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Patent Trolls On the Run But Not Vanquished Yet

Posted by samzenpus on from the don't-forget-the-fire dept.

snydeq writes Strong legislation that will weaken the ability of the trolls to shake down innovators is likely to pass Congress, but more should be done, writes InfoWorld's Bill Snyder. "The Innovation Act isn't an ideal fix for the program patent system. But provisions in the proposed law, like one that will make trolls pay legal costs if their claims are rejected, will remove a good deal of the risk that smaller companies face when they decide to resist a spurious lawsuit," Snyder writes. That said, "You'd have to be wildly optimistic to think that software patents will be abolished. Although the EFF's proposals call for the idea to be studied, [EFF attorney Daniel] Nazer doesn't expect it to happen; he instead advocates several reforms not contained in the Innovation Act."

9 of 56 comments (clear)

  1. Really need to post information about the act by Crashmarik · · Score: 3, Interesting

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...

    Also I would be very careful what you wish for here. Anybody who doesn't have the capital or desire to become a participating entity could be screwed over royally here.

    It would be far better to take patent trials away from juries. Picking people at random and then pointing them at highly technical patents isn't something that even sounds like it might work.

    1. Re:Really need to post information about the act by icebike · · Score: 4, Informative

      Shopping around for juries and judges in rural areas is a big problem that should be addressed

      If it were that simple, the small player would have an equal chance.

      The problem is there are some courts where the jury pool is populated by patent friendly people, some of which are not above going to great lengths to hide these facts during Voir dire. The Eastern District of Texas

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      Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
    2. Re:Really need to post information about the act by disposable60 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "the court" brings nobody. It is up to each side to employ and bring in its own 'experts.'
      That's one of the things that makes a defense so expensive. The plaintiff can promise a cut of the take, but the small respondent - so far - has no such resource.

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      You're looking for quotes? See my journal.
    3. Re:Really need to post information about the act by sycodon · · Score: 3, Interesting

      My dad patented an oil field tool that relied on the magnetic properties of the drill pipe to perform its function.

      Someone copied it and started selling it. My Dad sued.

      During jury selection an officer of the Navy who specialized in detection and masking of submarines through magnetic means was dismissed from the pool by the defendants.

      He knew too much about the key technology involved in the trial.

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      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    4. Re:Really need to post information about the act by TheCastro1689 · · Score: 2

      Well we don't want educated people making their own minds up about stuff.

  2. Unlikely to make a big difference by Harlequin80 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It will just change some of the risk profiles taken on by the trolls. In the end they are staffed by lawyers where as their targets have to retain a lawyer, so their targets have to fund their defence right from the beginning and hope to win to get their money back. What you will see is an increase in out of court settlements ie. we will stop litigating you if you agree to settle this now for no money out of court. This would be very very tempting option if you saw the likely hood of thousands and thousands of dollars of legal costs ahead.

  3. Update by s.petry · · Score: 3, Informative

    I saw a message from Soulskill that they will work on the bugs tomorrow. Until then, an idea would be to pad your top and bottom lines with a line-break. It may help people to read your whole comment.. then again I don't know if they strip breaks on either end under certain conditions.

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    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    1. Re:Update by Cenan · · Score: 2

      Yeah, but /. already had a visually consistent website. They now broke it, in the most amateur way ever (well, again really). I've got people's signatures scrawled on top of the "Reply to This etc." links. I've list the sidebar on the front page.

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      ... whatever ...
    2. Re:Update by Chatsubo · · Score: 2

      All I want to know for now is: How do I get to more stories? Because at the moment I can't get to the "next" page at all. Don't even know where to look.

      Maybe related: tags are invisible for me, so maybe the buttons are too (FF36).

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      > no, yes, maybe (tagging beta)