only when talks break down.

Re:Patent and copyright litigation

[mjwx]

Hahahah everyone loves to bash those darn lawyers and their evil-doing ways. Oh except those ones down at Legal Aid who protect battered wives. Or the ones in Law School Clinics who represent the poor against giant corporations. Or the ones at the ACLU arguing on behalf of the constitution. Or the ones at the EFF who fight for things we like. Or the government ones going after companies who pollute or exploit or violate or whatever else have you. Or that one who protected your interests in that road accident. Or the public defender who kept your innocent buddy out of jail. Or the public prosecutor who got that murderer put into jail. Or that one who went after the government for that thing it was doing wrong.

But for every one good lawyer defending our rights there are three bad ones helping the likes of Phillip Morris kill people.

The problem is not lawyers in so far, we've has lawyers in one form or another since we've had organised governments. The problem is that 1. We do not punish lawyers that knowingly do wrong, it is very difficult for a lawyer to be disbarred, even then that (in the US) is on a state by state basis most of the time (Jack Thomson has only been disbarred in Florida). 2. We permit a system that not only allows unethical conduct by lawyers but encourages it by permitting lawyers to receive significant rewards for knowingly engaging in unethical conduct (defending tobacco companies, burring small companies with spurious patent suits, suing grandmothers for sharing a 0.99 USD file).

We need to fix the system that if a lawyer can be proven to have knowingly acted unethically they can be fined into bankruptcy and make them accessories to criminal acts if they are defended (see the James Hardie asbestos cases, the plan was to draw out the case long enough for most of the victims to die) so that the lawyers will also see the inside of a jail. Societies problem is that Lawyers get paid more then Engineers, we need to change this so that building things becomes more important then locking them down legally.

Re:Patent and copyright litigation

[arkhan_jg]

Absolutely, it's the 99% of the lawyers that give the rest a bad name...

Seriously though, it's not that often that criminal lawyers (most of the ones you list) annoy me, though I have contempt for the one that threatened Gary McKinnon with the eventual death penalty if he didn't stop fighting extradition, for example - and there's AMPLE examples of prosecutions that should never have happened.

Many civil lawyers, especially those that work for large firms or on class action suits are simply parasites on society though. It's not like we can even avoid them - they insert themselves into everything, from drafting the worst parts of the Digital Economy Bill, to the impenetrable legal 'contracts' that come with everything these days to sending threatening letters to if they don't pay up right now, threatening sanctions that aren't even in the law, based on virtually no evidence that itself is frequently wrong - and have admitted that it is a profitable business, as of *course* no-one would ever pay up in confusion or fear or to just make it go away, they *must* be guilty, so we shall do more of it!

And oddly enough, many politicians started out as lawyers. So they start with using obscure, badly written and vague laws to beat down competitors and exploit the customers; then going into the legislature, where they draft obscure, badly written and vague laws to supposedly tackle one thing, and end up having loopholes big enough for a truck-driving tax avoidance expert to drive though.

Are all lawyers worthless? Of course not. Do they have a similar level of worthless people doing worthless* jobs as say, estate agents, advertising executives and telesales people? Oh, yes.

*worthless to you, me, and the general good of society. I'm sure they're worth quite a bit in financial terms to the lawyer in question.

Re:Patent and copyright litigation

[Rogerborg]

Piffle. What I recognise is that the difference between kings, barons and priests, or presidents, CEOs and lawyers is purely one of nomenclature.

All institutions tend towards corruption, and the solution is always revolution and rebellion, against whatever the vested interests are calling themselves at the time.

Re:Patent and copyright litigation

[Anonymous Coward]

You've obviously got the wrong coke supplier, mine gives me top quality every time, and never cuts it with other crap. My pharmacist on the other hand has ads up all over her shop trying to sell me shit I don't need.

Re:Patent and copyright litigation

[ChrisMaple]

Well, you've certainly shown your bias. The ACLU is the most egregious example; they almost always act in a manner to defend destruction; they usually act to increase government power at the expense of producers.

"May not look serious"

[RudeIota]

May not look serious? What the Hell does that mean? Why would this NOT sound serious? :-)

Personally, I think sales injunctions under *most* situations are merely a "dick" move to shut down competition. What company wouldn't jump at the chance to disable any portion of sales by their competitor?

I think a more sophisticated way to deal with this is levy royalties, retroactive if need be, and enjoy your opponent's success.

