Google Wins Appeal of $20 Million US Patent Verdict Over Chrome Technology

Alphabet's Google on Tuesday convinced a U.S. appeals court to cancel three anti-malware patents at the heart of a Texas jury's $20 million infringement verdict against the company. Reuters reports: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said (PDF) that Alfonso Cioffi and Allen Rozman's patents were invalid because they contained inventions that were not included in an earlier version of the patent. Cioffi and the late Rozman's daughters sued Google in East Texas federal court in 2013, alleging anti-malware functions in Google's Chrome web browser infringed their patents for technology that prevents malware from accessing critical files on a computer.

A jury decided in 2017 that Google infringed the patents and awarded the plaintiffs $20 million plus ongoing royalties, which their attorney said at the time were expected to total about $7 million per year for the next nine years. But the Federal Circuit said Tuesday that all of the patents were invalid. The three patents were reissued from an earlier anti-malware patent, and federal law required the new patents to cover the same invention as the first, the unanimous three-judge panel concluded. The appeals court said the new patents outlined technology specific to web browsers that the first patent did not mention.

Why does it get that far?

[The Evil Atheist]

Are those courts so incompetent that they don't understand the law behind patent reissue, such that it has to go to appeal, and waste even more tax payer money?

Oh right. East Texas.

Re:

[Entrope]

Courts don't re-issue patents. The Patent and Trademark office does.

Re:

[The Evil Atheist]

I'm obviously talking about the East Texas court that made the ruling that pushed the issue to the COURT OF APPEALS.

Re:

[pete6677]

Some pathetic patent troll thought they'd actually win against the Google legal machine, lol. Given that the suit has been going on for more than 10 years now, the plantiff will have spent a metric ton of money on lawyers. Google has as well, but that's a drop in the bucket for them. The troll has lost, even if this ruling gets reversed yet again.

Re:

[will_die]

You need to educate yourself to some level near what the East Texas jury had.
They came to a determination based on the law the patents at that time, this news is that a higher court ruling that that patents were invalid, something not in question in the Texas case, and since they were invalid the Texas decision is now invalid.

Re:

[The Evil Atheist]

Are you telling us the law about reissued patents not expanding their scope didn't exist then?

This will invalidate many patents

[flyingfsck]

Doing patent updates with incremental changes that follow already existing technology is an old fraud.

I'd love to see the patent office fix this.

[robbak]

... by not allowing any updates to a lodged patent. When you apply for a patent, you write it specifically to cover only your invention, and you research and include all prior art. Then you lodge your patent. The office examines it and either accepts it or rejects it, say for missing prior art or because the patent as written could read to an existing invention. You then should have only two options. You can appeal the rejection to a court, and argue that the patent as you wrote it is correct, or you accept the rejection, rewrite your patent, and lodge a new patent it with a new priority date.

And, yes, having your patent rejected and losing patent protection because someone else has preempted you is a big penalty. All the more reason to get it right the first time, instead of writing some broad rubbish that you can then apply to anything.

Re:I'd love to see the patent office fix this.

[MobyDisk]

That would be horribly unfair, especially against the small inventor. Trolls would wait for a patent to be rejected for some common or trivial reason (insufficient diagrams, overly broad wording, a filing mistake) then jump in and file a patent before the real inventor could do so. Large corporations would be incentivized to have teams reviewing patents to minimize rejection chance, while individual inventors would have to keep resubmitting and paying the expenses over and over.

Re:I'd love to see the patent office fix this.

[laughing_badger]

So you don't release the fact that the patent has been rejected for 28 days to give the applicant time to resubmit. A rejection must also contain a numbered list of points to address successfully to result in acceptance.

Re:

[radarskiy]

"So you don't release the fact that the patent has been rejected for 28 days to give the applicant time to resubmit."

So you don't wait for it to be rejected. You review all the applications as they come in, which are (typically) public, looking for mistakes and file copycats immediately.

Re:

[nagora]

That would be horribly unfair, especially against the small inventor.

Yeah, because the current system is SO supportive of the small inventor.

Re:

[Theaetetus]

That kind of is the current rule. Once filed, you cannot change anything in your specification or figures. You can amend the claims, but only to the extent they are supported by the original specification and figures. Any changes in the spec or figures is considered new matter, and you lose your filing date.

File Security?

[Canberra1]

In IBM's SAF /RACF files have access or file permissions and program paths and in-volatile at boot lists, plus hardware memory protection. 40+ years ago. Malware, browser, whatever, and it does not care about the OS. Now how a patent on a browser is relevant is absurd - resource permissions are old hat.

Re:

[null etc.]

Everything about patents is absurd.

how are patents even a thing in software?

[filesiteguy]

software should be copyrighted, not patented

Re:

[TechyImmigrant]

It already is copyrighted. But when does an idea become an invention?

When you patent it.
You don't patent the software. You patent the invention.

I've got patents to my name that could be implemented in software or hardware. The software version was copyright protected from the day I wrote it.

Re:

[tlhIngan]

software should be copyrighted, not patented

Software should be neither. It's not a creative work used for human expression and enjoyment (we enjoy music, books, TV, movies, etc., all of which are copyrighted).

It's also not a physical embodiment of something, so it can't be patented.

It should be a 4th form of IP - to go alongside copyright, patents, and trademarks. We should have software - something people write to have utility, and offer both a mix of the protections offered by copyright and patents. But t

Patents ...

[JasterBobaMereel]

Patents are far too easy to write, far too easy to be a duplicate of an existing one, and far too restrictive ... they do little for an inventor and are too easy for a company to fight...

Copyright is better but far far too long

Trademarks are the way it should be done ... The fashion industry is built entirely on innovation and new ideas, and has almost no copyright, few patents worth mentioning, and so uses little else but trademarks ... but manages to make more profit than all the Copyright and Patented i

Re:

[Theaetetus]

Copyright is better but far far too long

Trademarks are the way it should be done ...

You know that trademarks can last forever, right?

Re:

[JasterBobaMereel]

Trademarks have to be defended to keep going, if they go out of business then anyone can use them ... ...it doesn't stop anyone else making the same or a very similar product, they just can't claim or imply it's made by the tradmark holder