"Fair Trolls" To Fight Patents With Patents 113
FlorianMueller writes "Can a patent troll ever be fair? Yes. The primary concern over the upcoming Defensive Patent License — a GPL-like non-aggression pact for patents — is that it might be too defensive to have the desired impact. But actually the DPL could grow very big if one or more 'Fair Trolls' are brought to life and enforce patents against companies that don't support the DPL. The 'Fair Trolls' would commit to the DPL's terms, so they would have to leave other DPL backers alone. In exchange for this, the community would gladly feed them with patentable ideas (financial rewards for contributors included). Over time, staying outside the DPL alliance would become a costly choice for companies whose products might infringe patents. The bigger the DPL pool gets, the more valuable it becomes to its members. The more aggressive the Fair Trolls are, the better for the cause."
Problem (Score:3, Insightful)
This assumes that those with vested interests in for-profit patent prosecution can't get the laws changed.
There are some great things about this planet, but I'm occasionally stunned by the filth and villainy of some of its residents.
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No, this assumes that doing this will get those folks to change the laws. Honestly, this is going to be the only way to protect FREE software.
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I don't think anyone sane disagrees that patent laws suck. But if it's possible to get something good by abusing those bad laws through DPL trolls, I say let's do it. It's better than being at the mercy of the big corps and just hope they leave us alone.
Re:Problem (Score:4, Insightful)
In what way could for-profit patent holders get the laws changed such that not-for-profit patent holders can't use the same laws to bully them back?
Many of the for-profit patent holders that actually make things besides patents have a vested interest in keeping the system of offense and defense balanced.
For example if patent offense is too powered some no-name entity or shell corporation (SCO) could bring huge suits against IBM and win. IBM wouldn't like that. If patent defense were too strong IBM couldn't use its huge arsenal of patents against its competitors.
So there are some reasonably powerful entities out there that will do the right thing (not screw with patent law) out of self interest. IBM, Apple, Google, Microsoft will outspend any Patent Troll out there to maintain the current balance of terror.
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You're basically missing the point.
If IBM joined the coalition for Patent Defense, then it would only be able to sue companies suing IBM for patent infringement. Companies inside the coalition would be exempt from such a risk, and would lose their exemption the moment they sued a fellow member of the coalition.
In the case you listed above, using the scenerio that SCO was not a member of the coalition, and IBM was, IBM would not only have its own patents, but all the other members would be able to add theirs
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Actually, it looks like you're the one missing the point. If you go read the thread again, remembering that each post is a reply to its parent post, I think you'll find that the SCO example was not presented as a flaw in the patent defense idea; but rather that it was presented as a reason to doubt that changes to the law will gut the patent defense idea (which the prior post had suggested without providing any supporting details).
I'm not sure whether I think the logic is valid, but if you're going to crit
I'm fairly sure... (Score:3, Insightful)
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I will alert Gordon Pinsent err, I mean the President!
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Yes, but although Colossus took over the world and eliminated the US and USSR while nuking a few cities to do so, and then went on to make himself a benevolent dictator, in the end, it turned out that there really was an alien threat and Colossus was needed to protect not only against the self destructive tendencies of mankind, but them as well.
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Could you at least put some kind of spoiler alert before waving your geek-penis around?
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There is no such thing as a fair.... (Score:3, Insightful)
...software patent. So there can't be a thing called a fair patent troll regarding software.
Maybe on non software patents.
All software patents are acts of fraud and public deception.
Software is not of patentable matter [abstractionphysics.net]
Re:There is no such thing as a fair.... (Score:4, Insightful)
The existence of MPEG-LA demonstrates that under the current official interpretation of the law, software patents do exist.
However, the existence of MPEG-LA does not demonstrate that software patents should exist under a reasonable interpretatoin of the law.
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I never suggested it did. I only meant to bring up the fact that the grandparent was living in a dream world.
No such thing as a fair gun (Score:2)
There is no such thing as a fair gun. So there can't be such a thing as a fair gunfight. So I'll just bring this knife.
Um, yeah, here in the real world, we have software patents. Yes, I agree they suck. You are preaching to the choir here at Slashdot on that one, champ. Having to shoot someone in the head sucks too, but if I've got to do it, I'd like a gun, thank you very much. The other guy has one. You are asking us to bring a knife to a gunfight here. But you aren't even going to this gunfight, so sit do
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Hahaha, yeah. Sure thing, pal. According to who? Your bureaucrats are doing an end run around parliament on this one.
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When the "real world" being referred to is within the European Union the patents are unenforcable
That will come as a great surprise to the many defendants who have lost software patent suits in Europe,
Guns are plenty fair (Score:1, Offtopic)
As long as everyone gets one.
