Slashdot Mirror
Meet the Lawyer Suing Anyone Who Uses SSL
Sparrowvsrevolution writes "Since 2008, Dallas, Texas attorney Erich Spangenberg and his company TQP have been launching suits against hundreds of firms, claiming that merely by using SSL, they've violated a patent TQP acquired in 2006. Nevermind that the patent was actually filed in 1989, long before the World Wide Web was even invented. So far Spangenberg's targets have included Apple, Google, Intel, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, every major bank and credit card company, and scores of web startups and online retailers, practically anyone who encrypts pages of a web sites to protect users' privacy. And while most of those lawsuits are ongoing, many companies have already settled with TQP rather than take the case to trial, including Apple, Amazon, Dell, and Exxon Mobil. The patent has expired now, but Spangenberg can continue to sue users of SSL for six more years and seems determined to do so as much as possible. 'When the government grants you the right to a patent, they grant you the right to exclude others from using it,' says Spangenberg. 'I don't understand why just because [SSL is] prevalent, it should be free.'"
Personally I think the point there is that if someone files a patent, and doesn't enforce anything about it, then someone else buys it 17 years later by which time due to lack of enforcement around it such that everyone has used it it's become part of essential every day tools, then some dick shouldn't then be able to start suing over it.
In this respect patents should act like trademarks - if you don't defend against illegal use of it at or near the time of infringement and as a result everyone starts using tools built upon it, then it should be invalidated.
This idea that you can file a patent, sit quietly on it, and wait until something related to it has become massively widely used and THEN you sue everyone left, right and centre, is fucking absurd.
The other point is that patent terms are supposed to expire after 20 years. As such can anyone tell me why this guy has another 6 years to sue? Is this about legal limits and he is effectively suing for past infringement even though the patent should've expired 3 years ago? If so then that's another change that needs making to the law - you either sue when the patent is valid, or you don't sue at all.
What's the point?
Its a patent for a symmetric key algorithm done in hardware.
Just tell them you'll see them in court.
Who's up for forming a lynch mob?
Depends. Who are you going to lynch? The scumbag lawyer? The patent official(s) who granted this patent? The politicians who have been dragging their feet on patent reform? I mean, are we out to change the system, or just to vent on a shrewd individual who is exploiting it?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
THIS
You should have some minimum time to file a suit against someone for using your patent or it should be invalidated. I see this all the time. Sony used a game controller for 3 years on their playstation and then somebody comes along saying they have a patent that Sony is infringing on. Why wasn't it brought up a couple months after the release? It's not like the playstation was some unknown product in some very small market that the patent holder couldn't have been expected to know about. If you have too many patents that you can't keep track of them, and don't even realize that somebody is infringing on them until years later, then it should be invalidated.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
What's the point?
Its a patent for a symmetric key algorithm done in hardware.
Just tell them you'll see them in court.
That's if you can afford to go to court. They may be asking very reasonable fees to make the ROI of such a case overly in favor of settling. By going to court you would have to advance large amounts of money where settling might be cheaper. So even if you win the lawsuit, you might end up losing money in the end.
Of course, you'd have done "the right thing" (patent pending) but who cares in the 21st century?
Write boring code, not shiny code!
And acorns are oak trees. Imprison all women who have had miscarriages!
Let's not forget, patent laws aren't made to allow big incumbents to rape small inventors. They're made to allow small inventors to get money from their inventions.
Both views are wrong, at least in the United States. The purpose of patents isn't to favor big or small or to enable collection of money by anyone. Money is the mechanism, not the goal. The purpose of patents is to advance science and the useful arts by providing inventors with a motive to publish the details of their inventions, so that other inventors can learn from them, and either license them or explore new possibilities.
Like copyright, the intended beneficiary of our IP laws (at least in their original intent and form) isn't the owner of the temporary monopoly, it's society as a whole. The benefit to the owner is just the tool we use to encourage them to act in society's best interest, by spreading their ideas/expressions.
There are a lot of implications of this viewpoint, and if everyone (especially Congress) could keep it straight, our IP laws would be a lot more sane -- and would tend to achieve rather than undermine the underlying goal. In the case of patent law, one implication of the real goal is that we can measure the effectiveness of the system by how often inventors search the patent database looking for solutions to problems, or for ideas to spark new inventions.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
This is just another in a long series of slashdot articles that have pointed out the broken nature of our patent system. What I have not seen is any serious proposals for fixing the issues beyond "throw it all out". I have to agree that making software (even software running in specific hardwire specifications) something that you cannot patent is superior to the current patenting solution. Something similar could be said about some of the pharmaceutical patenting that is going on as well (make it last "seven days" instead of "one", get to extend my patent).
What if we made patents peer reviewed by a group of high profile experts in the field in which the patent is filed. So notable software professionals would be consulted for software patents. This group would use a high bar on the "obviousness" and "prior art" test so that rewriting prior art into a different language and giving a slightly different spin would not make it past this group. The group would be paid based by on the (likely to be substantial) fees charged to the person filing the patent. This is how research articles are handled for the best scientific journals. If a patent is laughably far from being publish worthy for a reputable scientific journal, why are we letting it control millions (or billions) of dollars of commerce? Currently, we are forcing our higher courts to learn all types of arcana before they are able to kill a patent based on prior art and obviousness. Using a group of true experts (not the underpaid and overworked staff at the patent office) would do a lot to improve the situation. Patent lawyers are not a sufficient substitute.