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Owner of Nortel Patents Sues Cisco For 'Immense' Patent Infringement
jfruh (300774) writes "The venerable Nortel Networks may have vanished into bankruptcy five years ago, but thanks to U.S. patent law, it can strike back at its old rival Cisco from beyond the grave. Spherix, a Virginia-based 'research company' that bought Nortel's patents in 2009, has filed a federal lawsuit claiming that Cisco has been knowingly violating 11 Nortel patents. 'The vast majority of Cisco's switching and routing revenue from March 2008 until the present is and has been generated by products and services implementing technology that infringes the Asserted Patents,' the lawsuit claims."
a Virginia-based 'research company'
"ABOUT SPHERIX Spherix is committed to advancing innovation by active participation in all areas of the patent market" -http://spherix.com/
That sure doesn't sound like they're even pretending to be a research company they're patent trolls plain as day says it right on the first page of the site
at least cisco is a company that does something, delivers products and or services...
the part of capitalism that we can all agree is necessary
Right-ism that "attracts low-information voters with buzzwords and sounds bites like" socialism and "destroying America".
Still have my same insurance BTW.
The big problem is that these patent trolls have nothing to lose. There's no way a company can reach a cross-licensing deal since the patent troll produces no products and is otherwise just a parasite with no redeeming qualities.
I think that if a patent is traded or sold that the recipient of the patent must either produce similar products that either use the same or a related technology to what the patent covers or if they don't produce anything they have a limited time, say 3 years, in which to produce a product otherwise the patent goes to the public domain.
Hey, I should patent this idea!
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
Once you accept the notion of patents in the first place (as a temporary monopoly on something in return for disclosing it instead of keeping it secret), it's a very small jump to buying and selling them. If an independent inventor comes up with an idea but doesn't have the capital to bring it to market, they can sell the patent to a bigger company.
That right there is the problem. Ideas themselves are essentially worthless without the many thousands of hours of work involved in taking an idea to market. The real work is done by the people who develop the product. the idea itself has always been considered pretty much worthless. That is why venture capitalists care far less about the idea than they do about the inventor(s). They want people who get things done. The idea itself is almost irrelevant.
That is the real reason why so many people hate the patent system. It unjustly enriches the worthless turds who produce nothing of value, but insist on being paid for their "contribution".
Along those lines, Patents (and copyright) should be irrevocably granted to individuals, and transfer should be forbidden. If an individual wishes to make money from a product, let them do the real work involved in bringing that product to society.
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted