Patent Troll Wins $15.7M From Samsung By Claiming To Own Bluetooth 126
An anonymous reader writes: A jury has upheld patent claims against Samsung and awarded the patent-holder $15.7 million. "The patents relate to compatibility between different types of modems, and connect to a string of applications going back to 1997. The first version of Bluetooth was invented by Swedish cell phone company Ericsson in 1994." Lawyers for the plaintiff argue that the patents cover all devices that use Bluetooth 2.0 or later, so further cases could extend far beyond Samsung. Of course, the company that won the lawsuit wasn't the one who made the invention, or the one who patented it. The company is Rembrandt IP, "one of the oldest and most successful" patent trolls.
Obvious prior art (Score:5, Interesting)
Wouldn't Bluetooth 1.0 be the most obvious prior art ever?
Re:Obvious prior art (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Obvious prior art (Score:5, Informative)
It would be, if the wording of the patent was something like "A craft, that travels through the air, by means of lift generated through the passage of relative airflow across a curved wing section known as the aerofoil, and of sustained airflow by means of propulsion caused by the action/reaction of a propulsion unit, which propels the craft forward against drag caused by the craft's passage through the air."
The same wording would also cover missiles, but not helicopters. Patents are like that.
Of course, it wasn't that simple - The Wright Bother's patent wars were kind of like Samsung Vs Apple, and only served to severely damage the US's ability to produce aircraft for nearly half a century. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W... [wikipedia.org]
GrpA
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That description would actually cover helicopters.
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and birds
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Maybe only helicopters with a straight-line propulsion method?
"A craft, that travels through the air, by means of lift generated through the passage of relative airflow across a curved wing section known as the aerofoil, and of sustained airflow by means of propulsion caused by the action/reaction of a propulsion unit, which propels the craft forward against drag caused by the craft's passage through the air."
You might make an argument that the "patent" describes a straight-line (forward) propulsion method. A helicopter that relies on its rotors doesn't use a forward propulsion unit.
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Yup, thats a helicopter.
Yup, thats a helicopter.
Yup, thats a helicopter.
Yup, thats a helicopter. The action/reaction of a propulsion unit is necessary for turning the rotors, which is necessary for generating lift. Or you could include a gyrocopter here, whic
Re:Obvious prior art (Score:5, Informative)
Please, when framing arguments against patents or climate deniers, or anything else that is important to you, do not exaggerate or use such hyperbole. It lessens the impact of your argument, however true, significantly.
Re:Obvious prior art (Score:5, Interesting)
I've come to a more nuanced view on patent trolls. They aren't themselves so evil, they are basically hackers, but of the law instead of tech. The real evil is the patent system itself, not the hackers who take advantage of it. If by their actions they persuade giants like Samsung that patent law needs major reform, then that's good. It's not their fault that patent law is such a mess, it's the fault of giant corporate backers. They're dancing delicately, trying to have it both ways, that is, little people have to ask them for their patents, but they don't have to ask little people for theirs. The bigs are the reason the scope of patent law has been expanded beyond all sense. Possibly the biggest expansion was that originally a patent was supposed to cover a working implementation. A machine that achieves the same thing through a different method was not in violation. Now patents can cover a vague concept. That kind of patent may be shot down in court, but that it was granted at all is one of the problems.
Hating a small patent troll is like shooting the messenger.
Re:Obvious prior art (Score:5, Insightful)
I've come to a more nuanced view on patent trolls. They aren't themselves so evil, they are basically hackers, but of the law instead of tech. The real evil is the patent system itself, not the hackers who take advantage of it. If by their actions they persuade giants like Samsung that patent law needs major reform, then that's good. It's not their fault that patent law is such a mess, it's the fault of giant corporate backers. They're dancing delicately, trying to have it both ways, that is, little people have to ask them for their patents, but they don't have to ask little people for theirs. The bigs are the reason the scope of patent law has been expanded beyond all sense. Possibly the biggest expansion was that originally a patent was supposed to cover a working implementation. A machine that achieves the same thing through a different method was not in violation. Now patents can cover a vague concept. That kind of patent may be shot down in court, but that it was granted at all is one of the problems.
Hating a small patent troll is like shooting the messenger.
The evil is the term of the patent.
Change the term of software patents from 20 years to somewhere between 2 and 5 years (maybe hardware gets to be 10).