I normally hate patent trolls, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

if there's even an outside chance that they might bring back CRTs because of this because they can't sell LCDs, I'm all for it!

I can't even watch an LCD, period. Even the best, highest-quality ones seem to blur and tear with any motion, and they're all overly bright making colors look horrible.

Please bring back CRTs if you cannot fix these issues.

Posting anonymously because everyone's going to think this is a troll, even though it's the 100% honest truth.

Re:I normally hate patent trolls, but...

[Nerdfest]

It's not a troll, but some of us don't have the space or power to have CRTs the size we want on our desks or in our homes. Not to mention my back would hate me for picking up another 37+ inch CRT.

Re:I normally hate patent trolls, but...

[TerranFury]

On the plus side, everybody else is just throwing out perfectly good (but bulky) CRTs, so you should be able to get nice big ones for cheap; just use craigslist.

I guess another option is to buy plasma. It's basically CRT, just with gas discharge instead of an electron gun. But it's still phosphors generating the colors. Granted, they only really sell plasma TVs and not computer monitors, and burn-in will also be a major problem.

LED may also do what you want; AFAIK those things react very quickly.

Re:I normally hate patent trolls, but...

[colonelquesadilla]

Not going to happen, but I miss giant directview crts anyway, they went out of style because they are heavy and bulky, not because LCD produces better images.

Re:I normally hate patent trolls, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

There are no "issues" such as you describe with CRTs. It's all in your head. You're like those people that claim they can "always tell" when something has high fructose corn syrup in it, yet can't identify it in a blind test taste any more than random chance would expect (and yes, there is scientific literature on this).

Re:I normally hate patent trolls, but...

[fnj]

The thing that says .....B R I G H T N E S S.....C O N T R O L..... Use it! Sheesh. Ever tried to watch a CRT with the brightness turned all the way up?

Blurring and tearing - can't help you there, since I agree completely.

Re:I normally hate patent trolls, but...

[16384]

The excessive brightness is only a small part of the problem. While in theory the picture in a LCD displays should be clearer and steadier than that of a CRT, in practice various problems (such as FRC - Frame rate control to make a 6 bit display look like it has more colors), backlight flicker, the backlight itself (in practice you are staring at a fluorescent light) end up making most LCD displays harder on your eyes than a CRT. If someone knows of a specific LCD or another PC display technology that doesn't have this problems please post about it.

Re:I normally hate patent trolls, but...

[kimvette]

First off, it isn't 1998, and none but the very cheapest off-brand screens exhibit those characteristics anymore.

Secondly, if the colors are overly saturated (the term isn't bright) you need to calibrate your screen (or graphics card drivers where applicable).

The ONLY thing I miss from CRTs is the vertical resolution; going to 1920x1200 was a large step backward for me, but now my primary machine is a laptop with an RGB-LED backlight and the color purity, clarity, brightness, and responsiveness are phenomenal. Gone are "ghosting" issues you get with CRTs when bright objects move on a dark background, gone are the "never focused" fuzzy screens (because CRTs don't really have a native resolution and the electron "beams" never really accurately hit the phospors), and regained is a TON of desk estate. On top of all that a good CRT is invariably very heavy. I HATE moving the 21" P815 monitors around but I have no problem at all moving or even hanging up 46" and 52" LCDs all by myself.

You can keep your CRTs. Until three or four years I'd have agreed with you regarding LCD monitors, but the technology has advanced SO MUCH I willingly abandoned my Viewsonic P815 monitors (and 2048x1536 or 1920x1440 resolution - the max resolution is NOT the oft-published 1880x1440).

Re:I normally hate patent trolls, but...

[kimvette]

. Granted, they only really sell plasma TVs and not computer monitors,

That is not exactly true; you need to check manufacturers "industrial" display lines, not their computer monitor lines. Due to the incredibly heavy weight of plasma displays, they are not marketed as PC monitors for the desktop and workstation market, but they are indeed computer monitors. If you go plasma, make sure you have 1-2 people around to help you each time you move it.

Re:I normally hate patent trolls, but...

[ChrisMaple]

From what I've been able to find, plasma units aren't competitive with CRTs. Plasma costs upwards of $1200 for 1920x1080 and the unit will have a 50" diagonal. A CRT with 2000x1500 resolution (which plasma can't match) costs less and has a diagonal of about 25". One big disadvantage of CRTs is distortion, so if you take measurements by pressing a ruler against the display, you want plasma or LCD.

