Google-Backed Yieldify Has Acquired IP From 'World's Biggest Patent Troll' (theregister.co.uk)

An anonymous reader cites an article on The Register: Yieldify, the Google-backed startup accused of stealing code from British adtech company Bounce Exchange, has been making some unusual friends. Yieldify has acquired an ancient web patent from III Holdings which was first filed in 2007. III Holdings is better known as Inside Intellectual Ventures, co-founded by Nathan Myhrvold. It has been dubbed "the most hated company in tech" and "the world's biggest patent troll." IIV is a "NPE" (non-practicising entity), which gathers up patents and seeks to unlock their value through selling on or licensing the IP. This has been backed up by litigation, such as Samsung, a recipient of one of III's sueballs. In a court filing made last week, Yieldify made a request for declaratory judgement in its ongoing case versus Bounce Exchange, citing the IIV patent. Also from the report: Clearly, patent trolls are unacceptable when they're trolling you, but become strategically useful when you can troll back.

Comments

Sueballs?

[ITRambo]

Surely the word lawsuit could have been used instead of sueballs. It's an unneeded, contrived word. Just my opinion. Otherwise, thanks for the information.

Re:Sueballs?

[un1nsp1red]

If 'sueballs' bothers you, you probably shouldn't read El Reg. That's their style.

Re:Sueballs?

[Hognoxious]

The entire sentence is garbage. Samsung is not a sueball.

lets not forget.

[nimbius]

Patent trolls are notoriously synonymous as leeches that contribute nothing to the process of invention, but theyre no better than the intellectual property patents and frivolous design patents that their targets such as Google or Microsoft endorse and employ.

if anything patent reform by victory should be eschewed in favour of unilateral patent and copyright reform. litigation shouldnt be relegated to some remote texas exurban court, and the USPTO shouldnt roll over whenever someone wants to patent absurdities like one click shopping.

Re:lets not forget.

[shawn2772]

theyre no better than the intellectual property patents and frivolous design patents that their targets such as Google or Microsoft endorse and employ.

Do you have a citation of Google's use of such patents?

You are a troll, but my patent is legitimate!

[Steve1952]

Unfortunately, this sums up the general rule in patent law: your patent is invalid and you are obviously a troll. I, on the other hand, have a clearly valid patent and I am enforcing my legitimate patent rights. Lather, rinse, repeat...

Re:You are a troll, but my patent is legitimate!

[pr0fessor]

That is the problem if after spending large amount of a money on R&D a company declares bankruptcy and I purchase a novel and unique patent not already used in dozens or hundreds of products to either sell, license, or produce then that should be fair but when patents are so broad that they could be almost anything and could be applied to dozens of products even ones made prior to the patent then there is big problem and that patent never should have been granted.

Strange hatred of intellectual property on /.

[mi]

Presumably, most of the /. readers produce ideas and other intangible and easily copied once created things for a living. In other words, we are paid for these intangible things.

Why, then, are most people so negative on other people selling and buying them? The hated "patent trolls" buy ideas from people, who have them — thus rewarding our colleagues. What is theirs, they are entitled to reselling — at whatever price the market will bear. This is normal and perfectly ethical.

Yes, the weaponized litigation practiced by some of these firms is most reprehensible, but they are hardly the only ones partaking of it. Until we change our legal practices to make sure, the loser pays winner's legal costs by default, the side with a bigger legal budget will keep "winning" before entering the courtroom.

But none of it supports the abolishment of the very concept of intellectual property in general and patents in particular, which is so often suggested here. Are these suggestions coming from fools and/or folks short of their own ideas? What's going on?

Re:Strange hatred of intellectual property on /.

[ShanghaiBill]

Why, then, are most people so negative on other people selling and buying them? The hated "patent trolls" buy ideas from people, who have them — thus rewarding our colleagues.

The problem is that independent inventors, who patent their inventions, and then enforce those patents, are contributing NOTHING to society. They are just parasites preying on companies that came up with the same idea independently. At my company, we are forbidden to even look at patents, or to talk to someone who claims to have a patent, because that just increases our liability. They can later come back and say we "stole" their idea. They are just blood-sucking parasites and the world would be better off without them.

The belief that "independent inventors" are creating useful innovations, and then licensing them to grateful companies, is nonsense. That almost never happens.

If you want to be a inventor, you should work for (or start) a company that actually produces products.

Re:Strange hatred of intellectual property on /.

