Forgent Patent Troll Loses Again

anagama writes "Forgent Networks, a patent troll, got the slap down by a TX jury in May when it invalidated a patent Forgent held regarding video teleconferencing over telephone lines, and today, its motion for a new trial against EchoStar was denied. In fact, the court awarded EchoStar $90k in costs. Forgent probably isn't crying that much though, it already extorted $28m from other defendants. Some of you may recall that Forgent made a business out of cheating companies for jpeg use — till their patent was largely invalidated on that front as well."

Patent reform

Unlike copyright the patent concept is easy to defend. The benefit for progress of engineering and technological culture can be logically demonstrated - and unlike copyright the limits on duration are not totally insane.

However there is obviously some need for reform. If I were starting a business today I would be sure to base it in somewhere like China and register my patents in the US in order to minimise my likely exposure while maximising my potential gain. So what could be done?

Almost the scariest aspect of the patent system is not the actual law but the consequences of the threat of the law. If you are perceived to be infringing your case could be hugely expensive and very protracted - and justice delayed is justice denied. Being right isn't going to be much help if I go bankrupt before I win! Unless you are a huge company you are essentially screwed by a lawsuit. With the intent of keeping the system essentially fair it would seem to be wise to:

• Assess the patent dispute in a week or so in a semi-formal tribunal of peers. Appeal is permitted, with (capped) costs paid by each side.
• Assess the patent in an equivalent of a small claims court over a month or so. Appeal is permitted, with (capped) costs paid by the loser.
• Full lawyer enriching bun fight - but whoever lost the last round gets to pick up the whole cost until a winner is declared.

By lowering the cost of patent litigation the risk would be reduced - and we wouldn't have to wait so long or force so many people to pay protection money in the course of business.

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This sounds like the right sort of idea - making the earliest stage of the process quicker and cheaper. I think another very worthwhile idea would be that as soon as any proceedings are filed on any patent claim, the patent in question should immediately

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That's an interesting idea. I have another -- I may have heard this before on Slashdot, I can't remember.

When a person or business files a patent application with the Patent Office, they pay a filing fee. If the Patent Office can find prior art documenta

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Unlike copyright the patent concept is easy to defend. The benefit for progress of engineering and technological culture can be logically demonstrated - and unlike copyright the limits on duration are not totally insane.

I don't care whether it can be log

Re: Patent reform

I don't care whether it can be logically demonstrated. It's been around for quite a while, so the question isn't "logically, should this work", but rather "has this been observed to *actually* work". And I kinda get the impression that the answer to that i

Re:Patent reform

Unlike copyright the patent concept is easy to defend. The benefit for progress of engineering and technological culture can be logically demonstrated

The patent system was originally an alternative to the guilds, who would keep the important knowledge of their trade a secret from those who wished to compete. Not only was the knowledge at risk of being lost over time, but the guilds actively worked to prevent non-guild members from competing in their trade. So now, we have government-granted temporary monopolies as an incentive to share these secrets.

The problem is, the "secrets" going into the patent system these days are about as useful to someone skilled in the art as a list of ingredients on a box of food is to a chef. They are purposefully written in an obfuscated manner. One never hears of someone poring over prior patents for enlightenment - in fact, company lawyers often recommend to their employees never to research patents because then they would be knowingly infringing on anything they stumbled upon.

I believe there are more powerful mechanisms at work that would prevent the reformation of a guild system today if the patent system disappeared. For starters, employees switch jobs much more regularly. Legal limits to non-compete contracts would be effective in keeping this mechanism in place. The Internet has promoted a worldwide culture of knowledge-sharing. Corporate secrets are regularly and anonymously leaked to the public.

So in my mind the question is not whether patents are necessary to protect knowledge sharing. The question is whether the incentive to innovate would remain, and whether that incentive is truly tied to money. I am increasingly dubious.

Go right past patent reform to abolishment

It's good to see a patent troll lose. But nice though such victories are, it clouds the issue. It raises people's hope that the patent and court systems really can work, and all that is needed is a bit more reform. Cue the various bandaid sorts of sugge

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I remained convinced that the entire idea of "Intellectual Property" is broken, contradictory, and senseless.
\strongly agree

If somebody has some beneficial "intellectual property" and they don't want to share it with the rest of the world, doesn't that pre

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and unlike copyright the limits on duration are not totally insane.

the limits didn't use to be insane on copyrights, either. They were originally fourteen years. I would have no object to copyright at that point: most every NES game, all 80s music, and

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Unlike copyright the patent concept is easy to defend.