Small companies and independent inventors can still develop something new and have a healthy head start in either selling it or developing it into a product.
But 2-5 years isn't long enough to build an ecosystem, so you don't get a ridiculous situation where someone suddenly owns a piece of a fundamental technology like Bluetooth or MP3.
Moreover it fixes the incentives regarding patents. The current 20 year term means you can patent and forget, hoping someone else doesn't the work of developing the idea and you can then swoop in for license fees, that's where the patent trolls come in.
But a short term doesn't give you that option, the only way your patent is going to have value before it expires is if you make a push to build something with it, which is the kind of the point.
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No, just no. Yes the system could have been better designed, but that doesn't make exploiting it right.
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The real evil is the patent system itself, not the hackers who take advantage of it.
no, it's the people.
your argument is basically that individuals can only be held responsible for a heinous act if it's unequivocally disallowed by the law. that's just a cop-out that allows people to take advantage / cause harm to others, or society.
there will *never* be enough laws to cover every possible situation. that's why we have parents that hopefully taught us right and wrong and common sense
. They aren't themselves so evil, they are basically hackers, but of the law instead of tech.
no, they aren't hackers unless you mean that hackers are people that cause harm to others (only).
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Code can, in theory, be made largely unhackable. The more features it has, the harder it will be, and there's always the five-dollar-wrench hack, but nothing in theory prevents people from securing the code.
The law is always going to be hackable. Any significant law is always going to be far more complicated than code. It's dealing with people, not computers, who have far more different modes of operation.
The law will always end up relying on a certain amount of goodwill from the people. We'd love to have t
Patent trolls are useful arbitragers (Score:5, Interesting)
First, yes some patent trolls are evil. But some are very good.
The key service a Non-producing Patent holder provides is that they purchase patents from inventors. This allows the inventing company to convert their Ideas into cash. When companines die they may cease producing but their IP is still valuable. And it can be sold. It's that value that the shareholders of the company were investing in. So they were entitled to sell it. Patent "trolls" create this marketplace for Ideas and the money they pay goes on to be re-invested in other good things. Hence it maintains a market that funds spending on ideas.
The patent trolls are arbitragers because they profit from non-liquidity of the market for ideas. IN doing so they do make it liquid. So that's good. they are creating real value where there was only theoretical value and keeping prices in balance.
Then there's the evil patent trolls that take lame notions and therough legal machnations extort money from people who can't afford a legal challenge or rely on throwing darts and hoping for a big win.
It's sometimes hard to tell these apart because sometimes a cherished technology we all love really does have a legitimate patent holder not an ogre behind it. The Eolas patent on all web browser plug ins seems like a reasonable case. If they can really show that the basic concept of the web browser plug in was not obvious and had no prior art and that they legitmately patented it with sufficient breadth of description then it really doesn't matter that this catches everyone by surprise. It's worth a fortune obviously but that too is not a reason to say it's wrong. It would be wrong if they got lucky an patented as trivial idea and then tried to extort people with it.
It's these rare paydays that actually can keep the good arbitragers in bussiness. they may buy up lots of patents that never make them any money. All that money goes back to investors who created the IP and hopefully invest in more IP development in the future. The arbitragers get paid big once in a while for their investment in buying those worthless unmarketable patents.
This sort of sounds like maybe that if they really did come up with the basic protocol and immplentations from which blue tooth was originated and the makers of blue tooth didn't have the right to sell that then this could be legite even if it's a big paybat for a non-produycing patent holder.
Re:Patent trolls are useful arbitragers (Score:5, Interesting)
First, yes some patent trolls are evil. But some are very good.
The key service a Non-producing Patent holder provides is that they purchase patents from inventors. This allows the inventing company to convert their Ideas into cash. When companines die they may cease producing but their IP is still valuable. And it can be sold. It's that value that the shareholders of the company were investing in. So they were entitled to sell it. Patent "trolls" create this marketplace for Ideas and the money they pay goes on to be re-invested in other good things.
I think I understand your argument. But I think there's an important distinction: Is dead company A selling the technology to new company B, or just the right to use the technology?
If they're selling the technology, ie "company A knew how to do X, lets buy their IP so we can do X" then they're contributing something and new company B benefits from the exchange.
