Newegg Defeats Alcatel-Lucent in Third Patent Win This Year 143
Newegg's policy of not backing down from patent trolls, even ones as large as Alcatel-Lucent, continues to result in victory. Earlier this year, Overstock and Newegg successfully defended themselves with a jury invalidating Alcatel-Lucent's main patent used to force companies as large as Amazon to settle. Naturally, Alcatel-Lucent appealed, but the appeals court quickly ruled in favor of Newegg and Overstock.com. From Ars: "Federal Circuit judges typically take months, and occasionally years, to review the patent appeals that come before them. Briefs in this case were submitted last year, and oral arguments were held last Friday, May 10. The three-judge panel upheld Newegg's win (PDF), without comment — in just three days. ... Alcatel-Lucent dropped the case over its other two patents, desperate to get back the '131 patent that Newegg and Overstock had killed at trial. 'If they had been able to revive this patent, the litigation machine would have continued on,' Reines told Reuters after the win."
Re:Missing info from the articles (Score:5, Interesting)
at the trial the alacatel VP who was sent to testify had no idea which patent newegg was violating or how they were violating it. alcatel just said you must be violating one of our 27,000 patents
Good show, NewEgg! (Score:5, Interesting)
THIS is why I give my business to companies like NewEgg, and have and will NEVER buy a single damn thing from ones like Amazon.
Amazon settled because it is also a patent troll. Blood runs thicker than water, especially between patent trolls.
Re:A simple summary... (Score:5, Interesting)
Suck it Lucent/Bell Labs (Score:0, Interesting)
While we were in stealth mode, the ex-Bell Labs "chief researchers" were desperately trying to obtain our product ideas and data mine the patent filings we'd made. What their intention was, I don't know. However, any attempts at friendly conversation failed and they actively worked to inhibit our progress - slowing funding and equipment purchase requests. They failed and we eventually won initial trial contracts with several big US telecom providers.
1 month before we came out of stealth mode and delivered prototypes to those companies, the Bell Lab's jerks orchestrated a reorg placing us under their umbrella. When we released, the ALU marketing reports trumpeted, "...another ground breaking innovation from Bell Labs!" Far from it, the @$$'s actively impeded us every step of the way until we couldn't be stopped.
The did eventually get their way though. After successful trials and initial product delivery, the "strategic acquisitions" arm of Bell Labs, elected to spend millions on start up run by the son-in-law of one of the senior VPs. Our customers were pissed, as the other product sucked in comparison and was very slow in delivering requested enhancements during the side-by-side bake off between us and them. ALU then proceeded to ship our work to a maintenance team in eastern Europe and forced us, under threat of firing for cause, to train the scabs.
ALU and Bell Labs can DIAF... Go Newegg!
Re:Fuck Yeah! (Score:3, Interesting)
BTW, on a sad note, does anyone remember when Lucent actually innovated stuff?
I was working for them in the early 90's when they broke off from AT&T. No. I don't remember when they ever innovated anything. Even at that time, they were milking the telephone cow.
Then I worked for Alcatel in the 2000-2002 timeframe. They were also a huge rent seeking corporation, intent on riding their old technology wagon for as long as possible.
Consequences? (Score:5, Interesting)
What happens with the settlements that Amazon and others made over this patent? Can that money be clawed back?
Re:A simple summary... (Score:5, Interesting)
"Successful defendants have their litigation managed by people who care," said Cheng. "For me, it's easy. I believe in Newegg, I care about Newegg. Alcatel Lucent, meanwhile, they drag out some random VP—who happens to be a decorated Navy veteran, who happens to be handsome and has a beautiful wife and kids—but the guy didn't know what patents were being asserted. What a joke.
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Interesting)
The patentability of software only applies when it is run on a computer.
Software isn't being patented in "software" patents. Vague ideas and idioms are patented. Pinching the screen to zoom isn't a software patent. If it was a software patent the patent should be on exactly how the software accomplishes the effect, on the implementation. If my implementation accomplishes the effect differently it wouldn't infringe your patent. The implementation is the code. The code is copyrighted. A real software patent would be redundant. The way it works now is the equivalent of inventing a special kind of drill bit and getting a patent on anything that makes holes. That's how software patents work now.
Re:A simple summary... (Score:4, Interesting)
Only 1980's? I'd be surprised if substantial part of that, at the least, didn't go back to Doug Engelbart's On-Line System demo in 1968. :-) That was a veritable treasure trove, that one.
Generally, when invalidating a patent, you go for the most recent prior art that's still "prior" to the priority date of the patent - there's less wiggle room when you say "this was done 6 months earlier by X" as opposed to "this was done 20 years previously by Y", because with the latter, they can respond "if so, how come no one exploited it for 20 years?"
Re:Consequences? (Score:5, Interesting)
Same thing happened to Research in Motion. They were sued by NTP for patent infringement. After RIM lost the court cases and the SCotUS turned down their appeal, they were backed into a corner and forced to settle with NTP for $600+ million. Then the USPTO decided to review the patents and invalidated some of them. (They're still in the process of being reviewed AFAIK. The courts have put NTP's lawsuits against other wireless companies on hold until the review is completed. Fat lot of good that does RIM. We'll always wonder if they would have fallen as badly as they did if they had had $600 million extra to put into R&D back in 2006.)
Re:Consequences? (Score:2, Interesting)
What happens with the settlements that Amazon and others made over this patent? Can that money be clawed back?
Depends on the terms of the settlement agreement. Frequently, there will be a clause that says that future royalty payments are terminated if the patents are invalidated. Rarely - as in almost never - there might be a provision to return some past payments. And similarly rarely, there are contracts where royalty payments continue even if the patent is invalidated.
The settlement is just a contract - whatever you agree to in that contract is what happens.