Lodsys Expands Patent Lawsuit to 10 More Companies

An anonymous reader writes "A day after Apple filed a motion to intervene in Lodsys's lawsuit against seven app developers (EFF comments), Lodsys has filed its third lawsuit this year. The latest complaint targets ten companies including Adidas, Best Buy, Best Western, Black and Decker. Lodsys sues them over two patents, one of which it also asserts against app developers in court as well as its now famous letters (an example of which has meanwhile been published as a result of Apple's intervention). The ten new assertions relate to web surveys, feedback-soliciting FAQs, and live interactive chat."

Comments

I patented the tubes!

[just_another_sean]

We're going to be rich!

Gah, I am so sick of watching this unfold. I keep thinking, well, at least this will highlight the absurdity of it all. But no, it never does, either the case gets dismissed or the idiots actually win, whether through settlement or actual trial victories.

When will it end?

Re:I patented the tubes!

[Pecisk]

Please not i4i case in same basket, because it is more complex than that. Microsoft literally stole their tech while working togheter. Yes, software patents are bad, but there are those who tries to use system honesly and those who game the system in the open (patent trolls, offensive pattenting from Amazon, Microsoft).

Re:I patented the tubes!

[Anonymous Coward]

> When will it end?

That much I can answer you.

Remember the English, the French & others trying to rip off the world claiming their "nobility" was reason enough; nowadays, it's the US and other countries legal systems.

Somehow they expect:

a) that their internal laws cover other countries;
b) that their internal laws are moral.

It's more or less like that: "hey, don't do that, because it's immoral (or inhumane)"... and there comes the answer: "no, it's ok, because it's legal".

But, as you were asking, "when will it end?"... when the world treats those arrogants the way they deserve, like pretentious idiots, just like it happened to nobility. I wonder, though, if it will be possible to sell legal buildings as a tourist attraction just like they did with palaces.

The situation got so bad in the US (and some other countries) because the population has no means to fight back. I suppose on more advanced democracies, human rights will not be stolen so easily -- unless small tyrants have their way and sign up unfair "treaties" for "intelectual ownage".

Re:I patented the tubes!

[Theaetetus]

Maybe Microsoft did "literally steal their tech", but it shouldn't have been patentable in the first place. What i4i had was like a patent on the wheel: obvious.

The wheel is obvious now... The first wheel? Not so much.

Re:I patented the tubes!

[bug1]

The wheel is obvious now... The first wheel? Not so much.

And inventing it without the incentives and legal rights that patents systems provide.

Why would one even bother inventing the wheel if he couldnt even commercial it or license the rights to others ! /saracsm

If intellectual property rights are so important, how did we survive without them.

Re:I patented the tubes!

[ForgedArtificer]

I'm glad to see some countries denying the US patent laws although I worry about where it will lead.. we need to face the fact, though, that every minute patent troll are allowed to keep this up, they are damaging smaller companies, stifling innovation and stomping on the true spirit of capitalism.

I have a friend who constantly comes up with great ideas, but he can't develop them because he can't afford to pay off the patent trolls, who do nothing with their patents... it's disgusting.

Re:I patented the tubes!

[slashqwerty]

When will it end?

When you, and other people like you do the hard work of getting elected to congress and change the law.

Re:I patented the tubes!

[ForgedArtificer]

Some of us aren't American but disagree with how this is affecting our world. What do you propose we do?

Re:I patented the tubes!

[donaldm]

If intellectual property rights are so important, how did we survive without them.

Good question. Fortunately, we can look back at history. Prior to intellectual property rights, life expectancy was about 35 years. If you made it through childhood, you could expect to live to 45. So, we didn't really survive terribly well.

The industrial revolution, on the other hand, resulted in life expectancies in the 70s and rising. The graph resembles a hockey stick.

Not quite true. People normally have quite long lives if there is adequate clean water and the facilities to dispose of waste properly (this translate to good hygiene), of course a good medical service does go a long way in extending life but the first two are more important. Actually the industrial revolution lowered the average human life expectancy because of pandemics, excessive pollution and unsafe drinking water, but there were profits to make and who cares about the unwashed masses when you live comfortably. Fortunately in society today especially in first world counties there is nothing like a vote looser when your own middle class which normally can be very powerful is suffering health issues.

Actually the graph does not quite tell the whole truth since if you have say 100 people on the planet living to say 5000 years and the rest of the population only living to say 25 years (the graph) then the average age is still 25 years. Ok that was extreme but say you have a civilization that that has clean water and good sanitation and the average life expectancy was say 80 years but the rest of the known world had a life expectancy of say 25 years then the overall live expectancy of the world would still be about 25 years.

Re:I patented the tubes!

[Theaetetus]

Not quite true. People normally have quite long lives if there is adequate clean water and the facilities to dispose of waste properly (this translate to good hygiene), of course a good medical service does go a long way in extending life but the first two are more important.

And they didn't, prior to the industrial revolution. See my linked chart.

Actually the industrial revolution lowered the average human life expectancy because of pandemics, excessive pollution and unsafe drinking water, but there were profits to make and who cares about the unwashed masses when you live comfortably.

[Citation needed]. Your assertion is directly opposite to the chart I linked, so I'm sure you've got some data...?

Actually the graph does not quite tell the whole truth since if you have say 100 people on the planet living to say 5000 years and the rest of the population only living to say 25 years (the graph) then the average age is still 25 years. Ok that was extreme but say you have a civilization that that has clean water and good sanitation and the average life expectancy was say 80 years but the rest of the known world had a life expectancy of say 25 years then the overall live expectancy of the world would still be about 25 years.

And where's this mythical civilization with 80 year life expectancy in the 1500s? Do you have data, or are you just going to wave your hands and say "western civilizations"?

Re:I patented the tubes!

[salesgeek]

It would be convenient if you were right, but you've confused correlation with causation. There were a great number of inventions and innovations over the past 400 years that were not in any realm involving intellectual property or we placed in the public domain by their invetors: sanitary sewers, the corporation, scientific method, the modern democratic republic, rotation of crops, pasteurization, immunizations (Salk asked, "Would you patent the sun?" when asked about patenting his Polio vaccine), and penicillin (here's the full stoy) all have much more to do with today's life expectancy than do intellectual property laws. One could make the case that today's intellectual property laws are reducing lifespans by making the cost of life extending medications for diseases like AIDS, certain cancers or Multiple Sclerosis (1yr supply averages over $50,000) out of reach of all but the wealthy. Of course, that's not convenient when you are trying to justify greed as a way of life, so we'll just ignore it.

Re:I patented the tubes!

[cshark]

They're not. All studies have shown that they stifle innovation to the tune of setting us back 20 years or so.
Take touch screens, for example. Innovation in them didn't even start until the initial patents expired. This isn't uncommon.

This whole thing though, is stinks of SCO style tactics... in my opinion.

So, they are expanding their ...

[Jerry]

attempt to gain control over the Internet and put a tollbooth on everyone's driveway.

The only questions left to ask are: "Did they pay enough congressmen?", and, "have they given enough trips to judges?"

Without those cash payments and "rewards" they can't win. With them they can't lose.

Re:So, they are expanding their ...

[Dachannien]

The patent statutes have been changed relatively little since 1952. There have been updates since then to accommodate a few treaties that the US has since ratified, but those updates didn't really affect patent validity and infringement. In fact, the biggest change in that regard was the gradual elimination of submarine patents by changing the patent term from 17 years after issuance to 20 years after effective filing date. In other words, payments to congresspeople would have had little effect on Lodsys's lawsuits.

In terms of judges, everything is appealable, and the Supreme Court is under enough watchful eyes that it probably wouldn't be possible to buy them off with gifts (trips, money, or otherwise).

