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Patent Troll Goes After Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, IBM, Others
zaba writes "A company named PersonalWeb Technologies has decided to sue a host of heavy players in the tech industry, including Apple, Facebook, IBM, Microsoft and Yahoo! for patents it holds related to data processing. They have a previous suit against other big names like Amazon, Google and HP. Anyone care to guess where the company is based or where the suits were filed?"
The company is also targeting GitHub, but seems to have accidentally sued Rackspace — GitHub's host — instead. Rackspace has responded, saying, "It’s apparent that the people filing the suit don’t understand the technology or the products enough to realize that Rackspace Cloud Servers and GitHub are completely different products from different companies."
I used to think of patent trolls as no name companies that pop up just to make a quick and sleazy buck. Now I think of all of the big names like Apple and Samsung too. At this point, I say bring it on. Let all companies be destroyed in the name of "intellectual property rights" and lets start over. I'd rather we die a quick death than drag it out forever.
http://www.personalweb.com/Technology.html
Enjoy!
Might as well just read Wired.com because they have the stories first.
No overhaul needed of the patent system, right?
Austin. Eastern District of Texas.
And who says the system is broken?
Most of their technical staff looks to be about 15 or 16...
http://www.personalweb.com/About.html
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
No, then the only companies left would be the patent trolls.
Git (the VCS) uses sha-1s as object identifiers. It sure sounds like that is what these guys claim to own.
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5,978,791.PN.&OS=PN/5,978,791&RS=PN/5,978,791 They better go and sue Oracle. This describes the function of java.util.Hashtable.... hangon, that's been around since 1996 and the patent was filled in 1997.
and it's a time to take these asswipes out back and put them out of their misery.
Lights out in London!
And Welcome, new Slashdot overlord(s). Welcome.
Could someone explain why the eastern district of Texas is friendlier than the rest of the country to these kinds of suits? Are jurors dumber there? Is is more difficult to mount a defense there?
I think the Nazgul are going to have a light snack.
Is this even news anymore?
Don't get divide and conquer? You don't sue 4.5 companies with deep pockets (Facebook is 0.5). They will pool their resources to destroy you. Much more effective to go against them one at a time (first they came for the Disciples of Jobs, but I wasn't a Disciple of Jobs.)
This article does a pretty good job of looking at the situation in East Texas with regards to patent trials. It is an interesting read. It will be eye opening to some and a confirmation to others.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
> It’s apparent that the people filing the suit don’t understand the technology or the products enough to realize that Rackspace Cloud Servers and GitHub are completely different products from different companies."
The problem is that if you are sued for patent infringement - regardless of the merits of the case - you are up for $2M in lawyers fees and court costs to defend it. Recently a judge speaking out against trolls said $3M - $5M. If you're a small company or worse - a lone developer - that will send you bankrupt. The suit will most likely be filed in a troll-friendly court district such as the East District of Texas as this case was. The judges in E.D. Texas there are notoriously pro-troll and won't dismiss even the most stupid of cases. http://www.technologyreview.com/news/405259/a-haven-for-patent-pirates/
Trolling causes a lot of damage for innovators elsewhere in the US, but it is huge source of revenue for E.D. Texas. Congressmen from these other districts need to gang up against the Texas trolls and Congressmen: http://www.house.gov/representatives/#state_tn
I thought it said patient troll...
Little tip guys, don't drink and slashdot.
Dramatization of processing wins for Intellectual Property holders in East Texas. (I know, this is satire, ignore the different country.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P46qYCIt954
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Oh, they are patient too. 12 years is a long time to wait on a partent portfolio before suing, even for something as juicy as trolling.
"The patents asserted in these lawsuits were developed by a company called Kinetech Inc. The portfolio was split up in 2000, and itâ(TM)s now co-owned by PersonalWeb and Level 3 Communications, a large internet infrastructure company."
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
And the winner is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Bermeister
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
Patent trolls are a $29 billion tax on innovation:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18598559
The USPTO needs to be disbanded, pure and simple. It's never going to get its act together, its never going to restrict itself to patents for clear inventions, the NET damage they're doing is too great, time to end patents altogether.
This is just fucking retarded on so many levels. Patent trolls are fucking assholes but even then, I wouldn't take on Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, even freaking *IBM* in the same lawsuit.
against "non-practicing entities". Let's say... if you obviously don't understand that patent you hold, the patent is empty and void? Seems a fair rule to me. After all, patents are there to provide the creator of the technology a means to monetise it. If you bought the patent, it should be for obtaining the right to deploy the technology. And for that, you need to understand the tech too.
But as a simple ticket to sue, well, you hardly need to understand anything. But the result is undesirable because it causes damage and destruction elsewhere. Weaponising patents isn't what they were invented for (oh the puns), so it's time to put paid to the trolling already.
and it's a time to take these asswipes out back and put them out of their misery.
Or at the very least, take Clarissa, Denice, Julie, Kamren, and Sheena out back, and as a lesson to future patent trolls, give them publicly televised spanking.
This space unintentionally left blank.
We just need to encourage him to take these folks out on a "hunting" trip.
