Meta Ordered To Pay $175 Million For Copying Green Beret Veteran's App

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, was found by a federal jury in Austin, Texas, to have infringed on two patents held by Voxer, a walkie talkie messaging app founded by a former Army Green Beret. The social media giant was ordered to pay nearly $175 million in damages. Military Times reports: Voxer launched the app in 2011, which was named Best Overall App in the First Annual Silicon Valley Business App Awards in 2013. In 2012, Facebook approached Voxer about a potential collaboration that led to Voxer sharing its patents and proprietary information with the company. "When early meetings did not result in an agreement, Facebook identified Voxer as a competitor although Facebook had no live video or voice product at the time," court filings read. "Facebook revoked Voxer's access to key components of the Facebook platform and launched Facebook Live in 2015 followed by Instagram Live in 2016. Both products incorporate Voxer's technologies and infringe its patents."

The Texas jury found that Facebook Live and Instagram Live incorporated two pieces of Voxer's technologies that involve streaming media over networks. Meta countered in court filings that "Facebook has prioritized live video messaging since the launch of Facebook Live and Instagram Live, with one report identifying Facebook Live as Facebook's 'top priority.'" In a statement to TechCrunch, Meta said the social media company will continue to press the issue through the courts. "We believe the evidence at trial demonstrated that Meta did not infringe Voxer's patents," Meta's spokesperson said in the statement. "We intend to seek further relief, including filing an appeal."

you don't fuck with Men Who Jump and Die!

[Joe_Dragon]

you don't fuck with Men Who Jump and Die!

Re:

[techno-vampire]

Yup! They're the US Army's top 3%.

Re:

[XXongo]

Not sure why the "Green beret veteran" is even important in any way.

Meta shouldn't steal from indie developers regardless of their personal history.

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[techno-vampire]

Agreed. However, I think that this shows that Meta's willing to screw anybody, regardless of their personal history, if it nets them a few dollars more.

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[splutty]

Thankfully most of them don't die when jumping. Or it would be kind of a waste of all that training.

What Suckerberg can't buy...

[denny_deluxe]

Suckerberg just steals. #zuckerpunch

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[Z00L00K]

175 million is a pocket change.
Change the million to a billion scale - 175 billion would be more correct considering the profit that the zucker would make.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Meta, the fake name of Facebook that also owns Instagram

There, FTFY.

Patent troll

[scourfish]

Being a veteran shouldnâ(TM)t protect the guy from criticism of being a patent troll

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[Anonymous Coward]

Being a veteran shouldn't protect the guy from criticism of being a patent troll

Exactly right. This is another case where both sides are wrong.

Meta/Facebook/Zuckerberg Inc. is just pure evil at this point and will lie, cheat and steal whenever they think it will benefit them.

But there is nothing in a messaging app -- or any app -- is worthy of a patent. This is just more abuse of the patent system.

Re: Patent troll

[bradley13]

The problem is: who would you rather have win: Zuckerberg or a patent troll. It's a seriously hard decision, but in this case I'll root for the troll.

Re: Patent troll

[Midnight Thunder]

In short, Iâ(TM)d ignore the parties involved and deal with the facts at hand. Emotions vs logic.

In this case Iâ(TM)d rather Meta win, not because I like them, but because I donâ(TM)t believe in software patents and there is a good chance this one is a waste of paper or pixels that were involved to publish it - Iâ(TM)ll need to read it or see if someone already did for us.

The issue here is if Meta did indeed see the secret juice here, then it probably less a patent issue and more a copyr

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[nasch]

In short, I'd ignore the parties involved and deal with the facts at hand.

This is a distressingly rare approach, compared to the person you were responding to asking "who do I like less?" in order to decide how a legal process should play out. Talk about a facepalm.

Re:Patent troll

[algaeman]

Doesn't really sound like a patent troll. He had an app. Big company looked into buying it, but passed and developed a clone based on what they had seen. He is entitled to the protections that patents are designed to provide.

Re:

[rsilvergun]

I think the problem is that software patents are fundamentally wrong. At the end of the day you're patenting math. Also the cost for developing software is sufficiently low that they don't need the same protections as drugs or machinery.

