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Red Hat CEO On Patent Trolls: Just Pay Them Off
jbrodkin writes "Although Red Hat fights patent lawsuits when it deems it necessary, CEO Jim Whitehurst says it's often just better to pay the trolls to make them go away. 'When it's so little money, at some point, bluntly, it's better to settle than fight these things out,' Whitehurst said. Red Hat has been forced to pay out claims to the likes of FireStar Software and Acacia, and Whitehurst indicated Red Hat has paid off various other companies behind closed doors. 'Some of them are [public] but we often seal them in settlement,' he said."
The stupidest thing I have heard a CEO say in a long time. Welcome trolls, we'll pay you to shut the fuck up.
Phase 1: Collect Underpants
Phase 2: Sue Red Hat for an amount not too big, but not too small and get paid to shut up and go away.
Phase 3: Profit
Didn't work then, doesn't work now.
The discussion of software patents focusses way too much on court cases and big companies.
Companies have all sorts of expenses, and trolls is another. Some companies (particularly big ones) can afford that.
The real harm is when standards are ruined, or whole fiels (ex: video), or when SMEs and small developers are forced to stop distributing their software (or when they don't even start, since they know it would be doomed).
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/More_than_trolls
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Harm_to_standards_and_compatibility
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Audio-video_patents
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
Red Hat totally stole my patent on uh paying off patent trolls.
I'll be taking my check now please.
We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!
Seriously. Does he really not understand that paying the troll only serves to perpetuate the troll and results in everyone having to continually pay out extortion settlements.
WTF?
It's things like this that make legislation against litigious fucks vital to the continued survival of the FOSS community. Maybe if it wasn't such an incredible investment for the soulless bloodsuckers at these low-rent law firms and companies to parasitically claim the work of others while not contributing anything, they wouldn't do it so often. I would be willing to bet that some of the lawyers involved even approach their clients with a "No charge unless we win the case or settle" type of agreement. It's becoming a viable business model, and that has to stop if we want to keep FOSS alive.
Or, you could actually have a spine and stand up for what's right. This is the same as companies that determine how much it costs to fix a product versus how much it costs to pay damages to the people it can injure. It's "good" business, but it's cowardly and only hurts everyone in the long run. And someday, it will come back to bite you in the ass. But hey, whatever works for you I guess.
I understand the fact that sometimes it's much less costly just to pay to have something go away, but patent trolls thrive on anything that validates them. I believe they'll just ask for more from someone else along the way
Red Hat is a billion dollar company...
so he says that sometimes you should just settle so that when he fights he seems more reasonable..
Patent trolls would not exist if it were cheaper to litigate than settle. The only way to get rid of the trolls is to change the economics behind trolling. It's hardly surprising, given the system in place now, that people choose to pay them off.
He seems to be missing he other strategy.
Microsoft is funding some of these trolls so that the plaintiff name isn't Microsoft. Then they can sue for "infringing linux code" in attempts to shut down entire business models.
Really, this article is so retro.
Al Capone left a voice mail. He wants his blackmail money.
Web 3.0 and 4.0 will be some mix of invasive super-monitoring vs. privacy and IP-rights rebellion. All that remains is which mix plays out in what order before the Media (capital M) catches the wave.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Don't feed the trolls.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Jim Whitehurst, please give details. What is your cut-off point below which, if I were to make a merit-less claim, that you would just pay me to go away rather than bother to involve the lawyers?
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Hasn't he learned not the feed the trolls? I figure if you ignore their existence long enough they'll get bored and go away. And by ignore their existence I mean flat out ignore that they're suing you.
And so the asshole funds the patent troll, so it continues to stay in business to bother others.
And really, we should change our legal system such that the losing party pays all costs. Right now, a patent troll can simply ask for some amount of money, slightly less than it would cost the legit company to win the case, and it'll get its cut. We can't let this situation persist.
Overheard in office at PatentTrolls Inc:
TrollA: "Looks like Microsoft is kinda sorta infringing on one of our innovative patents haha!"