But if the situation is more like "we want to do X, but it turns out company A has patents on X, therefore we need so pay off those patents" then I'm a lot more skeptical. Sure company A's innovative investors make some money off of B, but that money came from B's innovative investors so I'm not sure you're actually promoting investment in innovation. Not only that but the patents added a lot of overhead, cash that would have been better used innovating by both parties.
It's sometimes hard to tell these apart because sometimes a cherished technology we all love really does have a legitimate patent holder not an ogre behind it. The Eolas patent on all web browser plug ins seems like a reasonable case. If they can really show that the basic concept of the web browser plug in was not obvious and had no prior art and that they legitmately patented it with sufficient breadth of description then it really doesn't matter that this catches everyone by surprise. It's worth a fortune obviously but that too is not a reason to say it's wrong. It would be wrong if they got lucky an patented as trivial idea and then tried to extort people with it.
As to my point I'm very skeptical Eolas actually did anything to further the development of browser plugins. Why are they entitled to a fortune when they never actually contributed anything of value?
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I despise patent trolls, but reading your linked article, I see where the patent issues here were really only detrimental until the start of WW1. 1906 to 1917 is not "nearly half a century."
Please, when framing arguments against patents or climate deniers, or anything else that is important to you, do not exaggerate or use such hyperbole. It lessens the impact of your argument, however true, significantly.
By half-a-century, I mean half-a-century. Just because the original issues were resolved by around 1917, it takes a lot longer to recover from this damage - Consider this period as the original wound, and later time as healing to understand what I said - A lot of US based aviation decisions through to the end of WW2 and the early 1950's were very poor. This doesn't mean that the US didn't progress quickly, but it imported most of it's technology and ideas, even during WW2 - Often leaning on concepts and ide
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Re:Obvious prior art (Score:4, Informative)
I'd feel better flying in Boeing's product (and the amenities are way better)
I take offence at that. You do know that the interior design is 95% up to the airline to decide? You just flew shitty airlines and it has nothing to do with Airbus.
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You do know that you're arguing that the Wright brothers' glider could have had the same amenities as a Boeing Airbus A380, right? Because that's the comparison the person you're responding to was making.
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yes... yes... reading comprehension fail on my side...
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Re:Obvious prior art (Score:4, Insightful)
Why? You think that just because a standard increases in a version that the original should become prior art to all new technology introduced even if it had nothing to do with that technology?
That's like saying the horse is prior art to the car.
Re:Obvious prior art (Score:4, Insightful)
Clearly, nothing was added in Bluetooth 2.0.
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lots was added in 2.0, but the patents are about putting modulation information at the beginning of packets, and it seems like that's basic enough that bluetooth 1.0 might have already done that. I don't know bluetooth well enough to answer.
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Or a can of beans?
I mean, it's a header to tell you what's inside the packet. How is a label on a can not telling you what's inside the can?
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Well... Amazon did successfully patent the one-click checkout idea, as obvious as that was.
And they tried to patent shooting products with a white background.
Obviously, our patent system is basically as bogus as AT&T's attempts to claim that it innovates, only the patent office is still pretending that it's not complete BS.
Samsung most certainly (Score:2)
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Real Reason for the Patent Gap (Score:4, Interesting)
The real reason America has to catch up on the 'patent gap' is not so we'll be the most competitive, but so we can siphon as much money as possible from other countries' businesses. More patents means more lawsuit money coming into the country to offset the trade deficit. Gotta win at every statistical metric fathomable, dontcha know.
Absolutely garbage claims (Score:5, Informative)
I looked up the patent [google.com]. Here is the meat of claim 1:
a transceiver, in the role of the master according to the master/slave relationship, for sending at least transmissions modulated using at least two types of modulation methods, wherein the at least two types of modulation methods comprise a first modulation method and a second modulation method, wherein the second modulation method is of a different type than the first modulation method, wherein each transmission comprises a group of transmission sequences, wherein each group of transmission sequences is structured with at least a first portion and a payload portion wherein first information in the first portion indicates at least which of the first modulation method and the second modulation method is used for modulating second information in the payload portion, wherein at least one group of transmission sequences is addressed for an intended destination of the payload portion, and wherein for the at least one group of transmission sequences:
the first information for said at least one group of transmission sequences comprises a first sequence, in the first portion and modulated according to the first modulation method, wherein the first sequence indicates an impending change from the first modulation method to the second modulation method, and
the second information for said at least one group of transmission sequences comprises a second sequence that is modulated according to the second modulation method, wherein the second sequence is transmitted after the first sequence.