No it isn't. Since people have not compared it to any alternative, just hand waved without evidence, this statement is nonsense. There is almost no evidence.

The benefit for progress of engineerin

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Instead of going through all the gyrations you present here the solution is simple...

Currently, patents carry the presumption of validity in court. The court is taking the Patent Office's word that it has been vetted. When the Patent Office grants patents

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I would say that actually the patent as a concept is less defensable than copyright as a concept (barring the many procedural and implementation issues).

The fundamental difference is that if two people working dilligently on a similar idea, one will be g

Re:Patent reform

The States are seriously in need of a Law Reform. Here in italy if you threaten a suite you'd better be ready to do it. Else the treathened part can sue you back! Treathening a lawsuit without evidence for the sole scope of gaining a unlawful advantage is a felony here.

Re:Patent reform

I believe it is in the US as well, but the judges tend to take any sort of tiny bit of evidence as evidence that you were serious... ie, give everyone their fair shake.

That way they don't end up denying the little guy because they didn't all 17-million forms properly filled out in ancient Sumerian on rice paper, with lines numbered in cuneiform (or rather in Roman numerals depending on what your local court prefers)

Its this "protect the little guy" thing that groups like this take advantage of, since they say "Hey, we're little guys.. and they're trying to take advantage of us"

Watch what happens...

[Narrator, Whispering]:
We've secretly replaced their expensive patents with useless Forgent crystals. Let's see if they notice.

[Judge, Cringing]
Ack! I don't like the taste of this one bit - your claim is denied!

[Narrator, Whispering]
Well, there you have it - the legal system can still reject some kinds of landgrabs, when they're wrapped in the form of a patent. We now return you to your regularly scheduled eminent domain rulings.

Ryan Fenton

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We now return you to your regularly scheduled eminent domain rulings.

Ryan Fenton

Ryan Fenton is my regularly scheduled eminent domain ruling?
 

Is is Forgent, or Fogent?

Unless it's two different patent trolls, I've seen this company's name spelled both ways. Which is right?

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Guess I should have done the Wikipedia search, before I posted. *sheepish grin*

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forgent_Networks [wikipedia.org]
  
• no entries found for "fogent"

Please return to your regular routine!

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I just renamed the article before you got there. Oops!

Already extorted?

Forgent probably isn't crying that much though, it already extorted $28m from other defendants.

So with this patent invalidated couldn't the other defendants recover their $28m?

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Um... you know the sniper had nothing to do with greed... actually, I digress... apparently not.

He was shooting people around where he thought his ex lived to "scare" her. He got caught because he was napping at a rest stop with his rifle in plain sight.

3 strikes and your out...

How about this for reform? If you file 3 consecutive BS claims, you can no longer file claims for 10 years.

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What's your definition of a "BS claim"?
Will this be defined on a case-by-case basis and at your sole discretion?

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I don't think "BS" is one of the grounds of rejection by the PTO.
Which rejections would qualify under your plan?
Would a restriction order count?
What if the applicant successfully amends the claims?

What is a patent troll?

Forgent Networks, a patent troll, got the slap down

Can someone define this epithet?
Seeing it used to describe a company in an article as if were an unquestionable fact is just strange to me.

Here's a hypothetical:
Dr. X invents some ingenious gizmo and recei

Either you really don't understand....

...or you're the troll. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt for now. You make the mistake of assuming that patents are filed by genuine inventors and that the patent office actually give a crap about what they pass.

The scenario you describe is NOTHING like what we see in real life. Dr. X in your situation is absolutely not a patent troll.

Now, Mr. Y on the other hand, he spends his time (with Mr Z, his IP lawyer) thinking up as many spurious and badly worded patents as possible. He tries to make them vague, but kinda new sounding. Occasionally he likes to throw in something someone else has already done.

Mr Z sends these off to the US patent office who take his money and grant his patents without researching what they mean or what they really cover.

Later, Y and Z take companies to court over products which may or may not infringe on these really badly worded patents. These companies are using things that are either standard, obvious or their own invention. A lot of them pay up to avoid court, especially given how rare it is for costs to be awarded to defendants.

This is exactly what Y and Z want, this is what makes Y and Z trolls. They haven't invented a thing, yet they try to extort money from those that do.

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Umm, no, it's legitimate use.

Either you didn't understand why people were calling these companies "trolls" or you were deliberately misrepresenting the situation in order to stir things up - trolling. It's sometimes difficult to tell which.