Actually, I would like to see blatant patent trolling to be treated as a criminal offense. It's a racket, and should be whacked using RICO laws. These folks set up a shell company and sue, sue, sue. One win is enough to keep them going. If these lose big, and the shell company goes bankrupt, they just set up another one and continue.
The problem is differentiating them from legitimate patent suits. Patent lawyers could help to give direction to law makers. But why should they? The make money on both sides of patent troll litigation.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Attorney: Judge, we would like to put our QA Coordinator on the stand as an expert witness. /me jerks.
Judge: Darren Hampton, please take the stand.
Judge: Please describe your role at the company and your formal qualifications.
Darren: I am an eclectic fellow, but despite myself being risk averse I often put myself in a great deal of minor peril.
Judge: Please proceed.
Darren: Although I am am coordinator, I normally lack the qualities of a coordinated individual. I burst into laughter at the slightest provocation.
Judge: Understood.
Darren: *bursts out laughing*
Judge: *bashes Darren on the head with his gavel*
Darren: Sorry, sir. The danger I pose to myself is insurmountable and I cannot find a way to escape my own person or the hilarious occurrences that seem to develop daily.
Judge: Are you retarded?
Darren: I like to partake in the listening of mind-blowing techno. I especially likes the parts where it goes "wob wob wob."
Judge: Next witness please.
Darren: Wait.
Judge: Ok.
Darren: I have a deep addiction to Team Fortress 2. I also don't like stepping on Legos (sic) without shoes.
Judge: Next witness.
Court Dude: Sheena Walker, please take the stand.
Sheena: Oh, hai!
Judge: Sheena, please describe your experience and formal qualifications.
Sheena: I love research! Yay! My favourite holidy is St. Patricks Day and I luuuv green and light green. Like shamrocks, you know.
Judge: Continue.
Sheena: Like, yeah. What was I saying? Oh yeah! I love my Mini Schnauzer, Missy, to death! Yeah!
Sheena: I once took a picture of a sunset!
Judge: What has this got to do with the case.
Sheena: Hey, judgie. I love Big Brother. I once had a piano in my ear! I went to the, yeah, University of Texas! Yeah. I didn't finish but I think I want to one day. I have been debating this with myself.
Judge: You talk to yourself?
Sheena: No, Judgie, I debate with myself. Anyway, hey, in the meantime I am learning like lots.
The first patent seems to be describing duplicate elimination by hash code (i.e. a Hash Map) when applied to distributed databases (surely as obvious as all the old attempts to add "over wifi" to everything). The second seems to refer to the same thing but retrieving a unique access control along with the data.
A lawyer with a law firm defending one of these companies contacted me and visited me last week to review prior art which I have, with the hope that I can assist them and their client in invalidating one or more of these patents. Tomorrow I will be delivering running a copy of my software to the firm to allow them to closely examine it. Most of the companies which have been threatened with patent infringement lawsuits have caved in and agreed to pay the patent holders (Priceline founder Jay Walker and others) rather than attempt to defend themselves in court, however. We'll see how it plays out.
I've made jokes in this thread about the company profile but I am now wondering if it's a troll in more way than one. Is this a real company that is patent trolling? Or, is it a troll about patent trolling? I am starting to get confused. Surely a real patent troll would create a more professional company profile (??) Surely a company going to court, even in Texas (wherever that is), would have a more "professional" website. Is it April 1st?
I like the version from Crystal Method more...well, the uncensored, that is.
I know I shouldn't feed the trolls but if Osama has crawled out of his watery grave, turned black, and is wandering the streets of Chicago then patent trolls are not our biggest problem. That being said, zombie Osama v East Texas patent trolls for the title of ultimate evil could be an entertaining match up.
That old? Surely the Laches Doctrine would firm as a favourite to come into play then.
"Jack Fobel: Software Developer
He is proud to brag that he has more level 85 WoW characters than his oldest son. His daily duties include developing using ASP.NET MVC and C#, and making coffee as needed."
nuff said
How did I get a -1?
This is entirely accurate. I've seen pictures of their office.
Another reason to eliminate patents. Maybe once upon a time patents protected creativity, but that's so obviously not true any more that there's really no benefit to the system at all. I suspect even the biggest players would like to be out from under all this legal BS.
Seriously, if thoses are granted: America is a lost cause.
13/091,380 Accessing data in a data processing system
13/102,337 Accessing data in a content-addressable data processing system
13/109,208 Accessing data in a content-addressable data processing system
13/352,169 Data Distribution in A Data Processing System
13/351,433 Access Control in A Data Processing System Using Data Item Signatures
http://www.personalweb.com/Technology.html
The lawyers who are our Senators, House of Reps, and Executive Branch are glad their drinking buddies in the patent enforcement industry are making a bundle! So there's no reason to expect changes in the patent laws.
Mama mia... I wish I knew how to play Texas 42, whatever that is!!
Also, the CTO appears to be Sheldon's brother.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
When the patent trolls come out, start the sniffing their torrent traffic. I'd almost bet one of the Personal Blah Blah Blah company's employees has downloaded copyrighted content from torrents. Maybe they did at home. All it takes is catching one of them and the company's argument is damaged. True, not really a proper legal thing to do, but in this case, I think a bit of creative hacking for those of us who actually care about these kinds of things would be nice. Not that I am advocating anything illegal...