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Patent Troll Now Armed With Thousands of Nortel Patents
dgharmon writes in with a story about the final outcome of thousands of Nortel patents that were bought last July. "You may recall last summer that Apple, Microsoft, EMC, RIM, Ericsson and Sony all teamed up to buy Nortel's patents for $4.5 billion. They beat out a team of Google and Intel who bid a bit less. While there was some antitrust scrutiny over the deal, it was dropped and the purchase went through. Apparently, the new owners picked off a bunch of patents to transfer to themselves... and then all (minus EMC, who, one hopes, was horrified by the plans) decided to support a massive new patent troll armed with the remaining 4,000 patents. The company is called Rockstar Consortium, and it's run by the folks who used to run Nortel's patent licensing program anyway — but now employs people whose job it is to just find other companies to threaten." On a semi-related note, there is a new petition to the White House to make a law that patent lawsuits that find for the defendant automatically fine the plaintiff three times the damages they were seeking."
As of near first post, that petition had only 2 votes. It might be interesting to see how many /. readers vote for it.
...patent lawyers are rubbing their hands with glee. I should have gone to law school after all...
Big companies will still have a huge advantage over the little guy. The only way to make patents work is to develop shorter length protections, or switch to a level of diminishing protection over time.
How about if you bring a frivolous patent suit and lose, you are put out of business and *all* your assets are transferred.
Same for copyright suits.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
So a group of companies band together to buy patents and they create a single organisation to handle it. What else would they do? It is hardly likely that any company would be happy with the whole lot being overseen by one of the other member companies, and they would be in negotiation for years if they tried to split them all up.
So the question to the submitter is: what other outcome did you expect?
How long will it be before the politicians see the problem of software patents as harming their countries own industries? Guess it will never happen, as most politicians are educated as sleazy lawyers, and they are only interested in personal gain.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
just shoot the lawyers on sight, then burn down the CEO's homes
Find cool tech developed by start up
Rip it off
Don't worry about lawsuit since risk is too great
"But Trolls live under bridges." Yes, but at least those trolls you can kill with a sword.
A civics lesson for you: the Whitehouse does not have the power to make laws. That is the exclusive domain of the Congress. You see, we have this little thing called "separation of powers"...
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
that the Rockstar Consortium sues a few high profile companies and causes a lot of damage and mayhem. Then, maybe (hopefully), the uproar will be so loud that the politicians will need to heed it above the whisperings of the lobbyists and will have to admit the stupidity of the current patent system so sanity will prevail and they will fix it. However: I fear that I am just dreaming and that we will just slowly die the death of 1,000 patent lawsuits :-(
You can only get money from a patent if you actually produce something that uses that patent.
Otherwise, you can hang it on your wall and look at it.
Privacy is terrorism.
Now automatic by law, instead of de facto by virtue of countersuits.
A civics lesson for you: the Whitehouse does not have the power to make laws. That is the exclusive domain of the Congress. You see, we have this little thing called "separation of powers"...
Very true ... but the devil is in the details. The White House can draft legislation that is then sponsored by a member of congress just like 100's of lobbyists do.
They are ALL going Global Thermonuclear WAR! Bring it, society will only tolerate this for so long and the call to kill all patents will begin. Its gonna be bloddy, but the time has come.
Good-bye
Sorry but I will not give the gubbermint one stinking piece of MY Copyrighted Personal Information.
Put in on one the many other petition websites and you have backing [still do but not with the *pay wall*].
I was writing assembly when Gates, Jobs, et al were still hanging out in their parents garage.
SOFTWARE ONLY PATENTS should not exists at all.
The code behind your *invention* [code for the new shiny GPU chip] is under copyright or possibly Trade Secret but not patent.
You obviously care or you wouldnt have taken the time out of your busy schedule to troll about it now would you? Now, as a citizen of the USA, this definitely effects me. As a citizen of wherever the fuck you live, I assure you, this will effect you as well. Of that you can rest assured. Though I can see why you would try to rationalize it away. Funny how the human mind works that way.