[Anonymous Coward]

But none of it supports the abolishment of the very concept of intellectual property in general and patents in particular, which is so often suggested here. Are these suggestions coming from fools and/or folks short of their own ideas? What's going on?

Imagine that you have a plumbing issue in your bathroom.
The toilet is all messed up.
You call a company to fix it, and they send out a plumber to install a new toilet.
This new toilet has a "feature" whereby you can't flush it unless you swipe your debit card and pay a flush fee.
This flush fee is, of course, credited to the company who sent the plumber to install your toilet.

We (these "intellectual property" creators who read Slashdot) are the other plumbers in this economy, and we're saying this:

This PAY-TO-FLUSH is a bunch of horse shit!
People should OWN their toilets, not have to pay to flush!
Hire plumbers to install it, not to USE it!
This rent seeking "pooptalectual property" has got to stop!

And now here you are asking: "Plumbers install toilets. Why are you guys so upset at pay-to-flush pooptalectual property?"

Re:Strange hatred of intellectual property on /.

[NotInHere]

You know I have nothing against the concept of intellectual property or patents. Its good to have it. The only thing I am against are software patents, as in 99% of the cases they are just trivial patents, and in all other cases they only help the big companies and those with sufficient funding.

About copyright, a term of 70 years after the death of the creator is far too long, and should be life of the creator plus 25 years or something, and 50 years for works that were created by multiple people.

And having a patent term of 20 years in the software industry is far too long. There are four protection mechanisms the software industry has. First, the compiler and minifier: if you publish your software, its hard to find out how it works. Second, non disclosed communication protocols: Often the communication protocols your software uses in order to talk or save stuff or so is not documented, which means only your software can access it. Number three and four are copyright and patent law.

Usage of these four mechanisms has rendered competition impossible in many areas of the software industry, creating world wide monopolies, like google search, microsoft office, or microsoft windows.

The software industry is really fast moving. Having a term of 20 years for patents in the software world is far too much for the industry, there even 5 years mean more than 20 years in other industries. Also, I don't think the software industry needs patents at all. It has a really big a monopoly problem (what I outlined above), and that problem can't be solved by giving them government granted monopolies.

Re:Strange hatred of intellectual property on /.

[NotInHere]

Shhh, silent, or somebody files a patent for it and makes a SV startup unicorn.

Re:Strange hatred of intellectual property on /.

[Gravis Zero]

Presumably, most of the /. readers produce ideas and other intangible and easily copied once created things for a living. In other words, we are paid for these intangible things.

as a software developer, my work is covered by copyright. however, both copyright and patent law are absurd. software patents are the single worst form of patent because they are not for a specific implementation but rather the mere idea of a design. here's the thing, software patents didn't exist until patent law was amended to allow it. so yeah, software patents need to die forever and copyright needs to be reduced back to it's original 14 year term.

Why, then, are most people so negative on other people selling and buying them?

for the same reason i'm against international arms deals who have no quibbles selling weapons to terrorists.

The hated "patent trolls" buy ideas from people, who have them — thus rewarding our colleagues.

developers don't make patents and developers don't get rewarded when their company sells a patent. so how are our colleagues rewarded again?

What is theirs, they are entitled to reselling — at whatever price the market will bear. This is normal and perfectly ethical.

there is nothing ethical about extortion.

Yes, the weaponized litigation practiced by some of these firms is most reprehensible, but they are hardly the only ones partaking of it. Until we change our legal practices to make sure, the loser pays winner's legal costs by default, the side with a bigger legal budget will keep "winning" before entering the courtroom.

you make a good argument for abolishing patents.

But none of it supports the abolishment of the very concept of intellectual property in general and patents in particular, which is so often suggested here.

widespread abuse and a total deviation of it's intended purpose isn't reason enough?

Are these suggestions coming from fools and/or folks short of their own ideas? What's going on?

no, they are coming from people who are fed up with the bullshit idea that because someone thought of an idea before them that somehow entitles them to exclusive ownership of the idea. very few patents are actually novel and everything will be reinvented given enough time.

Re:Strange hatred of intellectual property on /.

[Hognoxious]

The belief that "independent inventors" are creating useful innovations, and then licensing them to grateful companies, is nonsense. That almost never happens.

[citation needed]

If you want to be a inventor, you should work for (or start) a company that actually produces products.

Why? If I want to be a film director do I have to be an employee of Disney? If I want to be a software developer do I have to work for Microsoft?

Who the fuck are you to deny people the right to operate as independent entrepreneurs?

Re:Strange hatred of intellectual property on /.

[UnknownSoldier]

> Why, then, are most people so negative on other people selling and buying them?

