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Newegg Defeats Alcatel-Lucent in Third Patent Win This Year
Newegg's policy of not backing down from patent trolls, even ones as large as Alcatel-Lucent, continues to result in victory. Earlier this year, Overstock and Newegg successfully defended themselves with a jury invalidating Alcatel-Lucent's main patent used to force companies as large as Amazon to settle. Naturally, Alcatel-Lucent appealed, but the appeals court quickly ruled in favor of Newegg and Overstock.com. From Ars: "Federal Circuit judges typically take months, and occasionally years, to review the patent appeals that come before them. Briefs in this case were submitted last year, and oral arguments were held last Friday, May 10. The three-judge panel upheld Newegg's win (PDF), without comment — in just three days. ... Alcatel-Lucent dropped the case over its other two patents, desperate to get back the '131 patent that Newegg and Overstock had killed at trial. 'If they had been able to revive this patent, the litigation machine would have continued on,' Reines told Reuters after the win."
Of the patent(s) at hand would have been nice...
Give 'em hell, Newegg!
Another big PC build order comin' your way! Keep on winning
BTW, on a sad note, does anyone remember when Lucent actually innovated stuff? The legitimate heir of Western Electric and Bell Labs has fallen very far.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
at the trial the alacatel VP who was sent to testify had no idea which patent newegg was violating or how they were violating it. alcatel just said you must be violating one of our 27,000 patents
THIS is why I give my business to companies like NewEgg, and have and will NEVER buy a single damn thing from ones like Amazon.
Amazon settled because it is also a patent troll. Blood runs thicker than water, especially between patent trolls.
-SS "Teach the ignorant, care for the dumb, and punish the stupid."
The patent office should have to pay the legal fees of the winning side every time a patent is defeated in court.
The patent office are the gate keepers. They are currently enabling all the patent shakedowns.
For proper control every system needs proper negative feedback. If the patent office gets money for granting patents and does not lose money for granting bogus patents they are going to grant everything under the sun to encourage more applications and more incoming money.
Only by penalizing the patent office for improper patent granting will there be a proper measure of control.
The best way to deal with a playground bully is to punch him in the face. Even if he has his buddies with him. Even if you'll get disciplined by the school. You do that a few times, and no one will mess with you.
The same principle applies to patent trolls: Always fight if you can at all manage it.
I am officially gone from
Newegg might be smaller than Lucent, but they are still not a Mon 'n' Pop. I know that in the corporate mind anything under a thousand employees is "small business" but, face it, Newegg is not small business.
The real tragedy with patent trolls is that the *real* small business can not fight them. They can shut down a business writing innovative software with 2-3 employees just like that.
Good for Newegg, but treating it like a David vs. Goliath win is not too smart.
Maybe not a 'legal' precedent, but most certainly a 'social' precedent.
It tells everyone that the trolls can be taken down. Notice how the trolls are backing off of Newegg. The trolls know Newegg will fight back. The trolls know that Newegg will take out their best moneymakers. Better to go pick on somebody that won't put up a fight. Well, when the rest of the playground sees that the bully will back down if you punch him in the nose, the bully's control is greatly curtailed.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Force is a euphemism for blackmail, and it's not inaccurate when applied here. "Nice web site you got here, it'd be a shame if we had a court order you to take it down. Give us $100,000 and nothing bad will happen to it, or you risk losing a $100,000,000 in court if we win." That's force to a company that doesn't have $100,000,000 in their bank account.
Newegg's made a corporate decision that said "we don't care if it's a thousand times cheaper to settle than to risk losing a lawsuit. We have a very large pile of money, and we have promised to call every single bluff presented to us. We will never fold our hand."
Go, Newegg!
John
i wanted to scan the opinion, but there is none. and the decision says nonprecedential.
not a lawyer but it seems this decision cannot set a legal precedent for future cases
There was no precedent to be set here. Basically, the appeal was Alcatel trying to get its favorite patent un-invalidated, and the the judges looked at the case and are basically telling Alcatel "There's nothing wrong with the lower court's decisions - it stays invalidated. Now go away and quit bothering us".
Don't tell me to get a life. I had one once. It sucked.
A patent should require a physical object. Yes that means method and software patents die instantly, which is a very good thing.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
What happens with the settlements that Amazon and others made over this patent? Can that money be clawed back?
Verbum caro factum est
Actually, their view is somewhat more long-sighted than that. "We know settling this one patent would be cheaper than fighting, but settling would encourage a flood of other patent trolls to try and that would be more expensive."
And since the US has set themselves up to be an economy highly dependent on patents and copyright, I seriously doubt you'll see these patents repealed.
The people lobbying for expanded IP rights don't want patents lessened, and they're not going to allow the politicians to take away their meal ticket.
When Microsoft makes more revenue from Android licenses (for patents I'm not convinced they've ever disclosed) than they do on their own OS, nobody is going to allow patents to stop being so widespread.
At this point, all of the "too big to fail" companies are so dependent on this as to make it inseparable from their core business.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
The patentability of software only applies when it is run on a computer.
Software isn't being patented in "software" patents. Vague ideas and idioms are patented. Pinching the screen to zoom isn't a software patent. If it was a software patent the patent should be on exactly how the software accomplishes the effect, on the implementation. If my implementation accomplishes the effect differently it wouldn't infringe your patent. The implementation is the code. The code is copyrighted. A real software patent would be redundant. The way it works now is the equivalent of inventing a special kind of drill bit and getting a patent on anything that makes holes. That's how software patents work now.
Who is John Galt?