Not patent troll in any case

[pem]

A "patent troll" is pejorative language for "non practicing entity" -- a company which doesn't actually build anything. As world's third-largest LCD panel maker, AUO couldn't possibly qualify as an NPE.

Of course LG didn't shoot first

[maroberts]

Everyone knows Han shot first!

Lawsuit != patent trolling

[RobinEggs]

So before you call AUO a patent troll, keep in mind that LGD shot first

Who shot first doesn't matter. Patent trolling, in my opinion, concerns using patents to suppress other innovations, particularly when the plaintiff isn't using the patents for any product or active research at the time; the mere presence of an IP-based lawsuit isn't worthy of calling someone a troll.

Which company is actually using a smaller proportion of the patents they sued over, and which of them has the most patents at issue working in products and current research? The first one would be more of a troll, the second more like an ordinary company fighting for its legal rights. I know we on slashdot don't agree much with patents, but they're not 100% useless and not every single person or business who likes patents, holds patents, or uses them in litigation amounts to some hobgoblin suppressing innovation for the sole purpose of lining their pockets.

Re:Lawsuit != patent trolling

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just one of those Pavlovian responces on slashdot. Patent + lawsuit = troll.

Re:Lawsuit != patent trolling

[ibsteve2u]

Which company is actually using a smaller proportion of the patents they sued over, and which of them has the most patents at issue working in products and current research?

So if you patent something but cannot afford to begin using your patent because you don't have the funding to build large-scale manufacturing facilities, but mega-corporation "A" does have massive production facilities and pirates your patent and starts cranking out product, you lose?

Re:Lawsuit != patent trolling

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that actually the issue here, or are you just pulling hypotheticals out of your ass? In either case, my point doesn't explicitly or implicitly imply your conclusion, so quit being pissy and defensive about it.

I was wondering why TFA read like a Slashvert

[Bearhouse]

Until I read it to the end:

SOURCE AU Optronics Corp.

I'm not disputing the facts, but I'm damn sure a press release from AUO is not the best place to get an impartial view...

(And no, I'm not an LG sockpuppet).

Re:I was wondering why TFA read like a Slashvert

[chefmonkey]

Yep. The "news" part of "PR Newswire" is an aesthetic, meaningless part of their name. The "PR" stands for "Public Relations." All it takes is some paperwork to get your account set up, a little dab of money, and they'll push any random drivel you want out to the news outlets -- regardless of veracity. Any time you see *anything* come from PR Newswire, you should treat it as coming from the website of someone who has an inherent bias regarding the topic.

LG sells AUO panels in its products

[postmortem]

Whoever ever bought LG 60Hz LCD TV or LCD monitor knows about panel lottery in which LG sells AOU, CHI-MEI, even Sharp panels as their own
(for example, see comments on this page http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1132241&page=12

Re:LG sells AUO panels in its products

[John Saffran]

Incorrect, what LG sells as their own is the LCD monitor .. LG merely purchases a sub-component to use in their manufacturing processes. To use a car analogy this is like claiming that Toyota is mislabelling their cars because they don't have the sub-manufacturer's brand on their car windows.

USA Ban on LG LCD sales?

[Anonymous Coward]

Come buy your LCD displays in Canada, eh?

Re:This could be good if LG takes it in the chin..

[Anonymous Coward]

History disagrees with you. There are a large number of lawsuits brought by small companies against existing products of larger companies. I see different flaws than most. Most think getting rid of patents solves the problem but it will make it harder to develop new products and make the investment very risky. The real problems are that a large number potentially involve reinventing the wheel. Two companies come up with the same thing. Company "A" comes up with it in the 90s but doesn't produce a product. Company "B" comes up with the same thing in 2001 and sells it for 10 years then gets sued by company "A". Often times they wait until the damages are enough to make it a big payday. The flaws in the scenario are the re-invention was not done in malice and there was no stealing of ideas and company "A" never intended to develop a product so the spirit of the law was not broken. Company "A: should not be able to sue company "B". The other issue is companies waiting for the fat payday. Letting company "B" sell products for 10 years then hit them with a 100 million dollar lawsuit is unfair to company "B" who was not aware of the patent. Like other lawsuits there needs to be a window. If they miss the window they can produce their own version since they have the rights. If they already had a product and wasn't aware of the competing product possibly they could halt the sale of the item but expecting 10 years of profits makes for abuse. We need sensible laws not no law.