Why might I want an automatic weapon? Hunting my ass, that argument should never have been raised.
You just never know when you might need to kill a non-trivial number of people in rapid succession.
That is neither a jest nor a threat. The express purpose of the second amendment to the constitution can be found in any civics book when reading about the actions of the British Red Coats as an occupying force. This is actually true of virtually all of the bill of rights. The citizenr
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A nuclear device is far too powerful a weapon for any one person to possess full control of.
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Your rationality is in error. All you need to protect against patent trolls is to establish copyright date time.
Prior art. Thats what I did, and even managed to get the patent office to publish it. see references on the link I gave. And understand what it is I did. One knife, uh err double edge sword, to end all software patent fighting.
This is how I know the most powerful tool man has is denial. But denial doesn't change what is, only trys to ignore it. But denial won't last. Sooner or later both sides wil
Re:No such thing as a fair gun (Score:4, Insightful)
Um, yeah, see, the thing is: your method has not worked. Demonstrably has not worked. So I'm ready to try something new, you go on doing what hasn't worked. Or did I miss something, and software patents are no longer an issue?
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Your something new is not going to work.
Like I said, the strongest tool man has is "denial".
There is no "not working" except for human brains not working in acceptance of reality happening here.
So long as the reality of the non-patentability of software is being denied, all there is is illusion being promoted.
And this is why software patents are acts of fraud and public deception.
Such denial goes against reality and as such it is predictable what problems will surface as a result and manifestation of this d
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You seem to approach software patents as if they were a violation of some imagined laws of nature, rather than just a bad idea. Patents are a social construct, and as such, defined how society sees fit. There are no natural patents.
Trying to show that they are an illusion is silly and will only lose you the attention of intelligent people. You need to put your arguments in practical terms to win people. What will fighting patents, no holds barred and no compromise, actually achieve for real people? All argu
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Your rationality is in error. All you need to protect against patent trolls is to establish copyright date time.
Prior art. Thats what I did, and even managed to get the patent office to publish it.
Woah, you got the patent office to accept a copyright, and the copyright office to accept your patent?!
That truly is amazing!
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Sooner or later both sides will give in and accept what is of that which is universally not patentable. Physical Phenomenon, Abstract ideas, Natural Law of which mathematical equations (which many want to argue against software patents with) are only a subset of these.
Is anything patentable then? Every process or method can be abstracted as algorithm. Every invention has plan, a blueprint, which is as abstract as computer program. In fact, each patent application is an algorithm, you can't put matter in writing. What if someone "computerizes" someone's patented method and claims that patent doesn't apply "because it is an algorithm"? What happens once we have nanotech "smart matter"? If I program it to form a into shape of, say, some patented wrench, am I in breach of pa
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Okay... (Score:3, Interesting)
The benefit would be limited to non-aggression between DPL members. By agreeing to the terms of the DPL, they effectively accede to a multilateral non-aggression pact.
...
What's needed is at least one (ideally more than one) entity that will assert patents from the DPL pool very aggressively and systematically against entities who don't support the DPL. By acceding to the DPL once they are attacked, the pressured parties could limit the problem to backroyalties (paying for past infringement of the patents in question) because once they make their own patents available under the DPL, they will have access to the patents in the pool.
How is this not a cartel agreement?
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Ask the MPEG-LA and any other standards body.
Re:Okay... (Score:4, Funny)
you just said it. :-)
It is a cartel, but if we instead call it a general patent standards body then we should be all set.
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You mean like the GPL?
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From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
A cartel is a formal (explicit) agreement among competing firms. It is a formal organization of producers that agree to coordinate prices, marketing, and production.[1] Cartels usually occur in an oligopolistic industry, where there is a small number of sellers and usually involve homogeneous products. Cartel members may agree on such matters as price fixing, total industry output, market shares, allocation of customers, allocation of territories, bid rigging, establishment of common sales agencies, and the division of profits or combination of these. The aim of such collusion (also called the cartel agreement) is to increase individual members' profits by reducing competition.
The DPL does not fit the generally accepted definition of a cartel because the companies involved are not doing so to reduce competition--they are in fact doing so to encourage competition by preventing the monopolization of ideas by a few patent holders.
In practice, it is quite literally a legal alliance in the same way NATO is a military alliance--if one member is sued, the other members counter-sue to deter the attacker. But all the actions taken are legal, with the intention of upholdin
No effect on NPE's (Score:5, Insightful)
The big rewards lately have gone to Non-practicing entities. Those with no products. AKA Patent Trolls.