This is absolute garbage. The most powerful claim is so generalized that it can be interpreted to cover anything the owner wishes. It's like patenting a mouse trap that consists of "a device with a mechanism such that mice are trapped".
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With patents you don't look at the description, you look at the claims. This one has over 80 in 7 independent patches that are pretty specific. One could easily workaround this were it not part mandatory Bluetooth specs (I don't know if that is the case). But as far as patents go, this seems pretty OK, meaning these guys at least had a clear intention of implementing specific ways and not just cover an idea.
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It reads like it was generated by algorthmic patenting - http://yro.slashdot.org/story/... [slashdot.org]
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Particularly for older patents;
If you buy a patent knowing there are potential infringers, you should not be able to make a claim against them. (hard to prove in many cases).
If you buy a patent and have shown no attempts to license it, or produce a product with it, you should not be able to make a claim.
OTOH, if you acquire a patent via inheritance or as part of buying a company, the
Beyond Patentdome! (Score:2)
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Claim 1 is always general. (Score:1)
However, is this the claim that they are claiming was infringed, or was it one of the dependent claims?
Virtually every patent written has a pretty broad independent claim.
Re:Absolutely garbage claims (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the inherent problem with patents.
They're written that way by design, and the US Patent Office doesn't evaluate them for being weak patents, they just confirm the check cleared.
Patents stopped being about innovation decades ago, and now they're about playing a game of semantics to make it sound like you've invented something, when in fact you're describing something which has been done before, or is fairly obvious.'
Patents are a bloody joke, simply because they are so vague and open ended ... and so many of them boil down to "a system and methodology for doing something we've all done before, but with a computer/cell phone".
Patents aren't about innovation and invention, they're about corporate rent seeking in the vast majority of cases.
And, I'm afraid I don't have sympathy for companies who engage in patent lawsuits when they lose one. It's not like they're victims here ... they're just getting screwed in the same game they try to screw other people in.
Don't worry, governments will make sure the biggest company who contributes the most wins ... just like they always do.
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I looked up the patent [google.com]. Here is the meat of claim 1:
a transceiver, in the role of the master according to the master/slave relationship, for sending at least transmissions modulated using at least two types of modulation methods, wherein the at least two types of modulation methods comprise a first modulation method and a second modulation method, wherein the second modulation method is of a different type than the first modulation method, wherein each transmission comprises a group of transmission sequences, wherein each group of transmission sequences is structured with at least a first portion and a payload portion wherein first information in the first portion indicates at least which of the first modulation method and the second modulation method is used for modulating second information in the payload portion, wherein at least one group of transmission sequences is addressed for an intended destination of the payload portion, and wherein for the at least one group of transmission sequences: the first information for said at least one group of transmission sequences comprises a first sequence, in the first portion and modulated according to the first modulation method, wherein the first sequence indicates an impending change from the first modulation method to the second modulation method, and the second information for said at least one group of transmission sequences comprises a second sequence that is modulated according to the second modulation method, wherein the second sequence is transmitted after the first sequence.
This is absolute garbage. The most powerful claim is so generalized that it can be interpreted to cover anything the owner wishes. It's like patenting a mouse trap that consists of "a device with a mechanism such that mice are trapped".
In what way? That claim can't be interpreted to cover, for example, mouse traps. So it's not quite as generalized as you say.
No meat there (Score:1)
The figures are just block diagrams. Of CPU etc. no meat there. The whole invention seems to be "change modulation method during session vs restarting session" which isn't an invention.
"In existing data communications systems, a transmitter and receiver modem pair can successfully communicate only when the modems are compatible at the physical layer. That is, the modems must use compatible modulation methods. This requirement is generally true regardless of the network topology. For example, point-to-point,
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That's a disclosure, and doesn't form the claims. It's the part of the patent where you explain what it is you're patenting, why it's different from previous inventions ("knocking the prior art"). A lot of times, the disclosure is very much more broad than the claims, because anything that is in the disclosure can be cited as prior art in a future patent, or, more to the point, CANNOT be patented by someone else. So you describe broadly in the disclosure to prevent someone else from getting a patent on so
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Kids, gather round! In ancient times, before American intellectual property technology saved the world, there was a "public domain" where after the creator's lifetime of benefiting from his art, it passed into the common culture for everyone to enjoy and build on. The name Rembrandt is a quaint reminder of those days.