Communist America

[Becausegodhasmademe]

Every patent issued effectively blocks off a segment of a market to competitors, creating a micro-monopoly. We are rapidly approaching a time where, due to patent trading large corporations are coming close to total ownership of a particular market.

America is the major culprit in all this patent absurdity. Behind the friendly face of enterprise and free capitalism lies a very different reality. Corporations with vast resources and political lobbying power apply for patents shotgun-style to prevent any form of competition, so that they can profit by driving down production costs giving consumers overpriced, low-quality products.

From the abuse of patent law comes state-sanctioned monopolies, which is reminiscient of Soviet communist economic practice.

China, a formerly Communist nation is far more capitalist than America these days.

Posting from the UK.

What about other sizes?

[Anonymous Coward]

Aren't most LCD displays bigger than LG these days, at least XLG or 2XLG? What does that work out to in inches or cm anyway?

USD

[Excelcia]

This would be all well and good, if not for the problem that in another month it will cost an American twice as much to buy Canadian.

US patents are already fixed period

[Anonymous Coward]

Patents in the US last for 20 years from earliest filing date, or 17 years from date of issue, whichever is longer. Extension are granted, but only to allow for delays in granting patents, and only for the amount of the delay.

Which is still far too long, especially these days - 5-7 years should be about the limit.

Incentives to innovate

[sjbe]

The patent system was originally designed to protect the small inventor from a large business entity...

That's a nice little piece of half truth there. The patent system was not designed with just that in mind. It protects ANY inventor from the free rider problem. Size can be a factor but it is a second order effect. The patent system is designed to promote innovation - it wasn't designed to protect any individual or corporation regardless of size.

We don't need to eliminate patents and copyright; We need to restore them to their proper place and purpose, which is to protect individuals from corporations

Patents and copyright are not fundamentally about protecting either individuals OR corporations. It is about protecting incentives to innovate regardless of who is doing the innovating. I'll agree that the patent system needs a serious improvement but misplaced populism really doesn't help.

Re:Incentives to innovate

[dgatwood]

The patent system is designed to promote innovation - it wasn't designed to protect any individual or corporation regardless of size.

That's a bit disingenuous. At the time the patent system was created, there was no notion of a corporation as we know it today with most of the same rights as an individual. As far as I've been able to determine, corporations didn't typically own patents until around a century after U.S. patent law came into being, though it's hard to say that with any degree of certainty.

More to the point, when the patent system was created, we didn't have works for hire. We didn't have work contracts that require employees to assign all patents to their employer. And so on. Those assignment agreements completely change the nature of patents from benefitting the inventor to benefitting someone else in exchange for continued employment for a while. Thus, the patent system is not at all operating as originally designed, dramatically diminishing the incentive to innovate. After all, if you have a job anyway, where is the added incentive to come up with these great ideas? A chance to maybe get a raise, maybe get a bonus, maybe get squat? It's hardly a good deal for the inventor, though it's a great deal for the leechers.

The real question is whether corporate-owned patents have produced more innovation. I would contend that the reverse is true. If corporations had to go back to explicitly negotiating a license for each patent from its inventors, individuals would have greater incentive to come up with innovative ideas because they would reap the benefits directly instead of indirectly through their salaries (which rarely reflect a reasonable price for the contribution of those patents).

Injunction won't be granted

[MSTCrow5429]

I can't imagine any court would grant an injunction. The undue hardship upon OEMs and end-users makes it almost certain not to be granted. MS was sued a few years ago for violating a product activation patent, which I think was found to be an infringement, but the court refused to grant an injunction, as it would do great harm to the consumer. Although the court did seem a bit ignorant of technology, and utilized an argument that a months long total rewrite of Office was required, instead of just slipstreaming a minor update disabling product activation. The court could have given MS a reasonable amount of time to fix it, then granted an injunction. I think it ended up being a damages linked to royalties award.

Free rider problem

[sjbe]

Quite honestly, it is time to eliminate patents.

No problem. Just come up with a solution to the free rider problem and we won't need patents or copyright. A Nobel prize in economics awaits your brilliance.

As we've seen from countries with lax IP enforcement (AKA China), if you have a quality product, the knock-offs can't compete.

Knockoffs compete just fine. Ask any drug manufacturer if generics (a knock off even though a legal one) hurt their business.

The entire point of patents is to add to public knowledge, but that isn't happening. So really, we need shorter patent protection times, or just eliminate it all together.

