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Bill Would Force Patent Trolls To Pay Defendants' Legal Bills
First time accepted submitter TrueSatan writes "With support from the EFF's Defend Freedom Project two Republican congressmen seek to introduce a bill called the 'Shield Act' which, if passed, would enable judges to award costs to defendants if they are found to be the victims of frivolous patent litigation. From the article: 'A new bill introduced in the House of Representatives attempts to deter frivolous patent litigation by forcing unsuccessful patent plaintiffs to cover defendants' legal costs. Introduced by Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) and co-sponsored by Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), the Saving High-Tech Innovators from Egregious Legal Disputes (SHIELD) Act is limited to patents related to computer hardware and software.'"
" two Republican congressmen seek to introduce a bill"
"Introduced by Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) and co-sponsored by Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT),"
So the parties are officially merged now?
Please FIX the system don't PATCH it!
The patent system is so badly broken that it kills innovation for generations..
Patent trolls are just an sideffect, and they won't stop just of risk of paying some money in 1 case out of 10...
The language allows the judge presiding over the case to effectively determine whether the case was a frivolous case, meaning there's a decent chance that this won't deter legitimate patent suits. That said, only time will tell.
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I think we can make a good guess about which movies these congressmen may have watched recently...
Geeks don't grock information, they grep it.
Microsoft has mostly used their patents defensively so I don't think they've included in this
True but their proxy companies would probably go down faster with this bill.
, nor Apple.
What the fuck are you smoking? Did you miss the whole Samsung shitfest?
Google, on the other hand, will be on hot waters especially with the recent purchase of Motorola Mobility.
Er, this isn't a retroactive bill ... not to mention legal costs (while big numbers to us) don't mean a whole lot to a company like Google. $40 million in lawyer fees? Drop in the bucket.
Section 285 of the Patent Act of 1952 (35 U.S.C. 285) already permits judges to declare patent cases to be "exceptional" and award appropriate relief. From the defendant's perspective, a case can be declared exceptional if the plaintiff cannot show that at least one claim of the patent in suit covers the device or process accused of infringing the patent. This section is regularly used by defendants to obtain attorneys fees and costs.
Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and Section 1927 of Title 28 of the U.S. Code also provides bases for the same relief.
The problem with patent trolls is not the inability of defendants to get costs. It is that trolls often wage licensing campaigns by bringing highly questionable claims but set the costs of licenses below the cost to defend an action in court. Companies typically choose to go the economical route and take a license.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
Google, on the other hand, will be on hot waters especially with the recent purchase of Motorola Mobility.
Er, this isn't a retroactive bill ... not to mention legal costs (while big numbers to us) don't mean a whole lot to a company like Google. $40 million in lawyer fees? Drop in the bucket.
Google posted around $2.7 billion in profits for Q4 of 2011, so let's figure they make around $10 billion in profits per year.
$40 million out of $10 billion in profit is like Joe Average taking home $50,000/yr and spending $200 on lawyer fees. (An imperfect analogy, but it shows how little Google's profit margin is hurt by lawyer fees.)
It's fallacious to argue that money has similar opportunity costs in scale. $40 million could bribe a congressman to the tune of billions, whereas there is almost no legal opportunity to increase $200 to that degree.
Keep in mind that IP Ventures is said to use between 1600 and 1800 proxy companies for suing. Those companies are formally independent of IP Ventures, but the filings indicate that IP Ventures has a financial interest in the outcome (they get their share). If the legislation is not carefully crafted, the proxy companies can just go bankrupt and sell the patent(s) back to IP Ventures.
Source: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack/
You people think this is funny? This is EXACTLY how our political system works. It's perfectly legal for corporations to bribe our lawmakers to make decisions favorable to them, it's just called lobbying. Let Joe Shmoe try giving $200.00 to influence his representatives decision and see where he ends up.
--- Keep the choice with the user..
If it is cleverly spent, it could work.
However, let's not forget the scale. If $40 million buys billions (let's say 2 billion), then $200 buys $10,000. That could be a simple matter of taking the mayor for a good meal and discussing a zoning issue, or a vending permit.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!