Slashdot Mirror
World's Largest Patent Troll Fires First Salvo
ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes "Yesterday the biggest software patent troll of all finally woke from its slumbers: Intellectual Ventures filed patent infringement complaints in the US District Court of Delaware against companies in the software security, DRAM and Flash memory, and field-programmable gate array industries. Intellectual Ventures was co-founded by Microsoft's former CTO Nathan Myhrvold, with others from Intel and a Seattle-based law firm." We discussed IV's potential for patent trollery last spring.
They'll "let" other people use them.... and then sue them. Without even looking at it, I'm sure some of the patents are so broad I'm violating one by breathing.
Well, it's not good directly, but if the big companies start getting hit by patent attacks, then we might soon see absurd patent laws and approvals get an overdue overhaul. Previously, they've seemed like an advantage to the big players because they form a barrier to entry that keeps out new competition. The big players have armouries of patents and, much like nuclear weapons are supposed to protect through a principle of MAD, they didn't use them on each other much. But it seems there is rampant proliferation and we're seeing patent fights between big players erupt despite this (e.g. Nokia and Apple). So maybe disillusionment with them will creep in. And unlike nuclear weapons, disarmament is simple - big companies can't advocate for a change in the laws of Physics, but changes in the laws of the land, they can do.
Maybe it's optimistic. Maybe it will all settle down into a cartel and the patent threat to small players will remain. But if the patent trolls are greedy enough to really take a bite out of the hand that feeds them, perhaps not.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Corporate leeches like this are why American capitalism is in the toilet.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
I thought the justification for continuing tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans was that it would help the economy, because investment would trickle down through innovation / job creation. Here is a wonderful counter point to that argument.
If we want to entice the wealthy to use money to create jobs, why don't tie their rewards directly to job creation? These people are actually killing the economy and making people poor by creating a money-sink in the economy where no value is added. They are not only hurting these big companies with their greed, they are helping to force a divide in wealth distribution and indirectly making real people go hungry.
You make two mistakes in asking what /. thinks are the correct answers. One is assuming that Slashdot has a group mind, the second is that the most vocal are the most representative. But with those caveats:
Sure, you could sell your patent if that's the best way of capitalising on it. But whether that's good or bad depends on other factors - mainly the validity of your patent. If you just patented an idea that would likely occur to other people and sat on it until someone else did think of it and then sued over it... That would be bad. You've contributed nothing and caused a destructive effect. If you were an independent research chemist who came up with an innovative new process after much testing and it's far from obvious, then by all means approach another company and sell or licence your patent. But you see the difference between the two examples is not whether or not the patent has been sold. It's whether the patent has been originally awarded to someone or some group that actually added to society with their original contribution. What companies like this do, is file as many stupid obvious or natural ideas as they can and then look for someone else to independently stumble into the same area before pouncing.
The answer to the question of whether you have the right to sell the patent, is actually more, do you have the right to a patent. I.e. did you come up with something genuinely original, either through your unique genius or more likely careful testing and research, that has added to society's capability, or did you write down "a website could have a 'one-click' button that lets you buy things" and wait for someone to implement it.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
I once knew someone who was naive enough to confuse a patent troll operation with a real Menlo Park skunkworks/invention lab.
She was 22 years old and looking for a job; what's Stephenson's excuse?
Imaginary property like patents and copyright always consolidates power over information into the hands of the few. They do not protect the creators, they make ideas a commodity to be traded.
Great Intellect...
I have no problem with what IBM does. They are a practicing entity which is directly opposite of what IV does. The difference is that a high rate of IBM's patents are granted. This is proper use of the patent system because IBM then makes those products.
I suspect Intellectual Ventures spends a nice chunk of it's money on forcing patents through the system. Thousands of patents that evidently have little business being patents. But their legion of lawyers persists pushing these patents and revisioning them. Yes, they pay thousands of dollars on each patent to do this but this is an abuse of the patent system if they do this just because they have money.
Imagine if this first salvo results in hundreds of millions of dollars going to IV. Then what? Then that money goes into putting more strain on the USPTO and more lawyers are hired to push unwarranted patents through the system. Then those win more suits and more lawyers are hired in a classic breeder model of lawyer propagation. If my calculations are correct, by the year 2054 the Earth will be a mass of patent lawyers expanding outward at the speed of light only to eventually collapse back in on itself causing a "Big Crunch" and ending the universe until the next big bang. Intellectual Ventures must be stopped (with apologies to Stanislaw Lem).
But seriously, the two are totally different in that one produces and one sues.
My work here is dung.
There, fixed that for you Mr. Stephenson.
Even if there is, do you go to the patent office every time you do something obvious just to check whether the idiots granted a patent on it without having a clue just that they just patented the equivalent of the wheel?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.