Sure it is. The laws and patent system just have loop holes and faults that are creating unintended problems. The problem isn't with the idea of patents it's with the implementation.

Re:Free rider problem

[noidentity]

This isn't a free rider problem, unless you consider companies to own potential profits. In reality, knock-off products are produced with a person's own materials. The free-rider problem only exists when there is some scarce resource involved. The issue you're pointing to is that of the value of something affected by other things available in the market, similar to how the value of a supermarket is affected by its proximity to other supermarkets (which can change if new ones are built close by).

Re:Free rider problem

[Anonymous Coward]

it is a free rider problem. the scarce resource isn't the raw materials needed to manufacture the end product, its the money needed for R&D. If there were no patents or copyrights, it would be beneficial to any given company to spend zero dollars and R&D and just steal the ideas of their competitors.

Re:Free rider problem

[vadim_t]

No problem. Just come up with a solution to the free rider problem and we won't need patents or copyright. A Nobel prize in economics awaits your brilliance.

I see it this way: The situation with patents is starting to become unmanageable. Removing patents would make it a lot better. You demand that a replacement must be not just better, but absolutely perfect, and if it can't be then the broken system must be kept.

I think that the problem of free riders would be much less severe than what we have now, so that even leaving that entirely unsolved would be better than keeping things as they are.

Knockoffs compete just fine. Ask any drug manufacturer if generics (a knock off even though a legal one) hurt their business.

I call that "competition".

The thing I have in mind when I propose abolishing patents is not large companies making even more money. It's more companies entering the marketplace, driving prices down, and adding more variety and competition.

Sure it is. The laws and patent system just have loop holes and faults that are creating unintended problems. The problem isn't with the idea of patents it's with the implementation.

At this point, I think things would be better without any implementation at all, but let's hear your alternative.

Re:Free rider problem

[KarmaMB84]

GIven where a lot of the more lucrative knock-offs are coming from, it's a potentially wrong assumption that they're even paying for the materials. The real company might be paying for them while the factory operator spits out units on a second shift while telling them the materials were defective or the units produced with them were defective. The fake units then go out the back door and are sold for 50% off to people who think they're buying the real thing all without ever paying for R&D or marketing. The real company is doing that for them.

Re:Free rider problem

[gd2shoe]

No problem. Just come up with a solution to the free rider problem and we won't need patents or copyright. A Nobel prize in economics awaits your brilliance.

Forget the award. Think what you could make by patenting that!

Sorry, couldn't help myself.

Knockoffs compete just fine. Ask any drug manufacturer if generics (a knock off even though a legal one) hurt their business.

Of course they will. Competition hurts any business competing in a free market. That's life. That won't keep them from complaining about it. Yes, they need money for their R&D budget. If they've got enough money to bombard me with ED commercials, then they've got too much money. No, I"m not talking about merely getting the word out. You advertise to doctors for that. I'm talking about the unending barrage of cures for whatever illness of the year they've picked. There is a phara commercial playing on some channel somewhere 24-7 (ignoring radio and print). The sun never sets on their empire.

I get the point that you were trying to make. Knock-offs do compete just fine. I think that sometimes there is nothing wrong with that. Ideally, the patent system would encourage knock-offs.

The entire point of patents is to add to public knowledge, but that isn't happening. So really, we need shorter patent protection times, or just eliminate it all together.

Sure it is. The laws and patent system just have loop holes and faults that are creating unintended problems. The problem isn't with the idea of patents it's with the implementation.

The idea of patents is fine. The patent system itself is one big loophole. I think you've understated the problem.

Re:Free rider problem

[Anonymous Coward]

No problem. Just come up with a solution to the free rider problem and we won't need patents or copyright. A Nobel prize in economics awaits your brilliance.

I'm not convinced the free rider problem applies to patents, or more precisely that the benefits of patents outweigh the burden of patents. Necessity, is still the mother of invention, and things will get created, whether or not patents exist. The only downside is the little guy who gets his invention copied without recompense. On the upside, without patents, you get the benefits of that idea spread to the commons almost right away.

The problem with patents is ideas, are usually, not all that hard, compared to the effort of the implementation, and the specific implementation would fall under copyright protection anyway. Also, if the idea was particularly novel, and it involved a decent amount of work to get a working implementation, then, likely, a company would want the ownership of the implementation anyway, to save the time of developing it from scratch.

