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East Texas Judge Throws Out 168 Patent Cases
Earthquake Retrofit writes: Ars Technica is reporting that an East Texas judge has thrown out 168 patent cases in one fell swoop. The judge's order puts the most litigious patent troll of 2014, eDekka LLC, out of business. The ruling comes from a surprising source: U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap, the East Texas judge who has been criticized for making life extra-difficult for patent defendants. Gilstrap, who hears more patent cases than any other U.S. judge, will eliminate about 10 percent of his entire patent docket by wiping out the eDekka cases.
I'm raising a glass of Resin as I write this.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Someone's bribe check bounced
He figured out that the parasite school of economics wasn't going to work in the long run.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Looks like someones check didn't clear
As of 1630 PDT today.
https://weather.yahoo.com/united-states/michigan/hell-2419784/
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
All the cases were related to the same patent, which the judge ruled was too vague. Clearly the right decision but there's still a long way to go.
The judge in question has learned a lot about patent law (he's only been a district judge for 4 years). He threw out the cases, and invited the defendants to file for attorney fees.
The threat of having to pay attorney fees if they lose will stop patent trolls dead. Millions for defense, not a penny for tribute will take on a new meaning when you can get the millions back.
You need to look at the rational for granting patents. The original rational was that by providing a monopoly on an invention for a limited period of time, it would encourage inventors to publish new and useful inventions instead of keeping those inventions as trade secrets. So the original inventor would be guaranteed exclusivity for a period of time, and in exchange everyone would benefit after the exclusivity period had expired.
But now people have started filing for patents which do not describe an invention in a useful manner, and then suing anyone who makes a similar invention. This basically reverses the intended purpose of patents.
Analogy: patents were intended to protect invention prospectors from claim jumpers, but instead are being used by speculators who see an idea railway going a certain direction and buy up all the mindspace in its way.
Actually it was worse. One and a half tea-bags.
A patent should not be about an idea that can not be produced. So twist enough words around faster than light travel, lock it in place and then keep extending out the patent, which is what in reality does occur in tech space. Ideas are routinely claimed without any ability to apply them and then decades down the track when the ability occurs they refine the patent and extend it on from that period, effectively hugely extended patent life and simultaneously blocking other companies from developing that technology earlier.
There are many corruptions of patent and copyright law that hugely harm society and whose only purpose is the insane attempt to feed insatiable greed. Your PR stunt of I oppose 'BUT' greed first is pretty lame and disingenuous.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
"Yes, terrible!
1) The large, non-innovative company simply steals the work of another company expending neither effort, nor time, nor money, nor creativity.
2) Other startups refuse wasting time and money building new products.
3) Customer lives with the same crap product for decades."
Sensible rationale. It makes sense.
But real world seems to probe it doesn't work that way: software development, for instance, has flourished without the need of a strong patent chest. Neither Microsoft, nor Oracle, nor Google, nor Facebook, nor Twitter, nor SAP, nor Red Hat, etc. made their way into big companies thanks to strong patent protection for their innovations, but by being innovative, fast to implement and with good business acumen. It's arguable, though, that they acquired a strong patent portfolio once they were big as a war chest against other big companies also with large patent portfolios and to increase the entry barrier for new competitors.
was the venue of choice for patent trolls for a long time, because they were notoriously friendly to plaintiffs in such cases. Looks like that particular gravy train may have stopped.
This particular judge invited defendants to file to have the troll pay their fees. That puts this troll, who is 10% of the problem, out of business.
It wouldn't take too many cases in which Intellectual Ventures has to pay the people they sue before IV would run out of money and be gone. They are responsible for around 30% of the trolling.
Four companies file 90% of the patent cases. Of the remaining 10%, many are legitimate disputes, so well over 90% of the trolling is those four entities. Put those four out of business and you've pretty much solved the problem of patent trolls. (And by making it costly for those four, others will be discouraged from attempting it).
Sorry but customers are fickle. Look at the industries without IP like restaurants and fashion. Lots of innovation and competition. What will happen is instead of taking a long time and lots of resources to get a patent companies will push every upgrade to market as fast as possible to get the first movers advantage.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
The original purpose and function of patents was a method of rewarding people the King favored. How it ended up as an institution separate from the King relates more to attempts by the Parliament to limit the King's powers than to reasoned debate about the function of patents.
The concepts of patents as a method of motivating people to publish trade secrets was an after-the-fact rationalization. Even so, it also helps to realize that for a long time patents were really only limited to methods of manufacture, not usages. It's easy to keeps methods of manufacturing secret.
Which is why until the mid 20th century in non-Anglophone countries you couldn't, for example, patent a chemical or its use, but only the method of manufacture. This is one reason why the German and French chemical industries were so inventive and competitive compared to American companies in the first half of the 20th century. But then they got greedy and wanted the same protections their American counterparts got.
The trade secret rationalization doesn't work very well in the modern era. It's much more difficult to keep manufacturing methods secret. And patents are so broad that that for the most part they protect things which aren't even remotely in dangerous of being kept secret.
Which is why economists today favor return on capital investment as a rationale for the patent system. Like the trade secret rationale it seems logical on its face, but doesn't hold up to empirical data. There's no less innovation in the increasingly small areas where patent protection is non-existent than in patent-protectable areas. There may be more investment, but that's the tail wagging the dog in an analysis. _Output_, not investment money, is the relevant metric.
People forget that the beauty of a free market system is that with enough wealthy capitalists, the necessary investment tends to happen even without government protections. Indeed, _especially_ without government protections like patents and copyrights. Once you start adding government monopoly rents, the money will chase those protections rather than seeking out truly innovative ideas. Without government protections it's not like capitalists will just sit on their money. Inflation provides all the incentive you need for capitalists to get out their and hustle, looking for profitable opportunities.
Put those four out of business and you've pretty much solved the problem of patent trolls.
Put those four out of business, and all you do is postpone fixing our clearly broken patent system. You want to solve patent trolling, stop the patent office from rubber-stamping the stupidest most general patents.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways