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Patent Troll Wins $15.7M From Samsung By Claiming To Own Bluetooth
An anonymous reader writes: A jury has upheld patent claims against Samsung and awarded the patent-holder $15.7 million. "The patents relate to compatibility between different types of modems, and connect to a string of applications going back to 1997. The first version of Bluetooth was invented by Swedish cell phone company Ericsson in 1994." Lawyers for the plaintiff argue that the patents cover all devices that use Bluetooth 2.0 or later, so further cases could extend far beyond Samsung. Of course, the company that won the lawsuit wasn't the one who made the invention, or the one who patented it. The company is Rembrandt IP, "one of the oldest and most successful" patent trolls.
Why? You think that just because a standard increases in a version that the original should become prior art to all new technology introduced even if it had nothing to do with that technology?
That's like saying the horse is prior art to the car.
I have to conclude that the jury was populated by a group of retards.
I mean, REALLY?
I know the whole idea of having juries in America is so the prosecution and defense can essentially play a popularity game with them, and facts don't always have a lot to do with what could be perceived as proper end results, but wow... one could almost be forgiven for thinking that the USA is a banana democratic republic sometimes.
Sure they do. It's why those marches against nuclear power, GMOs, and vaccines are so crammed with Republican men. Just look at the protest signs: "Another father for returning to the Neolithic."
This is completely and totally wrong. I don't agree with this at all.
You smash them when they file lawsuits. Don't wait until they win them or they'll never learn.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Clearly, nothing was added in Bluetooth 2.0.
This is the inherent problem with patents.
They're written that way by design, and the US Patent Office doesn't evaluate them for being weak patents, they just confirm the check cleared.
Patents stopped being about innovation decades ago, and now they're about playing a game of semantics to make it sound like you've invented something, when in fact you're describing something which has been done before, or is fairly obvious.'
Patents are a bloody joke, simply because they are so vague and open ended ... and so many of them boil down to "a system and methodology for doing something we've all done before, but with a computer/cell phone".
Patents aren't about innovation and invention, they're about corporate rent seeking in the vast majority of cases.
And, I'm afraid I don't have sympathy for companies who engage in patent lawsuits when they lose one. It's not like they're victims here ... they're just getting screwed in the same game they try to screw other people in.
Don't worry, governments will make sure the biggest company who contributes the most wins ... just like they always do.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
"Marshall is a small town that has been a hotspot for patent lawsuits for more than a decade now. US District Judge Rodney Gilstrap, who presided over this trial, oversees far more patent lawsuits than any other federal judge."
There are many things that can be done to reform the patent system. Perhaps something that could be done to reform the "justice" system is to restrict/reform this bullshit cherry-picking of venue.
I've come to a more nuanced view on patent trolls. They aren't themselves so evil, they are basically hackers, but of the law instead of tech. The real evil is the patent system itself, not the hackers who take advantage of it. If by their actions they persuade giants like Samsung that patent law needs major reform, then that's good. It's not their fault that patent law is such a mess, it's the fault of giant corporate backers. They're dancing delicately, trying to have it both ways, that is, little people have to ask them for their patents, but they don't have to ask little people for theirs. The bigs are the reason the scope of patent law has been expanded beyond all sense. Possibly the biggest expansion was that originally a patent was supposed to cover a working implementation. A machine that achieves the same thing through a different method was not in violation. Now patents can cover a vague concept. That kind of patent may be shot down in court, but that it was granted at all is one of the problems.
Hating a small patent troll is like shooting the messenger.
The evil is the term of the patent.
Change the term of software patents from 20 years to somewhere between 2 and 5 years (maybe hardware gets to be 10).
Small companies and independent inventors can still develop something new and have a healthy head start in either selling it or developing it into a product.
But 2-5 years isn't long enough to build an ecosystem, so you don't get a ridiculous situation where someone suddenly owns a piece of a fundamental technology like Bluetooth or MP3.
Moreover it fixes the incentives regarding patents. The current 20 year term means you can patent and forget, hoping someone else doesn't the work of developing the idea and you can then swoop in for license fees, that's where the patent trolls come in.
But a short term doesn't give you that option, the only way your patent is going to have value before it expires is if you make a push to build something with it, which is the kind of the point.
I stole this Sig