Rather than eliminating patents, I would rather see patents seriously reduced in term, with perhaps different terms for different things. For instance, key file formats like Mpeg, h.264, and the like, could be protected by patents, but I can't see doing so for more than about 5 years. Of course trivial things, like uncompressed audio, or simple variations of existing patents, deserve no protection, which is probably more of a problem of funding the patent office, than anything else. It is also worth noting that copyrights generally protect a specific implementation.

In short, the patent duration of a class of patents should be just long enough to promote science and such and no more.

Re:Free rider problem

[sjbe]

I'm not convinced the free rider problem applies to patents, or more precisely that the benefits of patents outweigh the burden of patents.

The free rider problem is 100% of the reason the patent (and copyright) system was created in the first place. This is not even remotely a debate.

Whether there is a better way to handle the problem is a separate issue.

Re:Free rider problem

[sjbe]

Of course they will. Competition hurts any business competing in a free market.

You can't have competition if the product never gets produced in the first place. Without patent protection incentives are significantly reduced to conduct research. Far less money will be spent by corporations to invent something if anyone else can (and they will) simply copy your work. While innovation wouldn't stop (see academia and open source for proof of that) it would slow dramatically. The free rider problem is a real problem with potentially massive consequences.

Yes, they need money for their R&D budget. If they've got enough money to bombard me with ED commercials, then they've got too much money.

I've argued this very same point myself but it's not a valid argument against patents. The fact that people want to buy little blue pills for adult recreation and the business model involves marketing has little to do with whether patents are a good idea or a bad idea. If you want to criticize something there, criticize Viagra being covered by insurance. The fact that ED pills are patented is something about which I'm utterly unconcerned. Be more concerned by whether Lipitor has patent protection because people's lives actually depend on that drug.

The patent system itself is one big loophole. I think you've understated the problem.

You can argue that the patent system is badly flawed and I'd agree with you most likely. But if you claim that it doesn't work at all I'm going to say you have come no where close to making that case.

Re:Free rider problem

[sjbe]

The situation with patents is starting to become unmanageable.

Arguably true. I'm with you on that.

Removing patents would make it a lot better.

There we disagree. I think the patent system need serious reform but I completely disagree that removing it would be a better situation. If you are going to make this case I'll demand some actual researched evidence from you. Just asserting that the current system is broken isn't good enough.

You demand that a replacement must be not just better, but absolutely perfect, and if it can't be then the broken system must be kept.

Point out exactly where I demanded a "perfect" replacement. You can't because I didn't. I'd be fine with a better system and frankly the notion of a "perfect" system is laughable.

The patent system exists for a very good reason - to create incentives to invent and create in the face of the free rider problem. Removing the patent system altogether without any replacement is NOT an improvement because the free rider problem hasn't gone away. Huge swaths of the world economy depend on patents and copyright. You think just doing away with them will not have devastating consequences?

Knockoffs compete just fine. Ask any drug manufacturer if generics (a knock off even though a legal one) hurt their business.

I call that "competition".

It's not competition if the original product never gets developed. Patents aren't there to prohibit competition for all time on existing products. They are there to ensure that people continue to have an economic incentive to create NEW products. For all their flaws, patents have been wildly successful for this purpose.

It's more companies entering the marketplace, driving prices down, and adding more variety and competition.

That's why patents expire. You haven't addressed how to deal with free riders crushing the incentive to invent. THAT is why patents exist and it is not even remotely a question that patents create powerful incentives for invention.

I agree with the arguments that patents (often) last too long, are too easily granted, shouldn't be granted on software (copyright covers that fine) or business models, etc. There are LOTS of changes that can and should be made. Just throwing the whole system out because it needs updating though is stupid, short sighted, naive and would have vast economic and social consequences that you haven't remotely addressed.

Re:Free rider problem

[vadim_t]

There we disagree. I think the patent system need serious reform but I completely disagree that removing it would be a better situation. If you are going to make this case I'll demand some actual researched evidence from you. Just asserting that the current system is broken isn't good enough.

Patents aren't being used for their intended purpose anymore. They're used to accumulate a huge stack of them, to have something you can throw at any potential competitor in the business.

I don't think that problem is easily solvable. Patent trolls might be, but the fact that Microsoft or IBM are guaranteed to be able to find something you infringe on if you do anything computer related doesn't seem to be.

The patent system exists for a very good reason - to create incentives to invent and create in the face of the free rider problem. Removing the patent system altogether without any replacement is NOT an improvement because the free rider problem hasn't gone away.

That's what I mean when I say you demand perfection. In my view, the "free rider" problem is a very small one, so not solving it still ends up with a better situation than what we have now.

Huge swaths of the world economy depend on patents and copyright. You think just doing away with them will not have devastating consequences?

Yes, and that devastation would be entirely intentional on my part. Patent trolls would instantly go out of business, companies making a living entirely out of licensing designs would have to make some radical changes. I'm perfectly aware of that, and that some of the consequences would cause losses, but still think that when the dust settles, the resulting situation will be better than what we have now.

It's not competition if the original product never gets developed. Patents aren't there to prohibit competition for all time on existing products. They are there to ensure that people continue to have an economic incentive to create NEW products. For all their flaws, patents have been wildly successful for this purpose.

Of course things will get developed. Did humanity sit idle and not advance until somewhere in the prehistory Ogg the caveman invented patents? Hell, no. Patents are a very recent invention. But we clearly somehow managed to get pretty far without them.

Patents often slow down innovation as well. Sometimes it happens that the patent owner does nothing useful with it, or gets tied up in a fight with somebody else, and the invention only takes off once the patent expires.

That's why patents expire. You haven't addressed how to deal with free riders crushing the incentive to invent. THAT is why patents exist and it is not even remotely a question that patents create powerful incentives for invention.

It still makes sense to invent because having ideas is easy. Implementing them is the hard part. If you have the ability to get it done properly, you'll have a large advantage over the rest. If you don't have the means to get it done, then a patent won't help much, because any corporation has plenty ways around a small inventor.

I agree with the arguments that patents (often) last too long, are too easily granted, shouldn't be granted on software (copyright covers that fine) or business models, etc. There are LOTS of changes that can and should be made. Just throwing the whole system out because it needs updating though is stupid, short sighted, naive and would have vast economic and social consequences that you haven't remotely addressed.

I think they could be made better, but getting rid of them entirely is a much easier option. If the system remains it'd have to be defined and watched very diligently, and there are plety forces that would attempt to bend things again in the wrong direction.

Re:Free rider problem

[gd2shoe]

I think you've misunderstood my intent. You made a silly statement in support of your claim. I was working to debunk the silliness, not discredit the entire notion of patents.

As a summary: I think a working patent system is a good thing which encourages innovation. I think our current patent system does more harm than good, particularly in IT. I would like to see it fixed, not scrapped.

(And I would like to see big-pharma stop complaining about competition, and use their funds wisely. If advertising to doctors and hospitals is insufficient, then they're researching the wrong products. cf:solution in search of a problem.)

And the point again?

[nurb432]

What again is the point of patents? Regardless of the original intent for protection of the little guy, all it seems to have ever done is line the pockets of the attorneys, funded by higher product prices.

Re:This could be good if LG takes it in the chin..

[nurb432]

Or they knew it would happen and it was a preemptive strike?

Not Sure How to Remedy That

[eldavojohn]

Until I read it to the end:

SOURCE AU Optronics Corp.

I'm not disputing the facts, but I'm damn sure a press release from AUO is not the best place to get an impartial view...

Well, I submitted the article. I guess I don't know what to do about the second link. The first link is by IDG and should be unbiased. Every single article I could find about that ruling linked back to AOU's news service. Granted I didn't search the entire internet but everyone's spewing the same thing. I couldn't find anything about this on LG Display's site. I couldn't find any court records from the super awesome District of Delaware's web site (holy sh*t, 1993 called and wants your site back).

I don't know what to say ... if you had offered a better link I wouldn't even be responding to this but I came up empty. I guess next time I submit a PR from a company I should put a disclaimer in the summary? It was meant to augment the first link, not be the focus. That was the only link where the patents were named. Any suggestions on how to make submissions better are welcomed. Suppose it's time I installed RECAP on all my home machines.

(And no, I'm not an LG sockpuppet).

I also certainly hope I didn't come off as an AUO sockpuppet ... apologies if I did/do. They do hold 16-17% of the LCD display market so I think they may be justified in this patent and counter patent suit action. It's not like they're a non-practicing entity patent troll.

Re:Not Sure How to Remedy That

[Psicopatico]

What's wrong with the District of Delaware's website?
It brings the informations you may look for into your browser for you to read, so its purpose is fullfilled.

And as a bonus it doesn't hog your CPU down or fill your tubes.