After reading the article (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to conclude that the jury was populated by a group of retards.
I mean, REALLY?
I know the whole idea of having juries in America is so the prosecution and defense can essentially play a popularity game with them, and facts don't always have a lot to do with what could be perceived as proper end results, but wow... one could almost be forgiven for thinking that the USA is a banana democratic republic sometimes.
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A lawyer friend of mine once said "if you have to go to trial, you have already lost" because you have failed at every other level of persuasion and leverage and the only thing left is the variable outcome of a trial.
Re:After reading the article (Score:5, Interesting)
I have to conclude that the jury was populated by a group of retards.
I'm American. I last served on a jury in 2005. I have been called to jury duty once since then and was luckily not picked for the case I was a possible juror for. I've served twice as a juror including in 2005 and the whole process has made me incredibly cynical about US "justice", which I deliberately put in quote marks there. Anyway, in my 2005 service, we were hearing a case that was surprisingly complex and involved multiple charges, but you might put it under the umbrella heading of "property damage". We were in the jury room one morning waiting to go hear the day's testimony and I remember being appalled as 3 of my fellow jurors all got into an argument with each other over who was stupider when it came to computers. Each guy in turn tried to top the other ones by showing how he was far stupider about computers than the other 2. Out of 13 jurors, which includes one alternate, I believe that only 2 of us had jobs that might be called "professional". The others were roofers and holders of various jobs that don't require any college education. These are the kinds of people who serve on juries. So I have no problem believing that the jury you refer to was totally made up of technological idiots who had no hope of understanding the complex issues presented to them, let alone rendering a just verdict.
I'm not sure that a lot of people would be really comfortable if they truly understood the kind of horse trading that goes on in juries all the time. "Ok, we've got 7 votes for guilty on charge #2 and 5 votes for guilty on charge number #3, so how about we agree to vote guilty on #2 and innocent on #3 so we can all go home?"
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Out of 13 jurors, which includes one alternate, I believe that only 2 of us had jobs that might be called "professional". The others were roofers and holders of various jobs that don't require any college education. These are the kinds of people who serve on juries.
This is a result of the adversarial juror selection process where legal teams from both sides, plaintiff and defendant, try very hard to remove any liabilities from the juror pool. Knowledgeable people are liable to be on a "side" and therefore will be removed by one side or another.
That combined with the fact that, as a juror, you are not rewarded or likely to get compensation from your employer, means that people who have valuable knowledge, skills and generally good understanding of lots of stuff, try v
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I was personally involved in a patent litigation. I was one of the "authors" of the patents involved in said litigation. These arose out of startup I was involved in. The court of choice in these matters (in the US) is/was the East Texas district (at least it was when we were in play). I was told, pretty much up front, that this district is preferred because there's so few people out there who have a clue re: tech. They told me that anyone with a clue re: tech would be dismissed as a jury candidate (ou
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I have to conclude that the jury was populated by a group of retards.
I mean, REALLY?
By definition a jury is group of your peers too dumb, too incapable or too bored to get out of jury duty.
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Aaand (Score:2)
That's the ticket (Score:5, Funny)
Appearing in court with the lawyer for the patent troll was his wife, Morgan Fairchild.
Eh commenting to cancel my "interesting" mod... (Score:2)
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...since I thought you were serious, but then I did read TFA which makes no mention (and apparently Morgan Fairchild is not even married right now and her real name seems to be the much less glamorous "Patsy Ann McClenny").
Dude:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Eh commenting to cancel my "interesting" mod... (Score:4, Informative)
For the whippersnappers - it's an old (aka 80's) SNL skit. Jon Lovitz played a pathological liar, and the lies kept getting bigger.
Hello, my name is Tommy Flanagan, and I'm a member of Pathological Liars Anonymous. In fact.. I'm the president of the organization!
[...]
And then I got a job in journalism, writing for the National Enquire.. er, Geographic! Yeah.. I was making twenty thousand a ye.. month! In fact, I won the Pulitzer Prize that year! Yeah, that's the ticket.
[...]
Oh, you'd be surprised how many famous people belong. In fact.. at one of the meetings I met my wife - Morgan Fairchild!
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Funny how things change, eh? Substitute Nobel Prize for Pulitzer Prize, and it's relevant in 2015.
