"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."

Comments

Kill it at its source

[ThatAblaze]

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.

Re:Kill it at its source

[fustakrakich]

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

The Only Proper Response to Patent Trolls

[__aajfby9338]

I look forward to a time when people respond to patent trolls with actual torches and pitchforks. Tar and feathers will also be acceptable.

Re:The Only Proper Response to Patent Trolls

[lxs]

Plastic explosives? That doesn't sound very biodegradable at all. Composted left-leaning newspapers soaked in free-range nitroglycerin is where it's at these days.

The bogus patent in question

[oldhack]

This bit, gleaned from the linked slashdot interview, sums it up:

Can you explain? by trcooper

Can you explain, in terms I could tell the average person, how your patent is novel enough that anyone who wants to distribute audio over the internet should license it from you? I'd appreciate it if you could address how the distributions of podcasts today widely differs from downloading audio files in 1995 and how your patent help change this.

Logan: Trcooper, this is one of those of questions that could get me in a boatload of troubleâ"with my lawyer, that is. Any comments I make regarding the claims and how they are different from previous systems, can and will be used against me in court. So Iâ(TM)ll have to take a pass on this one.

Re:The bogus patent in question

[sacrabos]

Isn't part of the Patent Application being that you outline exactly why your invention is novel enough from previous systems?

Re:The bogus patent in question

[icebike]

Indeed any good Patent Agent or Attorney likely will tell you to not even think about searching around for other things like what you think you've invented. This is because you are obligated to provide anything relevant you find to the Patent Office in the form of an Information Disclosure Statement

Actually the law obligates you to search around, due diligence, and any attorney suggesting you do otherwise is a quack and a charlatan.
Failure to cite obvious and relevant patents, easily found from common sources (which, these days includes google) is evidence of an intent to obtain a patent fraudulently. See 37 C.F.R. 1.56. And run away from any lawyer that tells you otherwise.

a very key part that is central to the case

[raymorris]

Certainly, and that would be a central issue in any dispute over this patent. Therefore, for either party to make public statements on that issue other than "you can read it in the patent" would be stupid, for the same reason that it's stupid for criminal suspects to converse with the police.

Patentability Originally Req'd a Physical Model

[BoRegardless]

The whole patent system was designed to encourage building physical things people used. Patents were never intended to cover the thought process or logic or eventual machine readable logic derived from the mind on how a person was to use a product.

New Zealand has just disallowed software patents and maybe that will proceed to other countries.

If you want your product methods & operation choices and commands to be secret, then obfuscate your code.

Re:Patentability Originally Req'd a Physical Model

[kamapuaa]

Well to be fair, New Zealand doesn't have a software industry.
The patent system encourages innovation, it just needs to be run intelligently.

Re:Patentability Originally Req'd a Physical Model

[fnj]

The patent system encourages innovation

Bullshit.

Re:Patentability Originally Req'd a Physical Model

[Your.Master]

I suspect that it both encourages and retards innovation, like almost everything that tries to affect innovation. The question is which is dominant "when run intelligently". And that is not an easy question to answer. There's some very intuitive ways that it seems like it should (patents can help guarantee higher profits from innovation, and then encourage disclosure of the methods, both of which foster innovation), but economics is complicated and a lot of slashdotters have come to the conclusion that it does not when run as today (patents seems to lead to bullshit lawsuits against people trying to innovate who really aren't "cheating", thus retarding innovation). But there's also a fair argument that today is not "run intelligently" so the follow-up is how to get there from here.

Re:WTF

[93 Escort Wagon]

For a moment I thought you said TALKING toilet paper... and it really weirded me out.

Re:Some perspective

[NoKaOi]

First, I think most of you are misunderstanding "novelty" as it relates to patents, by thinking that whatever invention is patented must be novel TODAY in order to be valid.

You're right as far as what "novel" means, but when most people in this discussion are saying "novel" what they really mean is "non-obvious." Novel means there is no prior art. Non-obvious means that others wouldn't have come up with the solution on their own. So this patent may have been novel, but since a bunch of others came up with the solution all by themselves once they were presented with the problem, that demonstrates that it isn't "non-obvious."

The only thing that matters is that it was novel at the time the patent application was filed. I read the patent at issue here and, at the time the application was filed, the technology was certainly novel. The fact that it has BECOME ubiquitous is irrelevant and immaterial.

Ok, let's start talking in the proper terminology that everybody means, which is "non-obvious." Just because others may not have come up with the solution for a few years doesn't mean the solution was non-obvious at the current state of the art when the patent was filed. One of the Graham factors for determining "objective evidence of nonobviousness" (Supreme Court in Graham et al. v. John Deere Co. of Kansas City et al.) is "long-felt but unsolved needs" - in this case there wasn't a long-felt but unsolved need. So the question is, once the need was felt, was the solution obvious? In this case, it seems hell yes, since everybody else came up with the same solution independent of the patent once the need was felt. That's what makes the patent obvious and therefore invalid.

The fact that it has BECOME ubiquitous is irrelevant and immaterial.

Unless it has become ubiquitous because it's the obvious solution to the problem. Then it is relevant and material to non-obviousness (but not relevant to novelty).

Re:We need loser-pays for patent lawsuits

[Ambassador Kosh]

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.