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Patent Troll Attacks Cable, Digital TV Standards
Posted by
Soulskill
on Sun Feb 17, 2008 09:20 AM
from the going-for-the-gusto dept.
from the going-for-the-gusto dept.
DavidGarganta writes "A patent troll firm in suburban Philadelphia, Rembrandt IP Management, is trying to force large cable operators and major broadcasters to pay substantial license fees on the transmission of digital TV signals and Internet services. The firm is apparently trying to get 0.5% of all revenues from services that supposedly infringe on the patents. The targeted companies include ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, Comcast, Time Warner, Cox, Charter and Cablevision. According to MultiChannel News, Rembrandt's assault is especially aggressive, even for a patent troll: 'It is attacking two key technology standards used by the cable and broadcast industries, CableLabs' DOCSIS and the Advanced Television Systems Committee's digital-TV spec. "If they're successful, this could affect everything from the cost of cable service to the price of TVs," said the attorney close to the litigation, who spoke only on condition of anonymity.'"
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What the hell... (Score:5, Funny)
What the hell is a patent troll?
When I first read it I assumed it had something to do with internet trolling but the articles describes it as some sort of legitimate enterprise.
Re:What the hell... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Look at their "Careers" (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.rembrandtip.com/careers.html [rembrandtip.com]
"
Analyze markets and companies to assess IP commercialization opportunities
Develop and model business cases and royalty analysis for specific licensing opportunities or industries
Perform competitive analysis breakdown and strategic direction of leading industry companies
Supporting analysis for new business opportunities around targeted patent acquisitions
"
Give me a freaken break! This company goes out looks at what are up and coming industries. Then it "creates" ideas and patents the heck out of them so that they can license and throttle an up and coming industry.
This is not even funny. Imagine coming up with some really cool idea, but to have it patented away from you. This is how industries are broken. Part of the problem with this is that lawyers can sue without restrictions. Lawyers can go fishing in the industry. They can patent, sue and see what sticks.
To make that go away, you can do the following:
1) Make lawyers work pro-bono (as they do in many countries). That is they can only charge so much.
2) Make lawyers pay if the lawsuit fails. For example, if say somebody brought up a lawsuit where they wanted 50 billion say, "if you loose you need to come up with say 1%". That way you can still sue, but you better have a good case. Otherwise it is going to cost you quite a bit.
Parent
Re:Look at their "Careers" (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Click here to notify one of our market analysts of the nature of the infringement, info@RembrandtIP.com or call us at 888-736-4947.
2. Once you notify us, we will immediately issue you a non-disclosure so that we can begin to collaborate with regard to the nature of the infringement.
3. After review, we will notify you of our opinion regarding your patent and the implications of the infringement. All patents are reviewed by Rembrandt's executive staff, headed by the company's Chief Executive Officer Paul B. Schneck, Ph.D.
4. If your patent is accepted, we will work with you to acquire the patent and structure the terms of the deal.
5. Once acquired, Rembrandt's in-house staff and outside consultants go to work building, strengthening, articulating and focusing the claim.
6. Throughout the procedure, Rembrandt collaborates closely with inventors to keep them apprised of the process.
7. Rembrandt invests its own capital to retain non-contingency legal support in order to pursue patent pirates and deliver the value of an invention to an inventor.
8. Rembrandt attorneys bring litigation against patent pirates and support the claim through litigation including possible appeals.
9. Awards and settlements are shared with the inventor, Rembrandts investors and the Rembrandt charity.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Look at their "Careers" (Score:4, Insightful)
1) Make lawyers work pro-bono (as they do in many countries). That is they can only charge so much.
2) Make lawyers pay if the lawsuit fails. For example, if say somebody brought up a lawsuit where they wanted 50 billion say, "if you loose you need to come up with say 1%". That way you can still sue, but you better have a good case. Otherwise it is going to cost you quite a bit.
Parent
Re:Look at their "Careers" (Score:4, Insightful)
Why cant people sue the USPTO when they screw up? What makes them exempt from having to exercise due care and responsibility to the public?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
1) Make lawyers work pro-bono (as they do in many countries). That is they can only charge so much.
Pro bono publico means "for the public good"
Pro-bono = free != "they can only charge so much"
If the pro-bono lawyer wins his case, the Judge can decide to order the loser to pay the pro-bono lawyer, but there is no guarantee.
