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Details You're Not Supposed To See From Boston U's Patent Settlements
curtwoodward (2147628) writes "In January, Boston University settled lawsuits against two dozen big technology companies for allegedly using its patented blue LED technology without permission. But apparently, the school's lawyers were a little too forthcoming for everyone's tastes — they recently asked a federal judge to delete a court filing that spelled out all of the companies who settled. Luckily, we still had the unredacted version, which shows that Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Motorola and many more are on the list, even if they don't want you to know it."
Universities should serve the public good. Anything created there should go into the public commons and be available to anybody and everybody to use. When you make the choice to be, or work at, a university you trade profit for service. If you can't accept that, then work somewhere else, or be some other type of an institution than a university.
Maybe Boston U have seen this coming, and in reality want to publicise the list. I for one had never heard of them owning a patent on blue LEDs before this, and now I see how even the big guys pay not to take them on.
Korma: Good
What are these settements of which you speak?
It's in the headline no less.... Oh well, at least the "editors" didn't dub over engine and transmission noise.
Apple, Microsoft, Dell, BlackBerry, Nokia, etc. don't make LED's, they buy them . Hence they're customers. Does this mean that the absurd idea of suing customers in addition to manufacturers has been accepted? Patent trolling is bad, but this is just plain nuts.
You don't know what a signature is.
Time to disconnect from the modern world and go live in a wooden cabin in the middle of the forest.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Ok fine.
If universities must submit all research into the public commons, then corporations should stop getting subsidies/deductions/kickbacks. After all, thats public money. Corporations shouldn't be able to get public money AND private money.
Everyone who uses a blue or white LED just got boned by this patent. Quick check how many damn things you have that have a blue power LED.
No comments here as to why BU might want the parties kept private.
Let me hazard to guess that the settlements/licenses included confidentiality clauses, and the publication of the names may somehow work against BU.
OTOH, if BU brought suit against all these companies, wouldn't any post-settlement dismissal of those suits necessarily be a matter of public record?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Streissand Effect in 3... 2... 1...
Okay, the settlement was done a couple months ago. The only thing new here is that the lawyers want to retroactively redact some company names from the original paperwork. So... Where's the story? It's only a mildly amusing anecdote and I expect this sort of thing happens fairly frequently. I get the distinct impression that the submitter wanted me to see something more here but for the life of me I can't figure out what.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
BU strikes again. Worst university. Suffered 5 years there. Never seen a more uninspired campus, faculity, and management. Tritely riding on the success of other big universities, while simultaneously failing in all efforts to become a respectable instituion of learning. Stay away, and far away. All of the siren songs of "best program" and "best school" are lies.
This alone is qualification for him to be a doctor.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Really? (and I say that as a genuine question, not some snarky reply)
I always thought you could "make your own" from patent filings, you just couldn't sell/trade/traffic/commercialize it. So if I wanted to construct a swing in my backyard and use it in a sideways motion (with or without the Tarzan yell), such as currently under patent http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi... , I could do so without fear of repercussion, but I could not sell such a swing setup to others without violating the rights of the patent owner. Your definition of "use" would prevent such a project in my back yard.
I don't buy the auto analogy, mainly because the insurance companies have nothing to do with the suit, except though my contract with them for payment of an award. The only reason their lawyers get involved is because it's their money. I have a buffalo wireless router I purchased many years ago, and if the courts interpret "use" as you say, then I am in direct violation of several patents (since Buffalo, afaik, never paid for the patents they used)
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
There's still something not right about taxpayer money being used to develop things the taxpayer is not allowed to use without paying again.
Federal money should come with strings attached that require donation of anything developed with it to the public good.
They are great to have.
Headline just sounds like some hick saying "Boston U". Everybody in the area knows it's always called BU.
I always thought you could "make your own" from patent filings, you just couldn't sell/trade/traffic/commercialize it.
Nope. Per Wikipedia, "...a patent provides the right to exclude others from making, using, selling, offering for sale, or importing the patented invention...".
Now usually it's not worth the time/effort to enforce patents against end-users since they generally don't have much money. But witness the patent trolls going after small businesses for "scanning to email" or the use of wi-fi (really, look up Innovatio IP Ventures).
If I come up with a way of doing something, I don't have a problem with you needing to either re-invent it from scratch or else pay me to use my idea.
I do think that if you can show that you really did invent something from scratch *without ever seeing my invention or hearing about it* then you shouldn't have to pay me.
Similarly, a patent should be on a specific implementation, not a general concept. This latter part seems to be a huge problem with many software patents...they try to patent a concept rather than a specific implementation of the concept.
As another poster said, you don't understand what a signature is. It doesn't have to be legible, it just needs to be a unique handwritten mark. It can be a quickly-drawn picture of an elephant if you want, as long as it looks much like all your other such pictures, and is hard for someone else to duplicate.
False, most Universities either run their own bookstore or contract it out to a for-profit organization such as Barnes and Noble. Just because University of Washington has a non-profit bookstore does not mean most do.
Please submit a copy of your signature so we have an example to study.
Nichia had blue Gallium-Nitride LED tech in 1994, and is in fact credited with its invention.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
but seriously, in many places they no longer teach kids how to handwrite cursive, so the younger generation's signatures are all a series of joined up block letters, and they can't make any sense of the old style of "joined-up" writing. a "J", an "r" or a "Z"? Just a jumble of lines. Find a teenager and ask them! Strange but true.
Mine is GLORIOUS! Unfortunately, my signature (unlike Michael's) contains my first and last name so I won't post it here.
So signing for computer parts at my competitor's store by drawing a cat paw print on their little writing strip thingy is alright?
Why not just write them normally? That's what I do, and I'm in my 40s. Cursive is a useless waste of time, much like schooling in general.
Legally, yes.
I disagree. Think of holding patents as another way of funding an already cash-strapped educational system. A lot of schools are in need of better facilities for teaching students, many bright students are in need of scholarships, and professors are substantially under-paid compared to their industry counterparts. To do research (and get paid during the summer), you have to go out and apply for grant money, and not all of it can come from the NSF or other government agency. Organizations like SRC pool industry funding for research as well. So, if a professor or grad student invents something truly novel and actually worth patenting, why not leverage that as a means to bring more money into the school? This isn’t double-dipping anymore than it is double-dipping to use one grant-funded innovation as supporting work to motivate more grant-funded work. It’s more research funding to make the school run better and the royalties aren’t functionally a whole lot different from any other industry grant. It means that students, instructors, and researchers at that school will have better resources.
What Boston U is doing exactly, I’m not sure. There was a big hubbub at Wisconsin recently too, but Guri Sohi is a MAJOR pioneer in computer architecture, so I’m inclined to lean towards his side there. When someone sues over patents, my first reaction is to assume they’re trolling. But universities aren’t shell corporations or patent trolls that produce no real innovations. Things most universities patent have already been published in peer-reviewed venues, unlike so much other crap that is snuck into the PTO, making them much more likely to be real innovations, often with functional prototypes and open source implementations. if anything, I would say that universities should get the benefit of the doubt WAY more than any other class of patent applicants.
Actually, the first patent, as we know them, was granted to Brunelleschi, the engineer who built the dome of the Duomo in Florence. He came up with a way to move very large blocks of marble, and it would be obvious to anyone watching how he did it. Because he couldn't keep it secret (the usual practice back then, and today), he received a document from some Duke or another saying that nobody else could do this.
They are harsh and look terrible. Not good for night vision either.
When I use a credit card, I always sign completely illegibly. Nobody ever cares.
This is the Constitution.This is the Constitution under the Bush administration. Any questions?