TrollB: "Yeah, but they got lots of cash and rabid lawyers. And a reputation of fighting back."
TrollA: "And Google..."
TrollB: "Those are even worse."
TrollA: "Well, there's always Redhat for a quicky"
TrollB: "Yeah, let's do Redhat. Also known as Open Legs, hahah!"
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
He didn't say they'd pay up for any patent troll that comes a-knocking. He said they'd fight frivolous patents. From TFA: ... [snip]
"When we feel like people are really abusing the patent regimen, and we have a good case that the patent is invalid, that it should never have been issued, it's not a patentable thing, or there's a lot of prior art, then we fight those out," Whitehurst said
But if it's a "good" patent (I guess meaning one that's hard to defend against), they'd rather just settle for cheap because they know fighting it would be a long, costly battle that they'd probably lose. I think it shows that he's smart enough to know which battles to fight to keep RHEL going in the long run.
has a policy of making deals with (economic) terrorists.
Great.
Paranoia is a Survival Trait!
You've got to be kidding.
A) feeding trolls breeds more trolls
B) there are an awful lot of people out there who have *NO* money, but that get hassled by patent trolls when they release software for free. Yes, even people that aren't in business get hassled. What are they supposed to do?
Skeptical it's that bad? Here's an example. The company basically had a patent on the mathematical transformation and reprojection of camera images -- a process that has been used for over a century (photogrammetry).
What the RedHat CEO describes may make good business sense, but it does the community no good at all to keep feeding a software patent system that is bogus in the first place. People are patenting *math* for money. He damn well better be putting some money into fixing the bigger problem rather than just paying off the trolls, or he's eventually going to run out of money as they proliferate.
Or I will put Goatse in your kernel.
It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
To call upon a neighbour and to say: --
"We invaded you last night--we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away."
And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld
And then you'll get rid of the Dane!
It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say: --
"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away."
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.
It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say: --
"We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that pays it is lost!"
For the high cost of seeking justice in the United States we have a legal system that is a conspirator in blackmail. It aids and abetts blackmailers, instead of prosecuting to discourage them.
The problem is not confined to patents of legitimately unpatentable common intellectual, not physical, concepts, "patentable" in fact only for computers and literary expression typed in computer language code confusing courts.
The problem of legal blackmail, legal costs causing innocents to pay instead of apply for justice, and so become blackmail victims for an economic decision, discarding principles being the affordable, and so pragmatic, option, arises across the spectrum.
It is probably most common in traffic court and traffic matters, and is not uncommon where government regulators impose administrative rules. In both cases the benefiting blackmailers are public authorities, and the result, where the victims opt to submit to the blackmail, is government blackmailing, instead of protecting, the people.
Having government policing agencies and agents enforcing unenforceable policies, ineptly, incompetently and pointlessly is apparently part of governmental blackmailers and their judiciary branch co-conspirators' defined modus operandi. For that it is permitted and condoned.
Having any publicly paid enforcers employed attempting to do anything about the problem, or to discourage the real crime and criminal activity of the practice, appears to be beyond Federal competence. Probably for being outside government officials' and the judiciary branch members' invested self-interests.
Paying a patent troll to go away is like paying a ransom to kidnappers.
All it does is ring the dinner bell and attract more sharks.
I'd imagine he'd happily attract the trolls early to negotiate a pyramid scheme settlement, i.e. ReadHat will publicly pay but RedHat takes a cut from any future settlements by other victims.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Dane-Geld
A.D. 980-1016
Rudyard Kipling
It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
To call upon a neighbour and to say: --
"We invaded you last night--we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away."
And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld
And then you'll get rid of the Dane!
It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say: --
"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away."
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.
It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say: --
"We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that pays it is lost!"
======
Danegeld
Rudyard Kipling
Yes this is probably a blatant copyvio so here's a link to the poem in case the Scientologists decide Kipling was one of them:
"Dane Geld" by Rudyard Kipling
India has no software patents.