2) Make lawyers pay if the lawsuit fails. For example, if say somebody brought up a lawsuit where they wanted 50 billion say, "if you loose you need to come up with say 1%". That way you can still sue, but you better have a good case. Otherwise it is going to cost you quite a bit.
That's antithetical to the way the US justice system works.
Lawyers would stop taking on BS cases, but they'd also stop taking on important, but uncertain or marginal issues. The evolution of case law would slow greatly (this is not a good thing).
Re:What the hell... (Score:5, Insightful)
While I think all this patent troll stuff is bullshit, it is worth pointing out that if I accept your last statement, patent trolls ARE providing a service. By purchasing patents, these patent trolls provide a market for patents which puts money in the hands of small time inventors, who don't have the resources to commercialize their inventions. Without a patent market, it would be more difficult for small inventors to get paid. (Inventors inside companies already have R&D resources to convert patents to products.)
The fact that these companies didn't invent the idea does not negate their claim. As long as we treat ideas as property, then people should be free to buy and sell that property. You can own your TV despite having not created it. You exchanged money for it in a mutually agreeable transaction.
The real problem is the patent itself, not the troll. The troll just highlights the underlying problem. If every patent were as efficiently enforced as the few that fall into the hands of patent trolls, commerce would grind to a halt, and we would have to do something about it.
Parent
Re:What the hell... (Score:4, Insightful)
That's an interesting take on patent trolls. But it's kind of like a guitar player selling his guitar to pay for a kick-ass amp... Whoops.
How about this instead? Just make and sell your damn invention. If it's that good, I should think you'd have no problem. Want to sell out, but just a little? OK, how about selling exclusive licensing rights to a bigger company for royalties? I don't know. It seems to me that there are a *lot* of other ways small inventors can profit from a good idea that *don't* include selling the exclusive rights to create their widget to a company who intends to not make the widget and just sue others who do.
Maybe this is an oversimplification, but if you don't intend to make the damn thing you want to buy the patent to, you shouldn't be allowed to buy it in the first place.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The underlying theme it seems would be greed. If a small inventor was concerned only with servicing a particular need, than they shouldn't have much issue. Thier motivation to be a basement company one night, and something the size of Google the next seems to cloud their judgement.
Many people these days just want to 'get rich and quick'. This mentality is in direct conflict with the mindset of small business. Small business is all about community and the
WRONG (Score:3, Informative)
You are outright "WRONG".
Patent TROLLS do not provide the service of "commercializing" patents. Patent trolls put no more money in the hands of inventors because they buy up patents that have, already proven technological worth because they are already included in technology. That'
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This is different from a company like Microsoft, that creates and sells other products, and is therefore stuck in a mutually-assured-destruction situation that prevents them from suing others for key patents.
The MAD stalemate may well be a fair description of the situation between large patent portfolio holders but it doesn't apply in the asymmetric case. Microsoft's VP of IP, Marshall "Father of the IBM Tax" Phelps, would probably consider it a failure if he had to drag some small company into Court* - and that is actually true of most patent trolls too - but Microsoft has just as aggressive a patent licensing strategy as IBM did when Phelps was there.
* "I'm not running a litigation shop, I'm running a licensing shop." -- Marshall Phelps.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
A better example is Ford, though they have fallen on hard times of late.
Re:What the hell... (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:What the hell... (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
A patent troll is a company or person that holds on to patents but never uses them except to cause problems and attempt to extort money from thriving businesses after they have been in action for several years.
The fabled Trolls were often just collecting gold and never really used it, modern patent trolls are collecting patents and use that collection to collect gold.
Effectively they are parasites that abuses the system.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
That's *Dr.* Patent Troll (Score:2, Funny)
- RG>
Old news now? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Old news now? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Old news now? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not quite. http://www.eolas.com/research.html [eolas.com]
Dr. Michael Doyle of Eolas is actually a well-respected researcher in bioinformatics, is partnered with the University of California and demonstrated a working plug-in enabled browser at Xerox PARC in 1993. He is, incidentally, the son of a noted inventor, so the urge to create seems to run in the family. The company's other projects include SAGA, Fios, Zmap and ODIN.
In 1994, he offered to license the plug-in technology to Microsoft and was rebuffed. So, he went after them. Incidentally, Eolas' license page specifically states that Dr. Doyle is a supporter of open source and non-commercial uses covered by this so-called "906 patent" are allowed via the issuance of a royalty-free license. http://www.eolas.com/licensing.html [eolas.com]
As much as I hate patents, Eolas isn't the patent troll that some folks make then out to be; Doyle's idea was to build a browser-centric platform for the biomedical industry, and the company actively does software research and creates actual technologies. Microsoft's violation of the "906" patent made Eolas' platform project commercially nonviable, at least in Eolas' eyes and Doyle has stated his case that there were no legal alternatives after Microsoft refused to license the technology from them in '94.