This provides no relief against someone that has no products.
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I was wondering if someone was going to point this out, and there you go! That's the Achilles' heel.
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Yes. Kind of.
The perfect solution would be to just abolish software patents. But as long as that is not happening, at least this is something...
There are 2 things that do try to address that:
1) Some trolls may decide to join the DPL pool, as this would give them access to inventions from the community, which they could use for new patents to extort money from those companies that remain outside the pool. Not all trolls would choose this, but there would be an incentive to do so.
2) It would create more press
IP law needs to be rewritten (Score:3, Insightful)
The big rewards lately have gone to Non-practicing entities. Those with no products. AKA Patent Trolls.
Which is why IP law - not just patent law but also copyright (though possibly not trademark) needs to be completely rethought. Bandaid solutions aren't going to work for a system that sees the original inventor or creator of a work not rewarded AND others seeking to create or invent thwarted. The current system is madness and guarantees stagnation and corruption. This is the opposite to the stated goal of such law for the whole of society and the only ones seeking to uphold it and ever increase draconian pu
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The problem is that this doesn't work for software, but does work (well, works the way the industry wants it to work) for other industries, especially drugs and manufacturing.
After all, patent law was developed and refined into something that works well for those industries over many many years.
The problem is that in manufacturing you have to have a working prototype, and in the drugs industry you have to patent a specific compound, but in software you can patent an idea or broad concept without a prototype
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I work in the drug industry. Competitor drug patents are aggressively read for clues on what to do and what to work on. In short, they often contain valuable, non-obvious knowledge that, once they are made public, spur further innovation in others. In short, at least at times they work exactly how they are supposed to. (Other times the benefit is less clear cut.)
In the software industry, my understanding is that no one reads patents because they aren't helpful and it's better to have no knowledge of a p
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I agree -- there are areas where the patent system works; software just isn't one of them.
I've built a few software products I would describe as innovative over the course of my career. In each case, the "inventive step" involved taking a good idea originally conceived for one application and applying it to a completely different purpose. In each case, this was a 5-minute "a-ha" moment, followed by weeks to years of development effort to build an embodiment.
I don't feel any entitlement to a 20-year monopoly
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When only patent trolls use patents, the patent law will be changed. The problem now is that the big corporations are lobbing for the insane patent system because they think it is a net benefit to them. If this new license pool can make it not in their interest to do so, we all win.
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When only patent trolls use patents, the patent law will be changed.
Only if the Trolls don't become big business themselves. Witness the RIAA creating no product themselves, yet the US pushing ACTA in their defense.
The problem now is that the big corporations are lobbing for the insane patent system because they think it is a net benefit to them. If this new license pool can make it not in their interest to do so, we all win.
I think you're right that software patents will go when big corporations want them to, and the issue is changing their attitude. But this isn't the way to do that: you don't play their game to win it, you subvert and break the game. Copyleft may depend on copyright but it's not playing the same game.
The way forward is to fight everywhere, and get lots of valua
One ring to rule them all... (Score:3, Interesting)
and in the darkness bind them?
Sounds like they’re taking a bunch of small trolls and defeating them with a mega-troll, but it’s okay because this one’s a nice troll. It’s our troll.
In order to stay competitive, you have to join... (Score:3, Interesting)
So imagine you're a small-time inventor. You come up with something cool, which unfortunately infringes on a few common-sense patents that the DPL has pre-emptively snatched up (to keep them out of the hands of the actually evil trolls).
Do you have to commit your patent to the DPL to keep them from suing you? And in return, they'll give you a cut of the profits? That sounds...well, it's starting to sound evil. Less evil, but still evil.
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Yes, it is evil.
The whole patent system is evil.
Until it can be abolished, any practical solution is going to involve 'getting your hands dirty' as the phrase goes.
The alternative, continuation of the status quo, is infinitely more evil.
This... (Score:1)
... is derp.
Seriously. What the PTO needs to do is throw out any patent on a software implementation on anything. MPEG-4 for example.
Viva la GNU!
Trolled? (Score:1)
"There were seven and a hundred Trolls,
They were both ugly and grim,
A visit they would Justice make,
Both eat and drink with him.
Out then spake the tiniest Troll,
No bigger than an emmet was he,
Hither is come an honest man,
And manage him will I surelie..."
odd question (Score:2, Interesting)
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The patent trolls would be able to easily argue prior art by pointing to themselves, or slashdot (in particular your posting of the idea and everyone who has posted the same idea over and over again for the last ten years).
