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.

Comments

Obvious prior art

[wiredlogic]

Wouldn't Bluetooth 1.0 be the most obvious prior art ever?

Re:Obvious prior art

[ptr2004]

That would be like saying Wright Glider is prior art for Airbus 380

Re:Obvious prior art

[GrpA]

It would be, if the wording of the patent was something like "A craft, that travels through the air, by means of lift generated through the passage of relative airflow across a curved wing section known as the aerofoil, and of sustained airflow by means of propulsion caused by the action/reaction of a propulsion unit, which propels the craft forward against drag caused by the craft's passage through the air."

The same wording would also cover missiles, but not helicopters. Patents are like that.

Of course, it wasn't that simple - The Wright Bother's patent wars were kind of like Samsung Vs Apple, and only served to severely damage the US's ability to produce aircraft for nearly half a century. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W...

GrpA

Re:Obvious prior art

[wbr1]

I despise patent trolls, but reading your linked article, I see where the patent issues here were really only detrimental until the start of WW1. 1906 to 1917 is not "nearly half a century."

Please, when framing arguments against patents or climate deniers, or anything else that is important to you, do not exaggerate or use such hyperbole. It lessens the impact of your argument, however true, significantly.

Re:Obvious prior art

[bzipitidoo]

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.

Re:Obvious prior art

[quantaman]

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.

Absolutely garbage claims

[wiredlogic]

I looked up the patent. Here is the meat of claim 1:

a transceiver, in the role of the master according to the master/slave relationship, for sending at least transmissions modulated using at least two types of modulation methods, wherein the at least two types of modulation methods comprise a first modulation method and a second modulation method, wherein the second modulation method is of a different type than the first modulation method, wherein each transmission comprises a group of transmission sequences, wherein each group of transmission sequences is structured with at least a first portion and a payload portion wherein first information in the first portion indicates at least which of the first modulation method and the second modulation method is used for modulating second information in the payload portion, wherein at least one group of transmission sequences is addressed for an intended destination of the payload portion, and wherein for the at least one group of transmission sequences:
the first information for said at least one group of transmission sequences comprises a first sequence, in the first portion and modulated according to the first modulation method, wherein the first sequence indicates an impending change from the first modulation method to the second modulation method, and
the second information for said at least one group of transmission sequences comprises a second sequence that is modulated according to the second modulation method, wherein the second sequence is transmitted after the first sequence.

This is absolute garbage. The most powerful claim is so generalized that it can be interpreted to cover anything the owner wishes. It's like patenting a mouse trap that consists of "a device with a mechanism such that mice are trapped".

Re:Absolutely garbage claims

[gstoddart]

This is absolute garbage. The most powerful claim is so generalized that it can be interpreted to cover anything the owner wishes.

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.

After reading the article

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:After reading the article

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

I have to conclude that the jury was populated by a group of retards.

I'm American. I last served on a jury in 2005. I have been called to jury duty once since then and was luckily not picked for the case I was a possible juror for. I've served twice as a juror including in 2005 and the whole process has made me incredibly cynical about US "justice", which I deliberately put in quote marks there. Anyway, in my 2005 service, we were hearing a case that was surprisingly complex and involved multiple charges, but you might put it under the umbrella heading of "property damage". We were in the jury room one morning waiting to go hear the day's testimony and I remember being appalled as 3 of my fellow jurors all got into an argument with each other over who was stupider when it came to computers. Each guy in turn tried to top the other ones by showing how he was far stupider about computers than the other 2. Out of 13 jurors, which includes one alternate, I believe that only 2 of us had jobs that might be called "professional". The others were roofers and holders of various jobs that don't require any college education. These are the kinds of people who serve on juries. So I have no problem believing that the jury you refer to was totally made up of technological idiots who had no hope of understanding the complex issues presented to them, let alone rendering a just verdict.

I'm not sure that a lot of people would be really comfortable if they truly understood the kind of horse trading that goes on in juries all the time. "Ok, we've got 7 votes for guilty on charge #2 and 5 votes for guilty on charge number #3, so how about we agree to vote guilty on #2 and innocent on #3 so we can all go home?"