It's often better to just pay off the kidnappers and terrorists because we know that they'll never do that to anyone else anyway and they'll take their money and go live honest lives. That sounds about as idiotic. Just say no to Redhat if they're going to be part of the problem. Paying the trolls enables them to continue their blackmail against us all.
Mr. Whitehurst, CEO, Redhat, Inc:
You are infringing on my client's patent 2938562906716 relating to a method by which CEOs can maximize shareholder value by settling frivolous patent lawsuits for less than the cost of a full legal defense.
We are prepared prepared to defend our patent all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary.
My client wishes to advise you that in order to settle this lawsuit, you will have to pay an additional $500,000 in royalties for using his patent.
I trust we will be receiving a check from you soon.
Yours,
Slimy Lawyer, Esq.
What happens if you kill everyone who could possibly have a portion of the patent? These trolls usually don't have a lot of employees, just turn them into meat paste.
Don't pay the trolls. Hire a hitman to dispose of them.
It's cheaper, and it benefits everyone!
[Note: this post is sarcasm. Mostly.]
he's just letting them know it's not worth litigating, because he'll settle for reasonable amount. These are all businessmen...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I figure, it's only a dollar, it's not much.
But then, the next day, dude was there, begging for money again.
So what the hell, i give him another dollar.
Now he's camped out on my door, asking for money every time i go out.
When will it stop?
(for the record, I don't give homeless shit. This is why you don't give homeless money, nor do you give trolls.)
Be seeing you...
My understanding is that the GPL carries with it patent licenses. Red Hat can't license patents for just its own customers.
Reading section 11 of GPLv3 and section 7 of GPLv2 it seems fairly clear that unless Red Hat is licensing for all downstream recipients (which would essentially mean the entire GPL ecosystem, as anyone who wants a particular patent license would just have to make a derivative from the Red Hat code) they can't distribute.
Nick
Yeah, the beginnings were pretty much in the '90s. Maybe late '80s. I was pretty young then. I'll fully admit that crazy lawsuits still happen, but I'd say that they're off of their 'peak' because many companies, such as Walmart, have worked very hard to NOT be seen as a target. Yes, Walmart still gets sued a lot, but remember it's size.
I don't read AC A human right
Patent legitimacy and patent exploitation, via illegitimate claims using patent infringement as the means to exploit business, can be, albeit in the near future, addressed by code:
By just paying off a troll you are usurping the role of patent in society and encouraging the misconceptions about the perceived value of patents.
This results in the community placing relatively little commercial importance on patents and opening up exploitation.
Can we change the problem with just paying of a patent troll? No, but we can build better policy to protect patent holders whilst stop illegitimate patent exploitation. Secondly, policy consideration should take into account the role of trolls and adjust policy to reflect this. Lessig discusses solutions regarding copyright in causing change in law in “Code is Law: Does Anyone Get This Yet?" It is amazing http://bit.ly/gkI5RT & I discuss patent policy in my blog at http://blog.1place.com.au/
This is the worst thing you can do. It may appear to save money in the short term, but in the bigger picture you will be a soft target for future infringement claims, and you have bankrolled the guy to go after others.
I was involved in an infringement case. A troll (with no product), scammed the PTO into approving a patent which claimed technology I had developed some years earlier than their filing. They sued for infringement. My company (I was an employee, not owner) mishandled the legal case. Years went by, with appeal and a retrial set. During this period we wrangled with the PTO to invalidate the patent. When the retrial was imminent, we were on the verge of invalidating the patent. My company judged that because of the legal constraints on the retrial, they would likely lose. The potential PR cost made it preferable to settle. The settlement was 10% of what the troll had been asking, because of the likely invalidation, but that could only happen (PTO procedures) 6mo or more after the retrial.
As part of the settlement, my company agreed not to pursue the invalidation, leaving the troll holding a totally bogus patent. He is now suing any number of tech companies.
Even at the end, if we had stuck it out and invalidated, it would have been less expensive all round, and one more bad patent wouldbe off the books.