"In a semi-related note, there is a new petition to the Whitehouse to make a law that patent lawsuits that find for the defendant automatically fine the plaintiff three times the damages they were seeking."
That's called "treble damages."
Individuals must choose, decide their "essential" nature rather than having it given from some transcendent source.
But being a lawyer makes more money and you get to decide who you screw.
A lot of highly paid escorts would disagree with you.
There are lower tier escorts that might not have as much choice, but there are a lot of entry level lawyers with even less choice - and probably worse pay when you factor in takeaway after the student loan payment.
because right now it sounds like it wants to ban ALL patent lawsuits which obviously no elected official is going to go for...
So after these Rats cherry pick the Nortel patents they individually wanted they then form a proxy company to deflect any negative press from them when this patent troll starts shaking down companies with the stipulation that they have no obligation to licence their patents for fair and reasonable terms. Unfortunately, everyone is aware of this proxy company and these companies will not be able to wash the stink off them should a high profile battle ensue.
"In a semi-related note, there is a new petition to the Whitehouse to make a law that patent lawsuits that find for the defendant automatically fine the plaintiff three times the damages they were seeking."
1) Like that would pass.
2) The petition only has 49 signatures on it right now.
Samzenpus probably started the petition...
I am not sure how someone could come to the conclusion that forcing a plaintiff to pay treble damages in the event of a loss is a good idea. Patent laws are already anti-consumer/little guy enough and there's a huge number of small-time patent holders who have been screwed out of their inventions by bigger companies. Few sue as it is and even fewer win because of the ridiculous legal fees associated. Add the risk of three-times damages, and none will. This won't hurt the big guys because often enough much more money is at stake than what they ask for in court, either because the patent they hold is valid or they simply need to try to block the other guy long enough to outsell them in product. How about a law instead to stop patent trolls ? Make it so the plaintiff either has to be the original grantee or they have had to legally acquire the patent and it has to be in active use, either in production or in provable preparation for market.
I am not a lawyer, and I wouldn't usually defend them, but... [sticks head above parapet]
Humour me an analogy: Nobody likes it when a bailiff comes to your door. But the reality is that if there were no bailiffs to repossess property bought on credit when you didn't pay up, then no-one would loan money. For example, in countries where there is a cultural/religious aversion to repossession of homes, it's almost impossible to get a mortgage, and overall rate of home ownership is lower -- the law of unintended consequences here is that if you as a society refuse to kick people out of their homes, fewer people will actually be able to own their own homes.
I think a patent troll company like this is similar. Nortel engineers worked hard to invent stuff. Shareholders of Nortel invested in the company to pay for that stuff to be invented. The value of these patents as assets which could be sold off is in effect a form of 'embodied energy' created in Nortel. Remove the ability for companies like Rockstar to exist and to seek out license fees from stuff Nortel investors paid Nortel engineers to invent them in the past, and you've retroactively denied those investors from some of the return on their historical investment. The end result moving forward is that people will invest less.
Patents serve a purpose, as does their expiry. I could back a plan to shorten patent lifetimes for some classes of patents, but I believe doing away with the whole system would be counter-productive to innovation.
"I thought they were the dominant species..."
The rotten system just got a tad more rotten. Rockstar is the king of all patent trolls, funded by the big two software IP honchos, known for their shakedown schemes and patenting the trivially obvious. The other partners are opportunists and a few badly ailing companies seeking a hail-mary pass to avoid utter extinction. It got its approval under the guise of playing by "reasonable terms", only to disobey said promise as "not applicable to the new construct" as soon as the deal went through. With a start like that, I don't have much hope left for any ethics to be involved in their way of thinking.
Rockstar has all the latest weaponry of an extremely litigious tech company, wealthy backers, plus the enormous advantage that it can't be countersued. It can start case after case without even batting an eye. The sheer amount of cases it can start can probably put a company out of business even before the first patent in play is reviewed.
