The History of the Patent Troll 40
An anonymous reader writes: Patent trolling is not a new problem, although recently it seems that the issue has captured the attention of a broader audience. Four years ago, NPR produced an episode of This American Life called "When Patents Attack!" And, four months ago, John Oliver devoted the bulk of his time on Last Week Tonight to raising awareness about patent trolls. "Most of these companies don't produce anything—they just shake down anyone who does, so calling them trolls is a little misleading—at least trolls actually do something, they control bridge access for goats and ask fun riddles," he explained. " Patent trolls just threaten to sue the living s*** out of people, and believe me, those lawsuits add up." In an article on Opensource.com, Red Hat patent litigation defender David Perry takes a look back at the history of patent trolling, as well as some possible solutions to the problem.
Re: (Score:3)
They don't do nothing, it's a lot of work figuring out which patents you own and finding people who may have violated them. Just because what they do is detrimental to society doesn't mean they aren't working hard.
The upside of patent holding (Score:2)
Someone who holds patents without producing anything for the purpose of extracting royalties is not a patent troll.
Patent trolls are bad. These are people who exaggerate their patent's originality and breadth to practice extortion-- extortion usually comes in the form or asking for money at a sufficiently small sum compared to what the company might risk losing if it pressed the case.
but holding companies that don't act like patent trolls are hugely valuable. For example, consider the company PDLI. it
Those who can, do. (Score:4, Funny)
Those who can't, sue.
Use it or lose it (Score:3, Interesting)
Use it or lose it. Sounds a good solution to separate trolls from inventors.
If they can't make the thing work themselves, then have they really solved the problem or just wrote a document with a claimed solution that does not work in the real world? Its easy enough to look around at whats happening in a market (e.g. self driving cars) and write a bunch of paper patents around that on "stopping a self driving car on detection of a barrier", "easy mechanism for switching to manual control on a self driving car".... you might think 'apply brakes' and 'button' are not inventive, but is single click ordering button inventive?
Plus you get a physical thing, to compare against previous real existing things, no longer can you re-interpret the vague lawyer wording in a document, there is an actual thing to be examined.
An invention is an INVENTION not a description of an invention written by lawyers on paper. It's a thing not the description of the thing. The law should reflect that.
Re: (Score:2)
Bullshit. Engineering and manufacturing are not the same thing as inventing. There are many, many inventors who invent actual useful things without being involved with manufacturing at all. Universities come to mind.
Re: (Score:2)
Use it or lose it. Sounds a good solution to separate trolls from inventors.
Our current system permits patent licensing, do you propose to do away with that, or will you make an exception for licensed patents?
If they can't make the thing work themselves, then have they really solved the problem or just wrote a document with a claimed solution that does not work in the real world?
That's a separate problem, patents whose claims are insufficiently specific should be rejected. So long as that is true (which it isn't, now) then you will have your answer; if the solution doesn't work, then a troll won't be able to use it to troll an invention which does because they won't be the same. But if you permit broad patents with generalized claims to be used agains
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Did it? I have heard interesting stories about Edison being a patent troll.
Edison licensed a lot of patents, but they were for working inventions, and people produced them. Is there some record of Edison being particularly litigious? I'm no fan of Edison, but let's hate him for all the right reasons :)
Re: (Score:2)
Edison used his patents on motion picture cameras to control the film industry though litigation. In fact, his lawsuits forced many many film producers who didn't like Edison (or couldn't get a patent license from Edison) to move away to places like California (where it was harder for Edison to sue them and where the judges were less friendly to patent holders)
So yes he WAS very litigious. But no, he wasn't really a patent troll in that he actually produced many of the things he invented and patented.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Patent Granted (Score:1)
My idea is to "[unoriginal concept that has been around forever]... but, using a computer."
PATENT GRANTED.
My idea is "[vague, non-specific concept]... using a networked computer."
PATENT GRANTED.
My idea "doesn't have an implementation or actually exist nor is it something that I can actually develop, but it is new and uses a computer."
PATENT GRANTED.
My idea is "something that has been used for decades on computers. I didn't invent it or develop it, but no one patented it, so..."
PATENT GRANTED.
Patent Trolls are a legitimate use of the system (Score:2)
The problem is that of the whole concept of Intellectual Monopolies not Patent Trolls. Patents and Copyrights infringe upon the concept of property rights. The whole reason we have the concept of property rights is to determine who has the best claim over a scarce resource. It pretty much follows the pre-school rule of "I was here first". If a kid picks up a stick in the school yard nobody is using and pretends it's a wizard wand everyone knows that it's wrong to go up and take that stick from her. Now if s
The Economist says "Time to fix patents" (Score:3, Interesting)
"Today's patent systems have created a parasitic ecology of trolls who aim to block innovation"
http://www.economist.com/news/... [economist.com]
"Patents are protected by governments because they are held to promote innovation. But there is plenty of evidence that they do not."
http://www.economist.com/node/... [economist.com]
It's a well-researched and thoughtful position.
The Patent Combine (Score:1)
"Libertarians" (the ones who are glossing over the fact that they are totally ok with the government stepping in to protect their inventions) love to point to the Sewing Machine Patent Combine a century ago, where three people pooled together their patents and made an organization to bill everyone making sewing machines and split the money between themselves.