My last post is

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Well, since you stopped reading his post, allow me:

A patent troll is someone who simply files or acquires as many patents as possible IN ORDER to sue. Forgent is well known for this, I believe.

Oh, and he never called you a troll, it was an either/or situa

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LOL
OK here's one for you mister mature guy:
Either your mom is a whore or she just sucks a lot of penises.

Man.
I should have known better than to pick a fight with the five-year-old name-calling crowd.

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-1 Flamebait??
I think you meant -1 Troll.

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On some levels we agree - I do think that the PTO is failing miserably in its job and have a huge problem with the patents its isuing. The whole "patent troll" issue involves companies who are abusing this.

Now, if you are of the opinion that as long as a c

Lol retard.

"Let me explain something to you:
There is only thing you can EVER do with a patent: Sue people."

Tell that to IBM, the world's most prolific patent filer. They make a lot of money licensing patents.

Your impression of me is stupid and incorrect. Troll.

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Oh, wow, you got me. Somebody mod that +4 informative.
Let me ask you something: Why would anyone pay licensing royalties?
Answer:
A) Because its really fun to write checks
B) To avoid being sued for patent infringement.

A patent does not give you the right to

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OH, and BTW:
IBM is on the list of patent trolls at Wikipedia.
Along with University of California for suing Microsoft.
We all know both of those institutions do significant R&D work and probably contribute a fair chunk of actual innovation to society. A

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Your Dr. X is not a patent troll. Forgent is a patent troll. So is Acacia. Patent trolls do not have inventors, they have lawyers. They buy up a patents here and there from inventors, and will try to find a company that produces something that is seemingly

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They buy up a patents here and there from inventors
So you have a problem with transferability of patent rights?
Inventors should not be allowed to assign their patent rights?
OK. Interesting suggestion.
But you still haven't explained what makes someone a "p

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Oh man. If you'd be truly interested in the subject (instead of trolling), it would take two seconds to get definitions, descriptions and examples of patent trolls. Maybe type if 'patent troll' in a google search box and be done with it.

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Sure, and thanks for name-calling, it really supports my position that your side is a just a bunch of name-calling 5-year-olds.

How about Wikipedia:
Patent troll is a pejorative term used for a person or company that enforces its patents against one or more

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_patent_trolls [wikipedia.org]

Dude.
Forgent isn't on the list.
I win. LOL.

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Great, we're getting toward a definition.
A patent troll company:
A) has lawyers.
B) owns patents
C) buys patents from other companies/inventors
D) sues people.

Apparently every tech corporation in the U.S. is a patent troll.

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E) And getting revenue out of litigation is its sole source of revenue.

And with E we've narrowed it down to the actual patent trolls.

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E) And getting revenue out of litigation is its sole source of revenue.

OK, now we're getting somewhere.
But I don't think we're done, because I have another hypothetical for you:

Dr. X, again, has no manufacturing capacity.
Again, I begin manufacturing the p

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Can someone define this epithet?

What I don't understand is why you have responded to the several people have attempted to explain this 'epithet' to you quite antagonistically and even with abject hostility. It is almost as if those answering the question were somehow insulting you per

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The only hostility was directed at the poster who called me, personally, a "troll".
Other than that, no hostility was intended.

And did you not notice that every definition was different from the other and completely vague and arbitrary?

"Troll" is the equiva

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One other thing... why don't you stop trolling?
Troll.

If you are puzzled by my hostile response to someone who flamed my first post by calling me a "troll" then you are probably puzzled by a lot of things.

Why did you even bother to post? Your comment adds

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It's pretty clear to me that he can only barely read. Expecting him to have a reasoned discourse with anyone is like expecting George Bush to pronounce nuclear correctly. It's just not going to happen. (Hint, George: There's ONE "u" in nuclear!)

I looke

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Hint, George: There's ONE "u" in nuclear!

O-K...
I'll be sure to tell him next time I see him..
Thanks for contributing!

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I decided to look up "patent troll" in Wikipedia, and I found this interesting article:

http://mcsmith.blogs.com/eastern_district_of_texas /files/patent_pirates_exist_only_in_neverland.pdf [blogs.com]

Oh, and I was right.
"Patent troll" == meaningless name calling.

University of California == Patent Troll??

Its true:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_patent_trolls [wikipedia.org]

I think this makes all UC students and alumni "patent trolls" by association.

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but also goes above and beyond that by registering patents with very little technical background or a very general idea
It seems to me that your argument is against the PTO issuing invalid patents.
Which is a perfectly reasonable argument.
But until you see t