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Newegg Beats Patent Troll Over SSL and RC4 Encryption
New submitter codguy writes to note that a few days ago, and after a previous failed attempt to fight patent troll TQP Development in late 2013, Newegg has now beaten this troll in a rematch. From the linked post: "Newegg went against a company that claimed its patent covered SSL and RC4 encryption, a common encryption system used by many retailers and websites. This particular patent troll has gone against over 100 other companies, and brought in $45 million in settlements before going after Newegg."
This follows on Intuit's recent success in defending itself against this claim.
What would be fitting is for all those "settlements" to be automatically overturned and the troll forced to refund the money.
But I know it doesn't work that way. If you wuss out and pay the toll, there is no getting your money back from the troll.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Sure is nice that we can freely use this form of encryption that should never be used anymore.
I read the internet for the articles.
And liberty and justice for all...who can afford it.
Jack of all trades,master of none
This sounds like a good opportunity.
I'm in the money...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
They are also throwing a sale to celebrate.
http://www.newegg.com/When-We-...
I was taken a little by surprise over this yesterday when I got the email about it, I wasn't even aware of the court fight going on. I am happy to hear that Newegg is standing up to the trolls, and their shirt about it is kind of cute.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
and it will be from Newegg. Thank you for standing up to the patent trolls.
.
Kudos to Newegg.
I think you have to be a lawyer and have ownership of a patent first (it doesn't have to be worth anything, but you have to be the rightful owner of it...)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
When will they reform patent law so trolls don't have a business case? They could radically limit the validity duration of a patent, so after like two years, there's no case any more. Also, they could limit the right to sue to either the original inventor(s) or a company that bought the patent and is actually using it in a product. Then patents work the way they were intended, not as an extortion scheme for patent trolls.
no, I don't have a sig
...have ownership of a patent...
I'll see what I can find on Craigslist...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I'd just off the trolls and the lawyers. The next bunch would get the idea...
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Drawn and quartered. Look up the definition. It is a long and drawn out process for execution. They have wasted a lot of people's time and money and deserve to be snuffed out for such blatant and deliberate thievery.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
It's worth noting that there are known attacks against RC4 (especially SSL using RC4). While these aren't quite practical yet, it is clear that RC4 is obsolete, and that current programmers should choose other stream cyphers (AES). Even supposing the patent was legitimate, the technology it covers has become obsolete well within its lifetime.
This illustrates one of the key reasons software (that is, algorithms) shouldn't be patentable: the field moves so fast that 20-year patent protection isn't useful. Even supposing the authors of software need patent protection to recoup their "investment" in inventing the algorithm, 20-year protection is effectively an infinite term, since by the time the protection ends, the technology is obsolete.
As an aside, note that patenting a protocol (such as RC4) automatically ends its usefulness. Protocols are only useful if the other party to the communication can participate, and interoperability is very important in software. Patents are ill-suited for this. Copyright, on the other hand, works well: the code you write is protected, but anyone else can write their own code to implement the protocol and communicate with you.
Slashdice has a history of not approving / delaying stories they don't like - look at how long it took (and what lengths it took) to get a story about the Sourceforge malware scandal.
AFAIK here's the Patent
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Oh, what's the selling price? *checks wallet*
SCO argue otherwise: You only have to claim ownership, not actually have even the vaguest title to it.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
This illustrates one of the key reasons software (that is, algorithms) shouldn't be patentable: the field moves so fast that 20-year patent protection isn't useful.
So what's your stance on RSA, one of the early software patents, which is still used everywhere?
So what's your stance on RSA, one of the early software patents, which is still used everywhere?
Cryptography is a special case, as governments did their best to prevent innovation there until the late 90s/early 2000s. And the RSA patent was another of the reasons for the slow spread of cryptography prior to the end of the last Crypto War, as no-one wanted to be tied to a patented algorithm; some even suggested it was patented for precisely that reason, though I doubt that was the case.
I didn't try to articulate every problem with software patents, merely those illustrated by the just-overturned patent covering SSL using RC4. Note that RC4 itself is about 30 years old, and was developed by RSA security.
In any case, regarding the RSA cryptosystem itself, it was developed by several academics (independent of its previous, secret, invention GCHQ), and clearly it would have been developed and published even without the extra bonus of patent protection. It's important to remember that patents are a means to an end ("promot[ion] of Progress of Science and useful Arts") -- which is not to make money for inventors but to provide them an incentive to invent for the public good. In other words, a Patent is a way for the public to give up something (the natural possibility of making use of an invention you hear about) in return for a different advantage (getting the invention made in the first place). If inventors would invent even without the extra incentive, there is not need for the incentive.
Since practically all the value of inventiveness in the software business can be captured simply by writing the software (and, in cryptography especially, by ordinary academic incentives such as promotion, tenure and professional recognition), software patents don't help. Instead they hinder.
For a salient example consider the LZW patent. The algorithm was designed by two academics (Lempel and Ziv of the Technion). The main effect of the patent was to end the widespread use of .gif files (the GIF standard specified LZW compression), which dominated the early internet. Rather than knuckle under and pay licensing fees (and end free-software projects like Mozilla), the internet community developed PNG, an equivalent but patent-unencumbered compressed raster image format. Practically the whole internet switched to PNG -- showing that useful technology can be invented without the patent incentive, and that when there is no patent it is much more widely used for everyone's enjoyment.
PS: It is likely that the LZW patent was invalid (patenting an abstract algorithm), but nobody wanted to take the legal risk of going to course to invalidate it. This obnoxious patent has since expired.
s/hung/hanged/
"Hanged" is killed quickly.
"Hung" is slow starving to death.
I think his usage was correct. 8-}