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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."
I've been thinking about replacing my home Honeywell thermostats (2) with Nests so that I can link, control, and monitor them more effectively. The news of this lawsuit has pretty much sold the deal.
I don't think Honeywell thought about the Streisand effect.
Well, the problem is that they don't really hold legitimate patents as much as they held legitimate patents. Those patents expired some time ago, and as Honeywell hasn't actually innovated in the thermostat space in the last 40 years or so, they didn't really have any new patents to file. So, it seems they just went out and filed essentially the same patents again, using sufficiently different language that nobody really noticed, giving them new "valid" patents. Unfortunately, this practice is of dubious legality to say the least.
Right, but you're missing the point: A patent troll wouldn't try to stop this product, they'd just want a cut. Honeywell wants to eliminate this product even though they don't have a product as advanced. Therefore if you value progress, you'd be better of if these patents were owned by patent trolls. That Honeywell makes less advanced competing products may help people justify the validity of these patents more, but in the end the consumer will be worse off with the patents in the hands of Honeywell than in the hands of do-nothing trolls, because do-nothings trolls will let other people do-something and Honeywell will not.
(I never thought I'd argue on the side of patent trolls, but this is mainly just an intellectual exercise anyway. I doubt any of these patents are justifiable as "promoting science and the useful arts", in that the technology would be created even if the patents were never expected or granted.)