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"Patent Troll" Closes Controversial Podcast Patent Deal With SanDisk

wabrandsma writes "James Logan's patent company, Personal Audio, has closed a licensing agreement with SanDisk. The company says that now 'between a third and two thirds of all mp3 audio players' are made by companies to which its patents have been licensed, including LG, Samsung, HTC, Motorola, Blackberry and Amazon. The Electronic Frontier Foundation wants to fight Personal Audio's podcasting patent at the US Patent and Trademark Office. About 30,000 dollars, was brought in earlier this year through crowdfunding to fight the case. Logan took part in a question-and-answer session here In June."

4 of 65 comments (clear)

  1. Kill it at its source by ThatAblaze · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Patent trolls only exist because patent examiners are approving patents without any idea what a significant advancement in the state of the art actually is. Educate the examiners so they quit just approving everyone who hands them a $20,000 check.

    1. Re:Kill it at its source by fustakrakich · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Patent trolls exist because we have patents. The problem goes back to the very beginning of its institution.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  2. Re:Patentability Originally Req'd a Physical Model by fnj · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The patent system encourages innovation

    Bullshit.

  3. Re:We need loser-pays for patent lawsuits by Ambassador+Kosh · · Score: 3, Insightful

    How would you deal with mega corps then? If someone took an actual invention you made and then used it themselves the odds of you winning against a megacorp is close to nil. So you could attack them and then wind up with all their billions in legal costs.

    I am not saying that loser pays is entirely bad but there do need to be protections in it so that it does not simply end up bigger is immune to anything.

    --
    Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD! :)