If you thought Oracle vs Google was perfidious, wait until Rockstar here takes aim at Android. It's only a matter of time, and to me it seems like Android was the reason this abomination was formed. They've sealed up the LTE patents, so they'll surely squeeze them on that front, while trying keep on adding layer after layer of patent licenses, with the penultimate target of drowning it and scaring the manufacturers away.
Innovation is about to get its teeth kicked in.
They will hear from the Rockstar Games soon.
Since that patent troll petition has so few signature, it's probably a good measure on how strong the slashdot population is when it comes to such things..
A civics lesson for you: the Whitehouse does not have the power to make laws. That is the exclusive domain of the Congress. You see, we have this little thing called "separation of powers"...
Yeah.. you're right.. *somebody* needs to tell Comrade Obama that.. He's going apeshit getting his b.s. unconstitutional stuff done via executive order.. He also should be advised that he's the POTUS NOT King Barack the First... Oh who AM I kidding.. Both parties in CONgress could care less if he runs the country into the ground...
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
I agree. This proposal would stack the court system against the little guy, which is exactly the wrong solution to the problem.
The problem is not patent law, per se, but that too many trivial patents are granted. That, and patents which describe a problem, trying to claim that all solutions must infringe.
So without patents, we wouldn't have fire, swings or the wheel? (To be fair, one of them was patented some years back)
The White House will not TAX Intellectual Property, there is no way in hell they will tip the scales in the patent lawsuit nuttyness.
Their backers are the IP holders. All politicians care more about the money than the little guy.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
"But the reality is that if there were no bailiffs to repossess property bought on credit when you didn't pay up, then no-one would loan money."
So you support that big business should not have ANY risk then? the RISK for loaning money is that you loaned money to someone that cant pay it back, hello that is a risk of business, and problem is the credit industry has the responsibility to VET who they loan to.
If there were no baillifs or if we returned to where I could file for bankruptcy and tell the bank to stuff it in their ass. The banks would lend money smarter.
What I get from your example is that we need to remove all risk for companies, and this is completely and utterly a very dumb thing. Patents should expire quickly so that scumbag companies dont just sit on them.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
PIPA was politics, my "guess" is a few guys were getting a little big in the britches, so some other big wigs decided to set them up for a failure and make some good press "See, democracy still works! Yeah! Wahoo!" and then let the mess disappear into oblivion (a few weeks) and then bring in the real meat of the laws as amendments as usual... rinse, lather, repeat.
Patent trolls only sue companies who respond unfavorably to a license request. If the response is FU they do what they do. If you say yes, but, that's when the civil negotiations start. If they say they have designated a particular patent exclusive property of one company or another don't say FU because soon condition 1 will return. BUT if you contact the exclusive licensee to get a narrow use license, you are good. There are escape hatches for most uses most of the time.
FU ends badly.
JJ
During the eighteenth dynasty, the pharoah Tuthmose III gave this advice to his vizier Rekhmere regarding petitions:
Let the petitioner present his case. Act like you are listening. Then completely ignore all his suggestions and issue the judgement what you were going to issue anyway.
That was 3500 years ago. Have people still not learned their lesson?
Alas, the current administration is a tyranny, ignoring law. It does whatever it can get away with.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Wow, makes me feel good working there!
But then, I've never seen EMC act as a patent troll, we've generally use patents defensively.
No, this is not flame bait, but if you have a counter example, I'd love to hear it.
"patent lawsuits that find for the defendant automatically fine the plaintiff three times the damages they were seeking." Sounds really like the kind of text you'd see on a Magic: The Gathering card.
problem is the credit industry has the responsibility to VET who they loan to.
You can't just say 'VET better'! Vetting presupposes that you can calculate the risk of default, and the likelihood as a credit company that you'll have to incur the cost of repossessing. If there's no ability to repossess, then vetting is pointless anyway -- only an irrational credit companies would take any such risk.
This isn't arm-chair theorizing. There are countries where home repossession just isn't the done thing (mostly for religious reasons) -- in those countries, any rational vetting procedure would produce the answer: don't loan anything. And this is exactly what happens.