We treat patents like property. They're not. They're an agreement. You make the details on how to make your invention public and in exchange we give you a limited monopoly. If that agreement doesn't suit the public's wants and needs there's no reason to extend it.

But

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[queazocotal]

The problem is the patent system was intended originally not to be a way to get people rich, by being first to happen to think of something, but to protect truly innovative designs that took a significant amount of effort to do.

At the moment, nearly all patents are obvious in how to make them faced with the problem statement.

That is - a skilled person in the field can concieve the patented solution to the patent problems statement in considerably less time than it takes to do a full patent search to find th

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[wisnoskij]

He had an app, therefore not one else is allowed to send messages in real time over any network until 2031.

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[kmoser]

If Facebook/Meta didn't sign an NDA, then cloning his app is fair game. Patent violations are another story.

Not a patent troll

[thegarbz]

Hint: If you actually make something which uses the patent in question (e.g. the Voxer app talked about in the summary) then you're not a patent troll.

Also Slashdot needs a modding system for moderators so we can mod down whichever person modded you up and they don't get mod points in the future.

Re: Not a patent troll

[bradley13]

It's called metamoderation.

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[scourfish]

There is nothing impressive or novel about an app that lets a phone work like a walkie talkie.

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[thegarbz]

Whether the patent is impressive or novel is completely irrelevant as to whether someone is a patent troll. They have a patent. They use that patent in a product they actively sell. Therefore not a patent troll.

If you want to argue the validity of the patent then that's a different discussion and I'm willing to let myself be convinced it shouldn't be patentable. But as these discussions typically go some random internet Slashdotter usually runs their mouth calling it a "walkie talkie" out of ignorance as to

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[pjt33]

FWIW I went looking for the patents to try to form my own opinion as to whether there's anything which should be patentable in them, and I got seriously bogged down. I think there are only about three basic patents, but they're each about twenty levels deep in continuations. If you have the patience to look through them without being paid for it, here you are [justia.com].

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[GoRK]

When the media surrounding bullshit like this has to resort to emotional string pulling like noting that the "developer is a veteran" and the party on the losing end is Facebook, my bullshit meter goes ballistic. The courts have just given a $175mm reason to call this guy out, and you better believe it will happen. There is no hapless developer scenario here. Facebook passed because the app was vacuous trash just like every dime-a-dozen startup app that ever existed. Guy spent hundreds of thousands filling

Re: Patent troll

[i'm probably drunk]

He isn't a patent troll and he also went to Yale.

Stupid Shit

[StormReaver]

This is exactly the kind of stupid-ass software patent that should be invalid on its face. It doesn't even pass the first test of patentability of software: the machine-or-transformation test; much less the tests of prior art, obviousness, and novelty.

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[techno-vampire]

If the patent is that bad, Meta should have tried to invalidate it and probably won, easily. As it its, they implicitly accepted the patent's validity and tried to pretend that they didn't infringe. Now, it looks like they're going to appeal on the merits of the case, which isn't easy. The jury is considered the Trier of Fact, and appellate courts are very reluctant to overturn their decision.

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[wisnoskij]

I don't think we can expect companies to put money towards invalided every ridiculous patent they could ever be considered to infringe. The guy has patents about sending messages over a network in real time, every internet connected program on earth could be argued to be infringing it.

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[techno-vampire]

My idea was for Meta to defend against the infringement claim by trying to invalidate the patent. If they succeed in that, there's no patent for them to infringe, and the whole suit goes straight to Tumbulia.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Stupid Shit

[thegarbz]

It doesn't even pass the first test of patentability of software

The first test of patentability is: "Can you get the patent office to grant you a patent?" and that was clearly passed.
The second test of patentability is: "Can you convince a court not to invalidate the patent?", and that test hasn't been done yet.

Everything else is truly irrelevant when it comes to patents.

$175 million in damages? Is that logical?

[Futurepower(R)]

Quoting:
"The social media giant was ordered to pay nearly $175 million in damages."

I don't understand the huge amounts often mentioned when there is a legal case. Did Meta/Facebook/Zuckerberg actually do that much damage?

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[bill_mcgonigle]

Maybe they offered to license the patents to FB for 20 cents a user?