You can start here with the shenanigans of Imaginary Property:

* Against Intellectual Property
* Against Intellectual Property 2

--
Only Cowards Censor

Re:Strange hatred of intellectual property on /.

[Registered Coward v2]

If you want to be a inventor, you should work for (or start) a company that actually produces products.

In addition, they should be required to produce a commercial product within a year of filing that implements the patent or lose the rights. That way, companies couldn't come up with new ideas and patent them in hopes of using them isn some unspecified future product. Keep the idea a trade secret and don't patent until you are ready to release a product; and if someone else beats you to it too bad.

Re:Strange hatred of intellectual property on /.

[PCM2]

Until we change our legal practices to make sure, the loser pays winner's legal costs by default, the side with a bigger legal budget will keep "winning" before entering the courtroom.

Wait ... how does "loser pays" keep the side with the bigger legal budget from winning? Bigger legal budget = more and better lawyers, meaning the little guy will probably lose. Under the "loser pays" system, however, there is a massive penalty for losing. If I sue Google and Google brings its whole legal team to bear against my couple of lawyers, I will not only probably lose but paying Google's legal costs will probably put me out of business. Knowing this, I will never sue to begin with, and once again, Google has won without ever entering a courtroom.

Re:Strange hatred of intellectual property on /.

[PCM2]

There are four protection mechanisms the software industry has. First, the compiler and minifier: if you publish your software, its hard to find out how it works. Second, non disclosed communication protocols: Often the communication protocols your software uses in order to talk or save stuff or so is not documented, which means only your software can access it.

Are you a software engineer? De-compiling binaries/obfuscated code and reverse engineering wire protocols are both trivial. Security analysts do both daily for malware, for example.

Re:Strange hatred of intellectual property on /.

[NotInHere]

Then show me the compliant whatsapp clients, or the microsoft office compliant applications. Its damn hard to reverse engineer a binary data protocol. Perhaps its easier in the age of json, but I doubt it. If you use idapro or similar tools, you infringe their copyright. In fact, security analysts infringe copyright for their day job. Just the copyright holders don't want to tell their names to the state, so they can't sue them.

Re:Strange hatred of intellectual property on /.

[Hognoxious]

No it isn't, because he has only asserted - not proved - that they don't in fact do so.

He's spouting the dirty hands fallacy - e.g. that architects should pour concrete.

Re:Strange hatred of intellectual property on /.

[mi]

The problem is that independent inventors, who patent their inventions, and then enforce those patents, are contributing NOTHING to society

What? Of course, they contribute — their ideas. Ideas, which you find sufficiently useful to want to use them...

They are just parasites preying on companies that came up with the same idea independently

Did they come up with it independently?

And if so, why would they go through all that effort-duplication instead of checking, what's already been patented, for example?

If you want to be a inventor, you should work for (or start) a company that actually produces products.

Nonsense. First of all, there is a relatively little overlap between the set of people capable of inventing cool things and the set of those capable of running/starting a company — these activities require vastly different skill sets and personality traits.

And second, without intellectual property protection, such starting of a company becomes unduly difficult too. Your idea can be copied (stolen) with impunity by someone you spoke to even before you offer a product to market. The inventor partners with a businessman, explains his idea to him ... — why does the businessman even need the inventor after this?

And even if some people may have enough scruples not to do it before, after you've come to market it will be "open season" on your invention. Established corporations — with loads of business acumen and manufacturing capabilities — will drive you out of business...

Re:Strange hatred of intellectual property on /.

[ShanghaiBill]

Who the fuck are you to deny people the right to operate as independent entrepreneurs?

Patent trolls are not "entrepreneurs". Entrepreneurs are the people they prey on.

Re:Strange hatred of intellectual property on /.

[ShanghaiBill]

Of course, they contribute — their ideas.

Ideas are a dime a dozen, and very few are original. Many patents are frivolous. My company was sued because we had an HTML file on a CDROM, and Acacia Research, a notorious patent troll, had acquired a patent on that.

Did they come up with it independently?

Yes, many people have independently put HTML files on CDROMs. Almost nobody searches patent portfolios looking for ideas to steal. 99% of them are garbage, and the other 1% are indecipherable.

And if so, why would they go through all that effort-duplication instead of checking, what's already been patented, for example?

So, before I copy each file on a CDROM, I am supposed to spend a few days on "research" to see if someone already thought of the "idea" of copying that type of file onto that type of media?

And second, without intellectual property protection, such starting of a company becomes unduly difficult too.