Re:Republicans hate technology

[Applehu Akbar]

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."

That's the ticket

[PopeRatzo]

Appearing in court with the lawyer for the patent troll was his wife, Morgan Fairchild.

Re:One of my greatest regrets in life

[Jason Levine]

patent trolls need all their belongings smashed by angry mobs every time they win a lawsuit, until they learn to not win lawsuits.

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.

Venue Shopping

[phorm]

"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.

Patent trolls are useful arbitragers

[goombah99]

First, yes some patent trolls are evil. But some are very good.

The key service a Non-producing Patent holder provides is that they purchase patents from inventors. This allows the inventing company to convert their Ideas into cash. When companines die they may cease producing but their IP is still valuable. And it can be sold. It's that value that the shareholders of the company were investing in. So they were entitled to sell it. Patent "trolls" create this marketplace for Ideas and the money they pay goes on to be re-invested in other good things. Hence it maintains a market that funds spending on ideas.

The patent trolls are arbitragers because they profit from non-liquidity of the market for ideas. IN doing so they do make it liquid. So that's good. they are creating real value where there was only theoretical value and keeping prices in balance.

Then there's the evil patent trolls that take lame notions and therough legal machnations extort money from people who can't afford a legal challenge or rely on throwing darts and hoping for a big win.

It's sometimes hard to tell these apart because sometimes a cherished technology we all love really does have a legitimate patent holder not an ogre behind it. The Eolas patent on all web browser plug ins seems like a reasonable case. If they can really show that the basic concept of the web browser plug in was not obvious and had no prior art and that they legitmately patented it with sufficient breadth of description then it really doesn't matter that this catches everyone by surprise. It's worth a fortune obviously but that too is not a reason to say it's wrong. It would be wrong if they got lucky an patented as trivial idea and then tried to extort people with it.

It's these rare paydays that actually can keep the good arbitragers in bussiness. they may buy up lots of patents that never make them any money. All that money goes back to investors who created the IP and hopefully invest in more IP development in the future. The arbitragers get paid big once in a while for their investment in buying those worthless unmarketable patents.

This sort of sounds like maybe that if they really did come up with the basic protocol and immplentations from which blue tooth was originated and the makers of blue tooth didn't have the right to sell that then this could be legite even if it's a big paybat for a non-produycing patent holder.

Re:Patent trolls are useful arbitragers

[quantaman]

First, yes some patent trolls are evil. But some are very good.

The key service a Non-producing Patent holder provides is that they purchase patents from inventors. This allows the inventing company to convert their Ideas into cash. When companines die they may cease producing but their IP is still valuable. And it can be sold. It's that value that the shareholders of the company were investing in. So they were entitled to sell it. Patent "trolls" create this marketplace for Ideas and the money they pay goes on to be re-invested in other good things.

I think I understand your argument. But I think there's an important distinction: Is dead company A selling the technology to new company B, or just the right to use the technology?

If they're selling the technology, ie "company A knew how to do X, lets buy their IP so we can do X" then they're contributing something and new company B benefits from the exchange.

But if the situation is more like "we want to do X, but it turns out company A has patents on X, therefore we need so pay off those patents" then I'm a lot more skeptical. Sure company A's innovative investors make some money off of B, but that money came from B's innovative investors so I'm not sure you're actually promoting investment in innovation. Not only that but the patents added a lot of overhead, cash that would have been better used innovating by both parties.

It's sometimes hard to tell these apart because sometimes a cherished technology we all love really does have a legitimate patent holder not an ogre behind it. The Eolas patent on all web browser plug ins seems like a reasonable case. If they can really show that the basic concept of the web browser plug in was not obvious and had no prior art and that they legitmately patented it with sufficient breadth of description then it really doesn't matter that this catches everyone by surprise. It's worth a fortune obviously but that too is not a reason to say it's wrong. It would be wrong if they got lucky an patented as trivial idea and then tried to extort people with it.

As to my point I'm very skeptical Eolas actually did anything to further the development of browser plugins. Why are they entitled to a fortune when they never actually contributed anything of value?