And lest anyone weep for Microsoft, this is just an example of "what goes around, comes around," as VirtualDub developer Avery Lee http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirtualDub#Advanced_Systems_Format_support [wikipedia.org] can tell you.
SCO, on the other hand, bought what they thought at the time was exclusive ownership of somebody else's (Bell Labs/AT&T, University of Ca.) technology, whole cloth, made little if any improvement to it, and attempted to use it as a patent/copyright hammer to flatten other software projects that demonstrably violated none of SCO's IP/licenses/patents. At least, none that SCO could ever prove in court. I would consider SCO much closer to a patent troll that Eolas, as they didn't invent the hammer they were attempting to wield. Eolas, at least, did design and build their own hammer.
Parent
Ahhh (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ahhh (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Patent number: 4666425
This invention involves a device, referred to herein as a "cabinet," which provides physical and biochemical support for an animal's head which has been "discorporated" (i.e., severed from its body). This device can be used to supply a discorped head with oxygenated blood and nutrients, by means of tubes connected to arteries which pass through the neck. After circulating through the head, the deoxygenated blood returns to the cabinet by means of cannulae whic
Immunity Corrupts (Score:3, Insightful)
New system (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:New system (Score:5, Interesting)
I propose two short-term fixes.
First, FRAND terms should be able to be added to the patent itself, either originally or through some amendment process. That way, if it gets bought or sold, the IP holding compnay has to adhere to the original terms.
Second, companies that are developing open standards should be allowed some kind of superpatent, where (presumably for higher fees) there is a public hearing at which the final standard is vetted, and challengers are given sufficient time to come forward with their own patents which may encumber upon the proposed open standard, and they can negotiate whatever terms are in their best interest, without restriction. Afterwards, though, if the superpatent is granted, no more challenges will be entertained. Anyone who finds a prior patent in their closet or falling out of their portfolio five or ten years hence will be out of luck.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The first proposed short-term fix ignores the passive method, which is the traditional w
Innovation (Score:5, Insightful)
Sooner or later, we'll save ourselves untold trouble if we vastly scale back the notion of Intellectual (imaginary) property to something relatively sensible.
Re:Innovation (Score:5, Funny)
Step 1: Open a limited hunting season
Step 2: Open a general hunting season
Step 3: General bounty
Step 4: Hire professional hunters for extreme or dangerous areas.
Personally, given the urban nature of feral lawyers I'd propose at least an initial hunting season be limited to experienced bow hunters.
Parent
Re:Innovation (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a Bad Thing ? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:This is a Bad Thing ? (Score:5, Informative)
So if their patents are anywhere close this it will get extremely entertaining...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
opened a can (Score:5, Insightful)
they may not get along with each other, but the last thing you want to do is force them to unite against a common enemy.
i think they just opened a can of woop-ass.
Re: (Score:2)
This may actually work out to be the catalyst to getting Congress to solve the patent trolls problem once and for all.
perhaps property law could provide a solution... (Score:5, Interesting)
by open and continous use. Now you wouldnt want someone becoming the new patent/copyright holder but the negative part
"extinguishing the rights of the prior holder" would make perfect sense and help deal with both the problems
of patent trolls and abandoned copyrights as well as legalizing abandonware.
If a reasonable person knows or should have known their patent or copyright was being infringed on and takes
no action within say 3 years, their patent or copyright becomes null and void. Also a system could be set up
to allow "notices of intended infringement" to be filed with the copyright office, if the copyright or patent
holder does not respond within the required time then the copyright or patent would lapse and the work
would go into the public domain.
How Rembrandt Works (Score:5, Interesting)
She explained that the way that these operations work is they hire students with slightly above rudimentary technical skills from the local universities in technical courses of study. Their "discovery" process simply entails these students trying to reverse engineer the mechanisms that they hold patents for. However, since they're not trying to actually build the device, they usually stop when they have a guess that suits their needs.
To put it bluntly, they do not really know; it is a wild guess, and hope that they can litigate it successfully.
bring it on (Score:2)
A simple "enforce it or lose it" requirement, just like for trademarks, would eliminate a lot of this patent trolling.
