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Intuit Beats SSL Patent Troll That Defeated Newegg

Posted by Unknown on from the better-late-than-never dept.

Last fall, Newegg lost a case against patent troll TQP for using SSL with RC4, despite arguments from Diffie of Diffie-Hellman key exchange. Intuit was also targeted by a lawsuit for infringing the same patent, and they were found not to be infringing. mpicpp (3454017) sends this excerpt from Ars: U.S. Circuit Judge William Bryson, sitting "by designation" in the Eastern District of Texas, has found in a summary judgment ruling (PDF) that the patent, owned by TQP Development, is not infringed by the two defendants remaining in the case, Intuit Corp. and Hertz Corp. In a separate ruling (PDF), Bryson rejected Intuit's arguments that the patent was invalid. Not a complete victory (a clearly bogus patent is still not invalidated), but it's a start.

4 of 59 comments (clear)

  1. Which proves judges are stupid by Gothmolly · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Q: "How do you know so much about key exchange?"
    A: "I invented it in the 70s."
    Q: "Fail, you lose."

    -vs-

    Q: "How can you prove this is prior art?"
    A: "Blah-biddy blah blah legal legal blah."
    Q: "Seems legit. Intuit wins."

    --
    I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
  2. Re:It's not the infringement that's the issue by Chrisq · · Score: 4, Insightful

    it's the patents that are bogus. Judges need to invalidate more patents, they need to invalidate all software patents.

    But we're talking about Eastern District of Texas

  3. Re:It's not the infringement that's the issue by N7DR · · Score: 5, Insightful

    it's the patents that are bogus. Judges need to invalidate more patents, they need to invalidate all software patents.

    Putting aside the entire issue of software patents, the legal standards for invalidating a patent are rather high. I have seen many patents which we would all likely agree should be invalidated either for obviousness or because there's prior art; but actually meeting the necessary criteria to prove that conclusively to a judge or jury would have been impossible.

    It has evolved this way because of the built-in assumption that the Patent Office does its job correctly, and therefore patents are assumed by courts to be valid and there is a fairly heavy burden imposed to prove otherwise. If the assumption is valid, then this isn't an obviously-bad system; but if it isn't valid, then it quickly becomes an expensive, frustrating situation for defendants.

  4. Re:WAT by SJ2000 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yes you can. There are many types of cryptographic weakness (Eg: an attack that reduces the effective key space) but specifically regarding RC4, there are weaknesses which make it difficult to use properly in common scenarios.