On the other hand, moving forward, patent reform could be significantly affected by special interest lobbying. There's a patent reform bill that has passed the Senate and is awaiting action in the House, and the general perception of its biggest change (first inventor to file) is that it would favor large corporations over small inventors.

Re:Tweak the tiger by the tail, Only to find a mou

[Scarletdown]

When the USDA Grade A Bullshit like this gets this thick, I shamefully find myself wishing someone with the means and with the same morals that the execs and lawyers of these corporations who instigate these lawsuits have would engage in some selective assassinations on said execs and lawyers.

Re:No surprise

[Noughmad]

I just wonder which competitor of Apple would have the reason, reasources and lack of morals to secretely fund a lawsuit against them. Ummm...

Re:Breathing patent

[Idbar]

"A method of breathing involving at least one nostril or the mouth."
Now pay me!

Re: reason, reasources and lack of morals

[TaoPhoenix]

Oracle?

Are these real patents?

[eL-gring0]

-A survey.
-A remote survey on a computer. Oh, oops. A "two-way interaction".

Damn. Are these real patents?

They're just...vague ideas. I'll admit I'm new to reading patents, but I guess I was under the impression you needed an actual implementation of something to get a patent. Why not just dream everything you could ever think of, and lie in wait for someone to actually do it, then pounce?

Oh. It seems that's exactly what they did, nevermind.

Re:Are these real patents?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of Lodsys's patents appear to be invalid due to prior art, especially teletext, which was fielded commercially in Florida (at least) by Viewdata Corp of America in the early 1980's.

Re:control over the Internet

[TaoPhoenix]

And who exactly is "lodsys" anyway? So when they're done suing everyone via secret funding... then they'll sell their lock over the internet to the highest bidder!

We have no invention to surpass the net anywhere on the horizon for the next 10 years.

Unisys?

[Yvan256]

Seriously, is this company related to Unisys in any way?

Frivolous.

[Xacid]

I feel like there should be a statute of limitations on this crap. Obviously this guy made no/little efforts prior to this to enforce his "intellectual" property. It's like waiting until they feel like cashing out that they start these kind of lawsuits.

Re:Frivolous.

[speedplane]

The defense of laches, sometimes called equitable estoppel, does provide the type of relief you're talking about. I have no doubt that it will be raised in the lawsuit. You can read about it here: http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2008/10/laches-and-equi.html?cid=136550545

Re:Breathing patent

[Yvan256]

"A method of breathing involving at least one nostril and/or the mouth."

Now you pay me!

Re:Tweak the tiger by the tail, Only to find a mou

[mickwd]

Says something about the state of the US today, that someone's "vain hope" is that a large company will spend lots of money to change the law the way that company wants it to be, just because that might coincide with that person's interests.

Re:Fuck ALL Lawsuits

[ShakaUVM]

It's great to say "Kill all the lawyers" - until you need one. There's a surprising number of people and companies willing to simply not pay you. Even if you have a contract, and completed the services rendered. My corporation has had to do it 3 times, and has won 100% of the owed money plus legal fees each time. Would we have won if I had self-represented? It's hard to say.

Re:No surprise

[larry bagina]

More importantly, Google and Microsoft are in the same boat as Apple (one of the lawsuits was over an android app).

Re:Tweak the tiger by the tail, Only to find a mou

[speedplane]

The reason why we don't have substantive patent reform is because of pharmaceutical companies. The big tech companies, with some exceptions, want weaker patent laws because they're under constant attack by trolls and competitors. Big-pharma on the other hand makes all of its money from patents and will fight tooth and nail against any weakening. As long as big-pharma is dependent on the patent system, I would not expect much change.

Re:No surprise

[Noughmad]

Because as we know, companies in the mobile phone market never sue eachother when they're already involved in a dozen lawsuits already.

