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GNOME Patents The Courts

GNOME Foundation Is Being Sued Because of Shotwell Photo Manager (itsfoss.com) 44

JustAnotherOldGuy quotes ItsFOSS: The GNOME Foundation is facing a lawsuit from Rothschild Patent Imaging, LLC. Rothschild allege that Shotwell, a free and open source personal photo manager infringes its patent.

Neil McGovern, Executive Director for the GNOME Foundation says "We have retained legal counsel and intend to vigorously defend against this baseless suit. Due to the ongoing litigation, we unfortunately cannot make any further comments at this time."

While Neil cannot make any further comments on this issue, let me throw some lights on this matter. The patent in the question deals with wireless image distribution. The patent is ridiculous because it could mean any software that transfers images from one device to another could be violating this patent.

BoingBoing adds: Rothschild was only recently awarded a patent relating to wifi image transfers, but he has a long history taking companies like Apple and Samsung to court. His LLC was named in 2015 as the single largest nonpracticing entity by defendant count; a NPE is a company or person who holds patents but makes no products, instead pursuing companies that do for settlements. One website counts 30 lawsuits filed since June involving Rothschild Patent Imaging LLC, with more than 100 ongoing.
ZDNet argues the suit " doesn't make much sense. But when has that ever stopped a patent troll?"
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GNOME Foundation Is Being Sued Because of Shotwell Photo Manager

Comments Filter:
  • The best thing to do is counter sue, for damages and court costs.

  • patents stifle innovation

  • I'm affronted by this unbelievable and abhorrent display of anti-semitism from the GNOME foundation. I hope they're held responsible for this hate crime.
  • Patent law (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BytePusher ( 209961 ) on Saturday September 28, 2019 @10:22AM (#59246648) Homepage
    I wonder when the world is going to wake up to the contradictions of patent law. A system that allows proprietary access to thought, where thoughts don't even have to be your own original thought, but someone you who thought while being paid, or simply purchased rights to a thought.

    How is it that no one questions the underlying system that makes the patent system profitable to exploit?

    • Re:Patent law (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Dutch Gun ( 899105 ) on Saturday September 28, 2019 @01:55PM (#59247260)

      I've definitely spent some brain cycles considering this issue. I'm a proponent of abolishing some types of patents, such as software patents, because I think they fundamentally don't work. In the software world, we have copyright which does an adequate job of protecting source, and for anything else, if it's trivial enough for someone to figure out how it works without looking at the source and easy enough to replicate, then it wasn't worthy of any protection to begin with.

      But I still think the idea behind patents is fundamentally sound, even if the process is abused. A lack of patents means that a company that does any R&D is fundamentally at a disadvantage, because there would be no way for them to capitalize on their discoveries. By nature, it will always be cheaper for a rival company to simply copy an existing device or invention, rather than do the work of R&D, testing, and fine-tuning their design. That strikes me as a very predatory way of doing business, and not one we as a society should endorse.

      Eliminating software and "business method" patents (or even allowing for reduced lengths) would go a long way towards curbing some of the more flagrant abuse we've seen. Seventeen years of exclusive use was set at a time when it was largely hardware inventions that were being considered, and it might very well take that long to get a production prototype into actual production, and then reap the benefits of it. It's a ridiculously long time in software-years. More typically, any technology surrounding the patent has a good chance of becoming obsolete by the time the patent expires.

      • Ever go back and re-read your post, and realize you wrote "fundamentally" three times in two paragraphs? Well, just mentally edit those out and pretend I can write competently. Sigh...

        The other thing we could do is to ban NPEs (non-practicing entities) from collecting judgements on patents, as from my perspective, they're simply using legal loopholes to game and exploit the whole patent system. It's legalized blackmail, and arguably a net negative on the whole business ecosystem. I don't see any good re

        • by sjames ( 1099 )

          Fully agreed. NPEs fly in the face of the entire purpose of patents. They actively keep innovations out of the marketplace.

          I would also like to see independent re-invention as prima facie evidence that the invention is not sufficiently non-obvious to be granted a patent and that the USPTO erred in granting it. We hear a lot of arguments about the sweat of patent-holder's brows, but what of the sweat of other brows when they discover that they are barred from enjoying the fruits of their labor?