On the other hand, looking at the state of journalism in 2015, maybe the joke is on the Pulitzer Prize.
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Who lied about winning a Nobel Prize?
One of my greatest regrets in life (Score:1)
is having lived a block away from Intellectual Ventures, and not having trebuchet'd the place. I'm not into violence outside the boxing ring, but patent trolls need all their belongings smashed by angry mobs every time they win a lawsuit, until they learn to not win lawsuits.
Re:One of my greatest regrets in life (Score:5, Insightful)
This is completely and totally wrong. I don't agree with this at all.
You smash them when they file lawsuits. Don't wait until they win them or they'll never learn.
I fail to grasp how this achieves anything (Score:2)
so you smash all their belongings. With their winning from the suit, they'll just buy new ones to replace the ones you smashed. Plus they get to have you charged with vandalism and sue you for damages. They get to have new things and make your life even more miserable, a total win-win for them.
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Exactly. That's why you have to smash all their belongings when they file the lawsuit, and make sure you wipe out all their data in the process. Then they won't be able to win the lawsuit. And make sure you conceal your identity well so you don't get prosecuted or sued.
Patent ownership (Score:3)
Of course, the company that won the lawsuit wasn't the one who made the invention, or the one who patented it.
Doesn't matter. Patent ownership can be bought and sold [wikipedia.org] and could be considered an investment.
Samsung should pull out (Score:1)
From the article it looks like the town where the court case was held benefits greatly from Samsung's generosity: scholarships, festivals, hardware donations, etc.
Samsung should just stop doing ALL of that for that town and take their generosity somewhere else.
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I wonder if it hurt them in jury selection- whether anyone paying enough attention to notice what samsung did for the town was removed to avoid bias, having an incidental effect of removing folks who pay attention.
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No, they should still roll into town and hand out paper certificates proclaiming gifts they bring, but then on the certificate deduct the same amount for paying this patent troll, so the net result is $0. Make a big show of handing these out, so everyone can plainly see that their shitty little town is getting nothing but hot air because of this patent troll they sided with.
See how the parents like it when little Suzy and Johnny get certificates for scholarships which are worth nothing because the money we
Filed After Bluetooth 2.0 Was Released (Score:2)
The BlueTooth 2.0 specification was released in 2004.
The patent trolls' patents were filed in 2009 [google.com] and 2011 [google.com]. Both patents have a "priority date" of December 5th, 1997 which apparently means that even though they were filed AFTER BlueTooth 2.0 was released, only prior art from before 12/5/1997 can be considered. How is it that prior art can only be considered if it takes place 12 - 14 years before the patent in question was filed?
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Right there on the second page of the patent:
"This application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 11/774,803, filed on Jul. 9, 2007, which is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 10/412,878, filed Apr. 14, 2003, which is a continuation-in-part of U.S. application Ser. No. 09/205,205, filed Dec. 4, 1998, and which claims priority to and the benefit of the filing date of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/067,562, filed Dec. 5, 1997, each of which is incorporated by reference herein."
so th
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This is kind of what I figured. There should be some strict limitations on this behavior. Using it for one year to hone your patent application? Fine. Using it for over a decade to make sure your patent applies to technology developed after your initial patent filing? Not good at all. Perhaps there should be a hard limit of one year between priority date and filing date.
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This is kind of what I figured. There should be some strict limitations on this behavior. Using it for one year to hone your patent application? Fine. Using it for over a decade to make sure your patent applies to technology developed after your initial patent filing? Not good at all. Perhaps there should be a hard limit of one year between priority date and filing date.
It's already covered. When you file a continuation-in-part, the only claims that get the benefit of the earlier priority date are ones that were fully described in the initial application. Anything that wasn't described there doesn't get that priority date, and you only get the later date. So, for example, if I file a patent application that describes a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on 1/1/2000, I can later file a continuation in part application on 1/1/2010 (provided the original is still pending) that
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I actually disagree, and I have a proposal which a corporate-owned government might actually like. I've posted this before in years past.
It's basically a "pay-as-you-go" system. I'm going to concentrate on copyrights, as patents are a much stickier and more complex issue IMO.
