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Google Takes a Small Step in Lodsys Patent-Troll Case
The Lodsys saga continues; reader WyzrdX writes with this excerpt from Wired: "Google has intervened in an ongoing intellectual property dispute between smartphone application developers and a patent-holding firm, Wired.com has learned, marking the Mountain View company's first public move to defend Android coders from a patent troll lawsuit that's cast a pall on the community. The company says it filed a request with the United States Patent and Trademark office Friday for reexamination of two patents asserted by East Texas-based patent firm Lodsys. Google's request calls for the USPTO to assess whether or not the patents' claims are valid."
Other than with the expected value of a patent monopoly, how will the maker of a new drug finance FDA-mandated clinical trials? Show a viable alternative to patents for industries that are as heavily regulated for product safety and truth in advertising as the drug industry, and the case against patents will become clearer.
Except Google doesn't use them offensively to stifle other companies.
This after Google themself take a broad patent like this?
It's not as broad as you might think. The patent applies only to "a broker computer system independent of the shipper and a merchant", not one where the merchant's system directly uses the shipper's web service, and especially not one that uses a table from the warehouse ID and the destination postal code prefix to the expected transit time.
There's nothing wrong with patents for things you can hold in your hand, it's the software and business-method patents that never should have been allowed in the first place, and need to go away.
This is impossible. There is not enough time or money to sift through all of the thousands upon thousands of software patents out there and say "our software does not violate this" to the satisfaction of everyone involved. Even if you do come to that conclusion, the patent holder could disagree and take you to court anyway, where you have to fight until the judge can say "no it doesn't violate the patent."
Apple's intervention claim is actually quite strong. They say we have a license to the patent, and the license terms mean that all developers can make use of our software implementing the patent on iOS without needing a license. If that argument flies, and it has a very good chance in my opinion, they can get rid of Lodsys at very low cost. All the judge has to do is check the license terms, which judges are much better at than checking patents. It does mean, however, that Apple doesn't help Android developers at all (but then there is no reason for Apple to help Android developers).
Google's intervention very nicely attacks at a different angle. So there may be twice the cost for Lodsys, who has plenty of work anyway with half a dozen cases against it for declaratory judgements.
If only google had access to some kind of electronic system for organizing and sifting through thousands of patents to pick out ones for further review by humans....
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