  • by 4wdloop ( 1031398 ) on Saturday September 28, 2019 @10:22AM (#59246652)

    So the patent (https://patents.google.com/patent/US9936086B2/en) in question simply combines digital photography and wireless data transmission? When was it filed? Did not space probes and satellites used this long time ago?

  • by dhasenan ( 758719 ) on Saturday September 28, 2019 @10:30AM (#59246688)

    The patent covers a mobile device that can capture images (like a laptop with an attached camera) and send them directly to another such device, peer-to-peer, automatically, according to some criteria associated with the image.

    Shotwell doesn't have that functionality. It has plugins that share photos with certain providers like Flickr and Tumblr. That means they're going after the next more general claim of the patent, which covers every digital camera with a screen.

    • Flickr and Tumblr are excluded from the patent:

      it is rather common for one or more of the photographers or individuals capturing the digital photographic image(s) to express his or her intent to share or otherwise distribute the image(s), for instance by e-mailing them directly to the other individuals and/or uploading the image(s) to an accessible location on the World Wide Web. For example, many web sites and/or companies, including, SHUTTERFLY®, KODAK® EASYSHARE®, and SONY® IMAGESTATION®, provide services for uploading and sharing photographs. While this may be one way to share the image, it is not ideal, as oftentimes, the images are in fact never sent, uploaded, or shared as initially intended. In addition, even in the event the digital photographic images are in fact uploaded to the web servers, it may take days, weeks, or even months to do so, and further, use of these third party services may often lead to excessive, unnecessary frustration and aggravation.

      • Replying to myself,...:

        As a matter of fact, given further consideration, the above wording is specifically given to exclude "prior art", and subsequently limits the use case of the patent to an appliance only. Servers, desktops, websites, desktop software, and tablets and smart phones, and apps for tablets and smart phones, are all excluded due to all said devices being in a class of things with enough functionality and prior art that they are to be excluded. I wonder if Amazon Alexa type devices will be
        • by sjames ( 1099 )

          Since Shotwell is a desktop app bundled with the Gnome desktop, the suit would seem a bit silly in that case.

      • by sjames ( 1099 )

        So what about Google's Android app? You take a picture on your phone and it's in photos ASAP. If I want it in shotwell, I connect a USB cable.

        • If you have more than two Android devices distributed between more than one owner with all syncing via the same GMail account, then that the very functionality this patent is implying.
        • Double reply, cause I figured something else out.

          While this patents Google's Android app, there are two key distinctions:

          1. No associated website that the user logs into.

          2. This patent is for a system that works without a wireless signal, over wireless networks. It works 100% of the time without fail, and involves instantaneous transmission of data regardless of available bandwidth or signal quality.
          • Nevermind all that. Cluster of multiple postings between myself and myself. Slashdot is slow this evening.

            The majority of the patent implies a primarily peer-to-peer relationship between remote devices as opposed to a cloud based solution. As such in the above segment stating that image sharing from an accessible location on the world wide web, read "Cloud Service" was common and already existed. Thus implying this was not a patent for the same solution but for a "peer-to-peer" alternative solution. (P2P
    • Heck, even more on the nose: EyeFi cards.

      Eyefi was founded in 2005, this company's patent was first filed in 2008. Eyefi cards can be setup to transfer your images directly from the camera wirelessly to you computer with no intervening servers.

      So what exactly is the validity of this patent?

  • by radarskiy ( 2874255 ) on Saturday September 28, 2019 @10:35AM (#59246714)

    "it could mean any software that transfers images from one device to another could be violating this patent".

    Every claim includes a filter on transfer. If the filter occurs anywhere else it does not violate any of the claims here.

    Claims 1, 2, and 3 require the receiver to be mobile. Any fixed receiver cannot violate those claims. (This does not immediately exclude claim 4.)

    Claim 4 requires the receiver to be an image capturing device. Any receiver without a camera cannot violate that claim. (This does not immediately exclude 1, 2, or 3.)

    Now as far as the merits of the case, as opposed to the merits of the counter-arguments, since the software does not require that the receiver be mobile or have a camera the software at worst only potentially violates in specific embodiments.

  • A name, known and loved for being good throughout the centuries! ;)

  • ...3!

    May be someone at this company has been pissed off by Gnome 3.

    I'm kidding, I'm kidding.

  • They should have been sued long ago for their efforts to making sure that Linux will continue to spin its wheels in the desktop indefinitely.

Think of it! With VLSI we can pack 100 ENIACs in 1 sq. cm.!

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