Re:Not Sure How to Remedy That

[zamfield]

Used my Delorian to find the link for you. http://www.ded.uscourts.gov/JJF/Opinions/Recent/Apr2010/06-726.pdf

Horray

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm hoping this will accelerate the already progresssing state of OLEDs.

http://www.oled-display.net/lg-display-invest-2257-million-dollars-to-triple-oled-capacity

right vs wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares anymore? Fix the damn system before the system permanently fixes all of us!

What if I'm not LG...and not in the US...

[sznupi]

I wonder what could be the short term effect on prices of LG panels. Hey, if there would be more of them outside the US...

Fix to patents

[Anonymous Coward]

No-one or someone subservient to them can hold more than 3 active patents.

This would include all companies and companies owned by said companies.

As an inventor if you have 'better' ideas than your 3 current active ones, sign off to de-activate (release to the public) one of your old ideas and use your new one.

Problem solved, sure there will be some court cases saying roger is holding patent X for Paul,, etc etc.. but the huge corporate welfare that patents provide will be gone, and inventors will be able to patent their ideas without getting rick-rolled by large corporations into selling their idea for pennies because that idea is unworkable without also crossing one of their 500,000 patents you have never heard of until they sue you.

Any sane system like this would be good. K Thanks

Vague IP threats

[stimpleton]

LG started this by threatening Optronics. I am presuming in a somewhat vague way.

While perhaps this could be modded redundant, this story(which appeared on /. a few years back) with attached letter by a business owner who used to be a patent attorney is just priceless. It shows that when you scrap just under the surface of these initial IP letters that would send the average person into a tailspin, this guy hits back. I presume just as Optronics did.

Re:This could be good if LG takes it in the chin..

[gd2shoe]

It sounds like you're suggesting a Statute of Limitations for patent infringement. I think there is a sound theory there. If you're unaware that you're patent is being infringed, then you're probably not losing sales. It's something to think about (not that either of us can enact it).

... or American Corruptocracy

[fnj]

Rather than Communism, a more descriptive term would be a Corruptocracy formed by an alliance between politicians, bureaucrats, and megacorporations, but it doesn't matter what it's called. You're right. It has become a self perpetuating, self serving, anti-human abomination. And it is EVIL. Pretty funny that the people who took on King George's power have now gradually saddled themselves with an opression at least as great.

About AUO

[Netssansfrontieres]

The patent troll reference in the parent article is irrelevant. Patent trolls are, in legal parlance, non-practicing entities. AUO is one of the big four makers of LCDs, with about $14B a year in LCD revenues. It has its own labs, does its own research, spends billions on fabs. Not sure why the first /. responses are ranting about the failure of the patent system - building an LCD fab is a huge financial risk, and finding a firm that is violating your IP and thus undercutting your market is a major challenge.

play with fire

[Khashishi]

and you are gonna get burned.

I don't think these are software patents. Slashdotters, are you against all patents or something?

AU Optronics = Chinese company???

[MasaMuneCyrus]

You're mistaken. AU Optronics is a Taiwanese company. And even if you're a stubborn, nationalistic Chinese citizen, you still have to cede that the Republic of China (Taiwan) adheres to international law significantly better than the People's Republic of China (China); Taiwan is at the very least as respectable in the technology field as South Korea, if not more so.

Lies!

[RichiH]

Han Solo shot first!

Captial for R&D is a scarce resource

[sjbe]

This isn't a free rider problem, unless you consider companies to own potential profits. In reality, knock-off products are produced with a person's own materials.

Free riders in this case are getting the research for free. Invention costs money. If you spend the money to develop a drug (expensive!) and I can simply look at your hard work and copy it, I can undercut you on price because I have no research costs to recoup. No rational businessman is going to make that investment if they can immediately be undercut by an identical copy.

Patents exist to protect the economic incentive to invent. Despite all their flaws patents have been wildly successful at doing this.

The free-rider problem only exists when there is some scarce resource involved.

Invention is not free nor is the capital required to conduct invention. In many cases it is extremely expensive. Explain to me how you came to the (ridiculous) conclusion that capital for R&D is not a scarce resource.

Re:Captial for R&D is a scarce resource

[noidentity]

It's not that R&D is free, it's that these so-called free-riders are not consuming anything that belongs to the company who did the R&D (using an idea doesn't consume it). Yes, they are reducing the value of said company's products on the market, but like I said, a company doesn't own potential value.