I was very angry about it.
the anonymous coward comment was me. I didn't realise I wasn't logged in.
[Resubmitting] Settling is the worst thing to do if the patent is bogus. You become a target for others, and you bankroll the troll to go after others. I was involved in an infringement case. The troll had scammed the PTO into granting a patent that allegedly covered technology I had developed some years earlier. They claimed infringment against my employer's product which used my technology. The legal case was mishandled and we lost at trial. Years went by with appeal, and a limited retrial was scheduled. Meanwhile we wrangled with the PTO over invalidating the patent. They did not want to make a decision. Finally, when the retrial date was imminent, we were on the verge of invalidating the patent. The company decided that given the limitations on the retrial, it would be better to settle. The settlement was 10% of what they had been demanding, presumably because of the likely invalidation. As part of the settlement, the company agreed to withdraw the interference. I hated the settlement, but it wasn't my decision. The troll now still has a bogus patent and is suing a whole lot of tech companies.
... And this is the big problem here. CEOs have the sole responsibility of overeating value. If it is not illegal, and it increases value, he is obliged to do it. If the right thing to do costs value, then the ceo can be personally sued. Even imprisoned.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
It's one thing when firms are small and can't afford the struggle. Red Hat's profits are extraordinary. They can afford a zero tolerance attitude towards the trolls who steal freedom from all. In paying them off, they leave the trolls as a barrier to business for smaller players who - gasp - might compete with Red Hat in some small area. Thus Red Hat is buying protection not just from direct harm by trolls, but from competition by legitimate businesses who the Red Hat-enriched trolls can now afford to go after.
This is why, despite some of Red Hat's technology and people being quite fine, I'll never encourage my clients to buy their licenses. CentOS, yes. The stuff is well worth using. But if you pay Red Hat you're paying a tax to the trolls, who will fatten up on it and then come after other open software that really matters to us.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
It's not about the money, money, money,
We don't need your money, money, money.
We just wanna make the shareholder dance,
Forget about the price tag.
Ain't about the (ha!) cha-ching cha-ching.
Ain't about the (yeah!) ba-bling ba-bling,
Wanna make the shareholder dance,
Forget about the price tag.
Heh... That's opposite thinking. When you "settle" with these jokers, it's typically a friggin' dogpile on you over time- they know you'll pay out so they'll come with their hands out and threatening to sue them. LOTS of them.
Hardly "maximizing shareholder value", now is it?
Well, if it attracts hundreds or thousands of small-dollar patent gnats to Redhat, they can probably afford to absorb that blow, but they'll also be able to go to Congress and testify, "we currently have 1734 software patent lawsuits in litigation, none of which a dispassionate observer would feel have merit. This is what software patents really do, destroy innovation. It's time to end the practice."
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Red Hat just lost some potential customers. The type that have values which dictate paying the trolls shouldn't happen but would have otherwise advised their companies to pay for the Linux support that Red Hat offers.
IT IS always a temptation to an armed and agile nation,
To call upon a neighbour and to say:
"We invaded you last night - we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away."
And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you’ve only to pay ’em the Dane-geld
And then you’ll get rid of the Dane!
It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say:
"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away."
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.
It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray,
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say:
"We never pay any one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost,
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!"
I'd suggest that this culture unleashes the patent troll on everyone, not just Red Hat which, as a larger company, has the strength in depth and the resources to withstand the attacks. Leaving the little guy sole trader to be swamped and sink. Which serves the larger companies, Red Hat amongst them, very well indeed.
This is awful. By paying them off you increase their power to do damage. Kill the trolls.
One thing I find interesting in a recent FTC report is the FTC's distinction between "good" NPEs and patent trolls (which it refers to as "PAEs"). Many have long noted that there is a need to differentiate between NPEs such as universities and those other entities who abuse the system through arguably-excessive patent litigation. Distinguishing between those bad actors and other NPEs may be helpful in narrowing the focus and the terms of the debate over patent trolls.