Nest Labs Calls Honeywell Lawsuit 'Worse Than Patent Troll'

UnknowingFool writes "Over a year ago, Nest Labs launched the Learning Thermostat. The brainchild of Tony Fadell, former head of Apple's iPod and iPhone division, the Learning Thermostat promised a self-programming and wifi-enabled thermostat that would save energy costs. After some glowing reviews, Nest found itself in a patent infringement lawsuit against Honeywell. Nest responded with multiple claims calling Honeywell 'worse than a patent troll.' Among Nest's claims: Honeywell hid prior art (some on some previous patents that they owned) and inapplicable patents (patent on mechanical potentiometer when Nest's product does not include one). Nest's stance is that Honeywell filed the lawsuits not to extract money but to set back progress so that they can control the industry."

Comments

Worse than a patent Troll?

[BagOBones]

I thought allowing your products to succeed and preventing others from entering the market is part of the idea of a patent? Unlike a troll that has no product, at least Honeywell has one... Even if their claims do not apply. ;)

Re:Worse than a patent Troll?

[JaredOfEuropa]

The original idea of patents was to foster innovation by encouraging inventors to make their inventions public, receiving a temporary monopoly in return. Historically, patents were considered to be an artificial construct to benefit society, not a natural right of inventors. The idea is that society benefits from the disclosure of non-obvious ideas, and from inventions that are perhaps expensive to implement.

Now take a look at the patents claimed by Honeywell. It's all obvious crap and design gimmicks, simple intellectual land-grab. Society stands to benefit not one iota by the disclosure of these ideas, and would not have been worse off if Honeywell would have kept them secret. Someone else could have (and has) come up with these "ideas" in the course of designing their own product, without the benefit of knowledge of the details of these patents.

The granting [of] patents 'inflames cupidity', excites fraud, stimulates men to run after schemes that may enable them to levy a tax on the public, begets disputes and quarrels betwixt inventors, provokes endless lawsuits...The principle of the law from which such consequences flow cannot be just."

This is from an issue of The Economist... published in 1851.