That worked great when there were three people splitting a buck fifty three ways, but these days, every single patent holder thinks their patent is wor
Trolls aren't the main problem (Score:2)
In software, more problems come from non-trolls.
* Microsoft getting royalties from hundreds of millions of smartphones that contain no Microsoft software (and we're lucky they're currently only asking for royalties - they have an equal right to simply tell others to stop developing!)
* IBM getting 1,200 patents on cloud computing
* Nokia and other companies with failing software divisions sitting on a mountain of software patents
* Video formats being covered by 1,000+ patents of telecoms, software companies,
Re: (Score:2)
The only software patents available should be on actual inventions. The kind of stuff that when described, elicit a response of 'that would be cool - if it could be done', not 'that would be cool - I think I'll go and do it'. That distinction defines non-obviousness. Just because there aren't that many ideas that can't be implemented in software through obvious, well-known approaches doesn't mean that the obvious stuff must be granted patents. If software has opened up a realm of activity where implemen
Re: (Score:2)
That's not the problem either. Besides the practical problems of defining "actual inventions" or on subjectively interpreting whether an application meets this standard, a small number of software patents is almost as bad as a very large number.
Imagine we raise the obviousness bar so high that 90% of software patents get invalidated. The Mpeg video formats would be covered by 100 patents instead of 1000. What does that change? Nothing.
Microsoft has, IIRC, 300 patents is uses when shaking down distributor
Re: (Score:2)
Microsoft has, IIRC, 300 patents is uses when shaking down distributors of smartphones. If that was cut to 30, would anything change?
Yes. That's a whole order of magnitude less work to be done to fight them, and so a whole order of magnitude less dollars to spend. It absolutely makes a significant difference.
Re: (Score:2)
That's not how it works. Fighting patents isn't a question of "work". If a patent is valid, and it's necessary for what you're doing, then you're screwed. You can't just throw "work" at the problem.
If you're faced with one to five patents, and you think they're invalid or you think you don't infringe them, *then* it's a question of work (and crossing you're fingers you don't get unlucky with the judge/jury). 30 patents? The 30 which are more "legit" than the 270 we already discarded? Forget it.
Re: (Score:1)
You can't just throw "work" at the problem.
I really need you to come talk to my boss.
Re: (Score:2)
It's the invalid and questionable patents that create expense and work. If you have to get 300 patents found to be invalid, it takes a lot of time, work, and money to make it happen. If you have 30 that you must kill off, it takes a lot less.
Even if there's a genuine legitimate patent in that haystack, it helps a lot if you can find it and act accordingly.
Re: (Score:2)
> It's the invalid and questionable patents that create expense and work.
On the contrary, those are the easiest ones. At least you've a chance against those ones. It's the clearly valid ones that will kill your project.
> Even if there's a genuine legitimate patent in that haystack,
> it helps a lot if you can find it and act accordingly.
This is the same myth as above: that "appropriate action" (or "sufficient work") can solve patent problems. Fact is, if the patented idea is necessary for your pro
Re: (Score:2)
The act accordingly case may well be a killer. But it will happen a lot less often and be more apparent when it is the case if we could get rid of the chaff.
For example, take MP3. Act accordingly might mean don't release before x date (which is not that long from now) but all the chaff makes it unclear when X is.
It may also be that once all the chaff is removed from the pile, there is no wheat at all and the correct thing is move forward with confidence. But if you first have to run 300 patents by a lawyer
Re: (Score:2)
Ok, granted, abolishing 90% of software patents based on quality would improve some things, but it's the least efficient way to fix the system. We'd be fools to aim for this.
If you've ten fields with ten land in mines each, the worst way to clear 90% of them would be to remove nine from each field. The optimum way is to completely rid nine fields of mines.
Raising quality is equivalent to removing 90% but leaving a mine in each field. The equivalent to the optimum situation is: exclude certain domains fro
Re: (Score:2)
A strong clue should be re-invention. If the second party re-invents the patent (not by reading the patent or examining an implementation of it), they should be at worst considered co-inventors, not infringers. If multiple others re-invent a thing, then it was simply obvious in the first place and no patent should have issued.
We also need to actually enforce that a patent is a reduction to practice, not the idea itself. Send a message over the network that someone else can read later is an idea. SMTP is a r
The suits are taking notice (Score:1)
Financial newspaper Economist also did a large piece on patents recently. They have backed down on their original stance of abolishing patents altogether (from 200 years ago, when patent law was enacted), but they still come out pretty clearly on how patents may be stifling innovation.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes. The suits are taking notice.
They have backed down on their original stance of abolishing patents altogether
Probably because some of their largest advertisers depend heavily on collateralising intellectual property. And they made a few calls to the publisher's management.
Re: (Score:1)
I think even the Economist will not have hubris to try turning the clock back 200 years, at least not in one swoop. I don't think it would take any pressure. Like ACorrosionOfDeviants says, the articles seem pretty well thought out. Considering the prevailing attitudes towards "IP", the position the Economist takes is actually pretty radical.