It works like this:
You file for copyright protection with the USPTO, and you get it, for free, for 5 years. After that, your work goes into the public domain, unless you pay. For another 5 years of protection, you need to pay $10,00
Patents have maintenance fees (Score:2)
U.S. patents already have such maintenance fees [uspto.gov], just not with the exponential escalation you propose. An analogous maintenance fee for copyrights would have to be worded very carefully to pass muster under the Berne Convention's prohibition on formalities. One suggestion (the Public Domain Enhancement Act proposal from 2003) structured it as a property tax. Another would apply the maintenance fees only to exclusive rights beyond the Berne minimum, such as term extensions, anti-circumvention "protection", a
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The exponential calculation I propose is key to the whole proposal (esp. on the copyright side). Let companies keep things protected as long as they want, but keep jacking up the fees, to a large degree. Note that it doesn't necessarily need to be exponential as in x^n where n >= 3 (which seems to be the common meaning of the word), just a very large degree: perhaps n=1.5. This makes it a cash cow for the government, and also allows companies to keep things protected as long as they can afford it, whi
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And fuck the Berne Convention; it's obviously not serving society well, so it doesn't need to be followed. Since it was probably pushed mostly by the US anyway
Berne isn't an American thing. The USA didn't fully implement it until the late 1980s, roughly a century after it began in Europe.
Better than the alternative (Score:2)
I'd rather have these guys bleed Samsung for a pittance, than the alternative to not having patentable standards and technology...
Sure, RembrantIP didn't contribute to the invention, but they probably paid a nice sum to the inventor (who now can go invent something else, and not flip burgers).
Now, having secured their financial interest in the a-priori standard of Bluetooth, other device manufacturers actually can make the jump and implement it, knowing some leacher doesn't come along and foil their busines
Prior art: telephone modems and av transponders (Score:1)
The first claim appears to be about sending a transmission from a master which starts out in one modulation format and tells the slave to switch to a second modulation format for the rest of the transmission.
The problem solved is how to both support old, and get the advantages of new modulation formats in a compatible manner.
Telephone modems have had this problem since the 80's when advanced in electronics made increasingly more complex modulation schemes possible.
(Which BTW, is what happened here with Blue
Re: (Score:1)
...It might be interesting to see how many other examples this group can identify.
Well you can start by asking Samsung's lawyers. One way (maybe the best way) to defend against an infringement lawsuit is to prove there is prior art that invalidates the plaintiff's patents. You can bet Samsung looked everywhere to find prior art that invalidated the patents they were accused of infringing. Apparently, they couldn't find any.
Venue Shopping (Score:5, Insightful)
"Marshall is a small town that has been a hotspot for patent lawsuits for more than a decade now. US District Judge Rodney Gilstrap, who presided over this trial, oversees far more patent lawsuits than any other federal judge."
There are many things that can be done to reform the patent system. Perhaps something that could be done to reform the "justice" system is to restrict/reform this bullshit cherry-picking of venue.
Eastern District of Texas (Score:2)
It's a famous "rocket docket" (i.e. cases can proceed rapidly there), and it's known for having plaintiff friendly juries in patent cases, so there's a lot of venue shopping going on.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
They don't even need to do that. If the alleged infringement took place in the district (i.e. if Samsung sold a product that allegedly infringed in East Texas), that's enough. Tivo (Cali-based) sued Dish (Denver-based) in the Eastern District.
Re:Republicans hate technology (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure they do. It's why those marches against nuclear power, GMOs, and vaccines are so crammed with Republican men. Just look at the protest signs: "Another father for returning to the Neolithic."
Actually (Score:3)
Nurse Quarantined By Christie Comes Back To Haunt Him On Vaccines [talkingpointsmemo.com]
Parents Fighting Against Gov't. Vaccination Agenda - The John Birch Society [jbs.org]
Scott Brown Rents Out Email List To Anti-Vaccine Conspiracy Theorist [huffingtonpost.com]
And lets not forget the John Birch-er conspiracy theory that fluoridated drinking water is a government attempt at mind control (whether or not certain fluoride compounds cause problems, the conspiracy angle is irrational).
And lets not forget that, in general, denial of medical care on religious grounds
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The John Birch Society, really? I didn't know they had websites in 1953! Were they propagated over AM radio?
Republicans hate technology (Score:1)
What does this have to do with Republicans?
Re: (Score:3)
Will they go after all Bluetooth chip producers, or those who have used the chips? Samsung might have had an interest in ‘losing’ this in the interest of seeing one of its competitors eating it.
Of course not. They will only go after the Bluetooth chip producers that have tons of money.