This is perfect. No, really... (Score:5, Interesting)
An IP tax with no value (Score:4, Insightful)
It's time to kill software patents once and for all. This is not what the patent system was intended to do. There's no investment by the litigant, other than monetary. It's not like the company involved is offering any value to the TV broadcast industry. It's nothing but a tax, worse than a tax because at least your tax money has some return. What Rembrandt is doing is a legal extortion racket. In any other setting this would be a crime.
Gotcha capitalism at its finest. Sickening. Enough is enough already.
The patent doesn't generate Ad revenue... (Score:4, Interesting)
At most they should get a percentage of sales of the devices that use the patent directly.... not Ad revenue or other licensing revenue for syndicated shows, DVDs, etc.
What actual devices implement this patented technology?
Re:The patent doesn't generate Ad revenue... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Oh perhaps this is a good thing, considering.... (Score:5, Interesting)
So instead of turning off Analog and going all digital, leave analog on until the patent expires.
I'm sure a lot or Analog TV owners will be happy.
not haha (Score:5, Interesting)
Most if not all the cable and media companies have a virtual monopoly on providing you service. Consider, how many of us have any choice in which cable provider to bring service to the home? So, what happens in this situation is that because the company can pretty much raise your rates or reduce your service by say, shifting channels currently on the cheap "Basic" bundle over to the pricier premium bundles. They can pretty much write their own profits. So now patent troll company comes and wants $X piece of the pie. As a cable provider, they'd look at the cost and risk of legal action vs. shelling out the money for a new agreement. Result: they just jack up rates for the consumer and pay off the extortionist, safely keeping the patent system alive for their own future interests.
We the consumers would see another jump in cable rates or some such service change, but there's not going to be a straw to break the patent camel's back on this one.
Capitalist tactics..... (Score:4, Interesting)
I would like to point out, that in America when cable was first offered to the public, the ONLY purpose of buying it was so that you can watch TV WITHOUT commercial interruption. Else, it was the typical bunny ears with tinfoil wrapped around them, watching General Hospital on ABC or was it CBS, and have to watch a commercial every five minutes or so.
I think it happened in or around this order....
MTV proved to attract quite the audience, but most importantly, impressionable young soon-to-be Consumers. Marketing types, shall focus in on this, "untapped" market... or rather, the bucket for which they might shoot the fish; made of gold, with complimentary
MTV used to play music videos, as might be suggested by the name. Then came the trends focusing on teen appeal; the first commercials on MTV were Noxima commercials and they even used one of the female VJs.
As MTV was being raped by Capitalism, not to mention the Musicians and Artists--as by this time, it's been established that if a band can get a video to be played on MTV, they are as good as gold--other major networks soon followed suit.
HBO trying so hard to maintain the original concept, of a Home Box Office (hence the HBO), first resorted to in-house production, heavily laden with product placement or other dung such as plots or lines conforming tightly with social trends; like anti-racist tears, or commie-bastard themes...
Then with the marketers pouring so much money into Cable Television, a market they would have loved to defeat for many reasons, let alone the fact that it was a product that freed the Consumer from Advertisements to begin with, Cable television exploded.
Advertisers were SO ADAMANT in penetrating cable television, they did everything from attempt to bankrupt the networks (by means of connections, such as getting buddy buddy with the utilities companies--gas, electricity, phone--and all sorts of other avenues) to outright attempting to sue them for not allowing them slots for their commercials. Forcing the cable television networks to start airing commercials in disregard of the fact that the Consumers were paying for the service, and had expectations of what their product received would be.
Now, this might shed pity upon the cable television networks. And maybe it should. However, for those who still might wonder how this "hurts" the consumer...
Cost of Cable Television, and considering inflation, has only gotten more expensive; it never got cheaper, and that's likely by demand of the Advertisers who insist that if a Consumer has to pay for something, they'll take it more seriously.
So there is something amuck with the whole OP, as when I hear Attorneys blabber stuff like what I quoted... what garbage to fool the Consumer into a reason to jack up the price of Cable Television. When, the fact is, they make so much money from the Advertisers, they can afford to revamp their entire infrastructure twenty times and still come out heads over toes all the while giving it out for free to all those who might have a coaxial jack in their house, outhouse, doghouse or whateverhouse.
And where would the extra money go to; if they do raise prices under this false pretense? Who the fuck knows; but what I do know, who it will go to you probably didn't vote for.