A company producing an actual product can be given different protections from a NPE, since they can show actual damages.

Re:Strange hatred of intellectual property on /.

[mi]

Ideas are a dime a dozen, and very few are original. Many patents are frivolous.

Well, this is a problem. But not the entire concept of patents or intellectual property.

So, before I copy each file on a CDROM, I am supposed to spend a few days on "research" ...?

No, this is a case of abuse, and your company, probably, should've fought it. On the other hand, if it was patented before the idea became obvious to anyone "skilled in the art", then this was not an abuse and you should pay them. Because they paid the original patent-holder — likely, a fellow /.-er...

And second, without intellectual property protection, such starting of a company becomes unduly difficult too.

A company producing an actual product can be given different protections from a NPE, since they can show actual damages.

(So, no countering of the first reason I listed?) Essentially, you are saying, no patents should be granted until an actual product — or a prototype — has been devised. That may be an Ok requirement, but it still requires patents — just changes the rules for their issuance. And it would not have helped you with that HTML-file on CDROM thing — for whoever patented that, would've had no problem devising a "product"...

Re:Strange hatred of intellectual property on /.

[JaredOfEuropa]

On the other hand, if it was patented before the idea became obvious to anyone "skilled in the art", then this was not an abuse and you should pay them.

No, no, no. Just being first shouldn't be enough to gain a patent. Putting an HTML file on a CD-ROM is obvious to anyone skilled in the art, even if it hasn't been done before. Think for a moment... in the future we may have .ai files containing precooked artificial intelligences trained for a specific task. These files don't exist yet, but I can already imagine that we'll put them on Blu-rays. Or in cellphones. Or send them over the net. Should I be granted a patent on doing that just because I speculated about this first? No. Yet this is exactly the sort of crap that IV come up with; using think tanks to speculate about nonexistent but obvious ways of doing things, then rushing to the patent office for a bit of intellectual land-grab.

If something is patented, it may still be declared obvious to someone skilled in the art after the fact, and be subsequently overturned. That's the way it is and should be. The only problem is that even ridiculously obvious patents hardly ever get revoked.

Re:Strange hatred of intellectual property on /.

[mi]

No, no, no. Just being first shouldn't be enough to gain a patent. Putting an HTML file on a CD-ROM is obvious to anyone skilled in the art, even if it hasn't been done before.

I did not say, the patent is valid, because it is old. I said, it may be valid, if it was registered before it became obvious to anyone skilled in the art. Read...

If something is patented, it may still be declared obvious to someone skilled in the art after the fact

Even if it was not so obvious, when it was first issued? Could you cite the relevant rule/law?

I don't think so, because a great many patents become obvious once published — "Oh, shit, why didn't I think of that?!" — overturning them immediately after that seems to defeat the purpose...

Re:Strange hatred of intellectual property on /.

[JaredOfEuropa]

I don't think so, because a great many patents become obvious once published

That is not what "obvious to someone skilled in the arts" means. It means: would this have been obvious to someone solving the problem at hand without prior knowledge of the patented solution. In case of putting HTML files on CD-ROMS, using XOR to draw a cursor, or that sort of thing, the answer must be Yes. Some further reading

Re:Strange hatred of intellectual property on /.

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

You call a company to fix it, and they send out a plumber to install a new toilet.
This new toilet has a "feature" whereby you can't flush it unless you swipe your debit card and pay a flush fee.

I'm not a home-owner, but I had no idea a plumber could force an un-replaceable toilet on you.

Re:Strange hatred of intellectual property on /.

[non0score]

It seems like the present laws surrounding patents confound multiple aspects of the economics of inventions: the invention itself, use of invention, licensing, and protection against litigation. It's reasonable to assume that patents should lead to actual economic product, rather than just a piece of paper for trolling. Therefore, the suggestion of commercializing patents within a year is good.

However, there are cases where a person/company thinks of an idea, has no immediate purpose of putting this idea to use, but is afraid of litigation. To solve this issue, there should be something akin to trade secrets, but filed with the USPTO, dated, and sealed. If a second party later patents the same idea and sues the first party when the first party finally gets to implementing it, then the first party can unseal the filing to dismiss the patent suit.

If this is how everything's been working already, then I'll go back to hiding under my rock.

Re:Strange hatred of intellectual property on /.

[Hognoxious]

You're spouting a broken analogy. Neither the architect nor the person who pours the concrete necessarily claim ownership of the building.

