Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
Good people go to bed earlier.
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.
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.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
[citation needed]
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?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
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.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.