"I thought they were the dominant species..."
When all commercial and academic development of everything is crushed. I can't wait for the day when not only applied technology is dead but basic research is beaten to death as well. It will be glorious
Both parties in CONgress could care less if he runs the country into the ground...
Now that's not true at all. Let's be fair.
Both parties are absolutely LIVID if the dickheads running the country into the ground are wearing the other team's jersey.
so then banks did not loan any money to people 15 years ago when I could file Chapter 11 bankruptcy and cancel all debts legally and NOT have to return the car and house.
Damn, I did not know that banks and lending did not exist before 1997.
Funny thing is I have proof that it existed, as I went through it in the early 90's Kept the Car and the house, told the bank to shove it up their butt with the signature of a Judge. Their fault for lending money to a person working for a unstable company called General Motors.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Not literally, but it is better to have high profile cases, and real products being affected, than the current situation, where the costs of the patent system are hidden. What are the hidden costs? Firstly, obvious patents harm small companies who cannot defend themselves. Its not just the actual lawsuits, its all the people who decided not to start a business, in part because of these risks. Second, applying for patents and patent litigation are so expensive, they raise the minimum entry cost from essentially zero (in many software-related areas) to gigantic. Higher entry costs mean less competition, and they also mean that we have large companies when small companies might be more efficient.
McD was founded in 1940 and today has a revenue of 24 Billion USD
InNOut was founded in 1948 and today has a revenue of 565 Million USD.
McD exists in 119 countries.
InNOut exists only in the Western United States.
If you were a shareholder and you had a choice, would you like to grow - like McD or like InNOut.
This petition to fine patent owners treble damages if the defendant wins is awful, because it screws small inventors. Invent something in your garage? Big MegaCorp steals it, and pays for lawyers you can't even dream of. They win, and you pay triple.
Awesome idea, got any others?
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
Quote: "A civics lesson for you: the Whitehouse does not have the power to make laws. That is the exclusive domain of the Congress. You see, we have this little thing called "separation of powers"..."
Yes, but the legislature has delegated regulations to the Executive branch which they can write unilaterally and publish in the Federal Register. Once installed they can only be overcome with a standard of arbitrary and capricious. most rulings are presumption of correctness by the regulator in Administrative Law Court. That amounts to a unilateral law writing and enforcement power by the executive with limited to no judicial oversight.
Check out my claims for yourself. They are true.
JJ
Have gnu, will travel.
That link was posted multiple times to reddit but each link was downvoted so it never made the front page. For once slashdot's moderation system beat that of reddit, which seems to be susceptible to PR companies.
all the layers involved, and shame them for setting the world back 1,000 years.
I hope you die horribly.
Disclaimer: IANAL. This post is, however, legal advice, and creates an attorney-client relationship.
Although I recognize the inefficiency problem that the patent troll business model creates within the economy, nevertheless the NPE model is profitable, effective, and a legal exercise of IP rights. The problem is a systemic one; when NPEs win, on average, two to three times the damage awards that practicing entities reap from patent litigation, you can't blame them for suing as much as possible.
Damn, I did not know that banks and lending did not exist before 1997.
Chapter 11 sets a different threshold and regime for repossession, but it's still possible to repossess. What is interesting are the studies that show how the cost of borrowing increased after Chapter 11 was introduced in the U.S.
"I thought they were the dominant species..."
E tu mama tambien...
"I thought they were the dominant species..."
Although I don't have a problem with patents as originally intended, particularly for material inventions, the last number of years people have been patenting all kinds of software "techniques" under the guise of inventions, when they are just obvious extensions to current art. Remember, a patent is supposed to be "non-obvious" but we get patents covering everything from menus to balloon alerts. Patent packagers are then collecting these things and granting immunity to companies that pay a general license, because it's just cheaper to do so than to litigate all the various patents and try to overturn them. Basically, it sucks, and I put them at the same level as those who do trivial greenmail class-action suits (don't get me started on those).