Re:Tweak the tiger by the tail, Only to find a mou

[Billly Gates]

These same pharma companies then gouge the tax payers and bankrupt the country by charging $120 for $10 aspirin equivilents. Ironic these same senators blame Obama sayinh we didn't create this problem when letting these drug companies gouge and write the health insurance bill that forces people to pay agaisnt their will.

Interesting? Surveys?

[clifyt]

I wonder when they consider their earliest creation, because my team most likely has prior art.

I managed a small programming office at Indiana University where we had been using computer based testing since the early 80s. Unfortunately, it meant having to send discs via campus mail or driving across several regional campuses and...I'm lazy. About the time gopher was still popular (preweb) I was writing software to do gopher based tests / surveys without a lot of luck because the medium wasn't great for it...which led to client server apps that worked, but weren't as plastic as I'd like...the web was barely being shown and I readapted my code (err...along with my nerds) to do 'cgi' work (sadly it was an entire web server we wrote that had HyperCard on the backend for storage of tests and surveys).

We demonstrated this at a time few people knew what the web was, and at the time it was generally considered the first test / survey software for the web. Again, mostly because I was lazy. Pretty sure we beat all prior art for this.

I'll just make that my homepage

[roguegramma]

I'll just make that my homepage to put load on their servers instead of ecosia and never ever using ecosia anymore ;-)

Seriously, there is probably some merit to the patents in some of the claims, but the practice of filing a broad claim 1 that basically describes not an implementation, but a wish list, makes me throw up.

Re:Interesting? Surveys?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty sure we beat all prior art for this.

No no no, you misunderstand the game.
 
You patent everything you can think of in the absolute, most general terms possible. Then you wait for someone to actually do it, then you wait some more for it to become popular, then you come along and blow them all out of the water. (But do it too early and you ain't got nutin' to show for all of your hard work.)

You actually created something though?!!? How the hell did you do THAT?

Re:control over the Internet

[TRRosen]

As far as anyone can tell Lodsys is one patent attorney and thats it.

Re:Interesting? Surveys?

[sunzoomspark]

If you really have prior art, let EFF know: https://w2.eff.org/patent/

Re:Interesting? Surveys?

[clifyt]

At the time, I refused to patent anything...the university technology transfer team use to come to me regularly to ask about licensing the apps, and I pretty much said they were public domain except the content...anyone could take the code and do whatever they wanted, except copyright it and claim it was there's (none of this GPL bullshit...if something is free, it isnt free if you have to make demands on it)...a lot was developed on my own time, and I made certain things that were my own time were not developed / refined on anyone else's purposely.

Why? Because as I found out later...one of my tests was sold by the university for quite a lot of money and they even removed my credits from it (I think the copyright states 'regents of Indiana university' and I've had lawyers come after me twice for having the software listed in my online vita). Sadly, that one had a grant that was administered under the university...so they decided that they owned everything.

I hate web patents in general...I know a few things I've worked on that I think might should have been patented, but I didn't...but appending 'on the web' to a common practice should be obvious to anyone and thus nonpatentable.

Re:Interesting? Surveys?

[clifyt]

I dont get comments like this.

WTF?

Did you not read my post? I specifically said I did quite a few conferences where we showed this off. Beyond that, I actually gave code away to anyone that asked. I taught people how to do this...it was something I found to be pretty simple...other than the TCPIP stack and interfacing to the hypercard (it communicated via AppleEvents and it was a new thing to me trying to learn how to do this under C++) it was actually a dead simple idea.

So did I publish it? Yes. I said that already. Was it a trade secret? Couldn't be given what I had previously stated.

And if it was a trade secret and someone else patented it? I'd be a stupid motherfucker to complain...I shared what I did with the public. Sounds like you are one of these knee jerk idiots that think unless someone is screaming GPL...INTELLECTUAL PROPERTIES SUCK AND IS NONREAL...that I get what I deserve. I don't believe in GPL...I believe in the public domain and / or BSD. I also believe that things should be able to be copyrighted if I so choose, and even patented if it were a novel idea. I think appending "on the web' does not make anything new...