Where did I say they did? You appear to have missed the point by a country mile. What's wrong is mandating vertical integration and denying specialisation, and the stupid idea that thinking isn't real work. Do you expect an admiral to build his own ship?

Inventors should invent. Researchers should research. Saying that they should build the product themselves or run a factory is absurd. They're different skills.

2007 is ancient?

[Ormy]

The web is 27 years old, how is a 9 year old patent ancient in that context?

Laches: You snooze, you lose

[tepples]

They sit on the patent, then only spring up a year or two after a product has launched when sales are well underway. There should be a time limit on when you are allowed to file for patent infringement

If a patent holder intentionally sleeps on his rights to allow infringements to pile up, the equitable defense of estoppel by laches is supposed to prevent such a patent holder from collecting back damages.

Re:Laches: You snooze, you lose

[packrat0x]

Yes, but back damages are when the product was starting out, so the number of units sold might be small. Damages will apply to future sales. Thus it becomes a timing game.

Re:Laches: You snooze, you lose

[whh3]

Wish I had mod points. Thanks for posting this. Great information!

Will

Re:Laches: You snooze, you lose

[tepples]

The idea of disallowing back damages but allowing subsequent damages is that an alleged infringer could discontinue the infringing product upon receiving notice of infringement and resume sales once a design-around has been implemented.

Life of the author's grandchildren

[tepples]

About copyright, a term of 70 years after the death of the creator is far too long

The rationale for this copyright term is that those family members who knew an author personally ought to know best how the author wanted the work exploited. That's why the Berne Convention defines life plus 50, as an approximation of the life of the author's grandchildren. The subsequent extension to life plus 70 was intended to correct the approximation for increased life expectancy, not to act as corporate welfare. If you disagree with a life of grandchildren copyright term, that ship unfortunately sailed about a century ago, as you'd have to tear apart the WTO to dismantle it.

Re:Life of the author's grandchildren

[tepples]

Author of a book wanted the work to be read.

If that were the overriding concern, the author would have put the book under a time-delayed public domain equivalent license. But the author chose not to because the author also wanted to ensure that his children and grandchildren could be fed.

Most books also become irrelevant after 120 years.

But some don't, particularly classic fiction or poetry. And to simplify things, the law treats all literary works the same way.

Article is unclear

[Hentes]

I've read TFA twice and I'm still not sure whether Google uses the patent in question in an offensive or a defensive way. Surely countersuing against a patent litigation with patents of your own is rightful self defence. Countersuing with patents against a copyright litigation is very different though. And even if Google is only purchasing these patents for defence, it is giving funds to patent trolls by buying from them, making filing bogus patents a lucrative business.

Re:Do No Evil?

[Coren22]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Don't be evil is pretty much gone from Google, but how exactly is taking out a patent troll evil in itself? Temporary alliances that help the situation are allowed in war.

Re:Do No Evil?

[NotInHere]

I agree, there is no real distinction between patent trolls and corporations which use patents offensively or through threats but which are no "patent trolls".

Yield-ify

[FunkSoulBrother]

Is there a company out there named -ify or -ly that I doesn't deserve an automatic javascript block in my NoScript rules? It seems to be a hallmark of shitty ad industry website bloat

Nike Free Running 2016

[shencunyi]

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Re:Do No Evil?

[Coren22]

There is a distinction. A patent troll makes no products. They just use patents to extract money from companies actually building things. What this means is, they have no product to go after, you have to attack the patent, which might be for a key part of the cellular system for instance.

So, in this case, Google is teaming up with a patent troll to go after a company that isn't a patent troll (or else they couldn't go after them).

Re:Do No Evil?

[NotInHere]

Does Apple make its iphones? No. Foxconn makes them. And this is no socialist "we do the work" bullshit, foxconn could easily declare that they do the iphones themselves and ship them with android. Why do they not do it? Because of patent and trademark laws.

Now what if a company *wanted* to make products in a market, but is not successful in it? Should it ask everyone to pay for its patents as well? Microsoft is doing well these days, and a big chunk does not come from windows, but from patents they hold on android devices. They don't produce any phones, the windows phone market share is very low. Are they a patent troll?

So if you consider this behaviour by microsoft "trollish": Where is the border? How much % of the market share do you need to have in order to be considered a "practicioning entity"?

So why does a patent hold by a company that makes a product implementing this patent become "evil" just because that company went bankrupt and the patent gets sold to a "patent troll" company which then tries a different way to make money with the patent? The money the patent troll paid for the patent goes to to the creditors of the company, so it helps getting the bills paid the original company had. Isn't that something good?