Now enacting a law that it was legal to shoot to 5% disable any lawyer who files any motion for any NPE wouldn't go amiss. After all, 5% of the gross should be fair and non-discriminatory entropy cost to the practitioner, right?
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Because its 'obvious' and the big companies would fight it on those grounds alone and spank anyone who tried. Then of course there is prior art.
Smaller companies can't really fight against someone like MS when the argument is 'its obvious'
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Not quite the same, but still oddly familiar... [slashdot.org]
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This was tried already: business models are not patentable. No, I'm not going to google that for you. You're a big boy, you can use that input bar in the upper right as well as I can.
This won't harm the trolls (Score:1)
But patent trolls are just evil lawyers
You've got to be kidding me (Score:1)
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It's like all the wolves of the world unite to divide and concur the rest of us sheep.
No thats the European Union. Or maybe NATO. The UN?
Yeah..... (Score:3, Insightful)
Even at it's best, it's still sort of a colluding of the powers that be.
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"Over time, staying outside the DPL alliance would become a costly choice for companies whose products might infringe patents."
Geez - labor unions meet the Godfather. "Of course you don't have to join The Alliance, but if you don't join The Alliance you better watch your step veeeery closely..."
The law of unintended consequences is strong in this one.
Anti-Competetive Practice (Score:1)
If such a thing got going strong, one or more detractors might accuse it of being an anti-competitive practice. I'd be curious how that would play out in court.
Quis trolliet ipsos trolles? (Score:2)
Ah, but who trolls the fair trolls?
Waiting for Bilski (Score:3, Interesting)
I feel like I'm trapped in a Samuel Beckett play.
I am unconvinced (Score:2)
Sounds too much like racketeering to me.
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Wouldn't reforming patent law be better (Score:1)
Wouldn't be better to make patents non-transferable and therefore only those who actually created them could enforce the patents?
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Wouldn't be better to make patents non-transferable and therefore only those who actually created them could enforce the patents?
In other words, make it so patents are only useful for large companies? Why would you want that?
Charles Stross's Accelerando (Score:2)
Manfred Max would be proud.
Eye for an eye (Score:1, Informative)
Fight fire with fire. Nice, how about fixing the patent system instead.
Nonsense Instead of Public Domain (Score:2)
If they want to protect inventions from patent monopolization, they'll just publish the invention with a declaration that it's in the public domain. Which prevents anyone from patenting it.
The rest of this posturing is nonsense.
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Sticking your fingers in your ears and yelling "lah lah lah" is not going to change a damn thing.
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Yes, this is a bit like copyleft... and that's why it's a good idea. This is better than the public domain because the public domain doesn't restrain bad actors.
Reinventing the Public Domain (Score:2)
The alternative is paying taxes to a government formed by We The People, to defend the Constitution. Since the current regime refuses to do that, such a benevolent organization of patent trolls would be the equivalent of that branch of the government charged with enforcing sound, Constitutional intellectual property. The agreement and/or whatever relatively modest means required to fund the organization would be like a tax.
Where is the Sport? (Score:2)
REmoved (Score:2)
Business methods and software and patent trolls don't matter anymore.
At this point, ideas are patents, not how they work. That is why there are so many patent trolls. If you had to actually design a specific device, it become a lot harder to patent troll and it's not nearly as cost effective.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss (Score:2)
Just set these people up with a huge portfolio of patents and they'll look after you. Yeah, right - would you like a bridge to go along with that?
This kind of deal is how trusts / cartels are born. It always sounds like a good idea at first, but once the combination is established it does what every other combination of this type has always done. Power corrupts, and the leaders of this cartel will have a large amount of power. They'll use it for their own benefit - not ours.
Poof - dead. (Score:2)
And how long until the Patent Trolls buy off the Fair Trolls, especially when they are Major corporations withe billions of dollars to piss away on this?
Software patents are broken in a different way (Score:2)
The way the US patent office works is that they check their data and any data that the submitter has provided. They aren't allowed to use search engines to find out if the thing had been done before since they would be leaking information out to the search engine provider. This means that the 1st software patent issued could have been for something very common if the patent office didn't have any reasonable documentation showing that it existed.
I think a solution to this problem (as it rolls into other co
I am not sure... (Score:2)
"Patent Fairies" sounds better (Score:1)
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Sir, are you retarded? Probably by judging this thread you're in...
It's not like we're voting here whether we should have software patents, WE ALREADY DO! What this venture is all about is trying to to abolish that very rotten system...
Some people just amaze me with their stupidity. Daily.
(Here it would be the parent poster and whoever modded it up.)
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In the Soviet Union, We The People, went a step further: we guaranteed and enforced it.
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