Cloudflare Defeats Another Patent Troll With Crowd-Sourced Prior-Art Army (theregister.com) 23
When it comes to defeating patent trolls with crowd-sourced prior art, Cloudflare is now two-for-two after winning its latest case against Sable Networks. The Register: Sable Networks, which owns patents originally given to defunct "flow-based router" company Caspian Networks, sued Cloudflare and five other companies in 2021 alleging a whole host of violations of four patents now owned by Sable. A lot has changed since the case was filed in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas, leading to a jury verdict last week that found Cloudflare not only didn't infringe on the single patent that made it to trial, but that the final patent claim at issue was invalid as well. It took the jury just two hours to return the result, Cloudflare said.
"Since Sable first sued us, we've invalidated significant parts of three Sable patents, hamstringing their ability to bring lawsuits against other companies," Cloudflare's in-house counsel boasted on Monday. Cloudflare said that it managed to whittle the case down from four patents and "approximately 100 claims" to a single claim on one patent -- number 7,012,919 -- over the past three years. This is thanks in part to the assistance of outside investigators on Project Jengo, a scheme first launched in 2017 to get help digging up prior-art patents when Cloudflare sued by another patent troll, Blackbird Technologies. More: Cloudflare blog.
"Since Sable first sued us, we've invalidated significant parts of three Sable patents, hamstringing their ability to bring lawsuits against other companies," Cloudflare's in-house counsel boasted on Monday. Cloudflare said that it managed to whittle the case down from four patents and "approximately 100 claims" to a single claim on one patent -- number 7,012,919 -- over the past three years. This is thanks in part to the assistance of outside investigators on Project Jengo, a scheme first launched in 2017 to get help digging up prior-art patents when Cloudflare sued by another patent troll, Blackbird Technologies. More: Cloudflare blog.
Found Sable's mistake... (Score:2)
A lot has changed since the case was filed in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas
Everybody knows that if you're a troll, you file in the EASTERN District of Texas. Sable never had a chance!
Re:Found Sable's mistake... (Score:5, Interesting)
Patent trolls have actually been losing some ground in ETX as of late, so they are coming over to WTX as apparently favorable. I can only see their scattering-roach behavior as a positive development, and living in WTX and having been summoned for service a number of times in this district court myself, I say keep em coming; we will keep tearing them new assholes. Despite having the appearance of a politically motivated court, I think that patent trolls will not be able to enjoy the same success as they have historically achieved in ETX. Slow steps in the right direction, I hope....
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you file in the EASTERN District of Texas.
My (possibly flawed) recollection is that the Eastern District of Texas is concerned, as far as taking patent cases, was legislated/regulated (I forget which) out of the patent troll business. The judge tried to circumvent it, and got nailed for it. Well, nailed as hard as they ever nail a judge - batted with big fluffy pillows and a stern finger wag with a very cross look. And Horror of Horrors, a whispered "NO!".
What did they win, Johnny? (Score:2)
Court costs? Nope
Compensation for time wasted? Nope
A pinky swear it won't happen again? Yep!
Patents are getting too unreasonable (Score:5, Informative)
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Why is AV1 hard to encode?
Re:Patents are getting too unreasonable (Score:5, Interesting)
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a field for almost 100 years now should have had all ideas explored and their patents expired.
I broadly agree that patents are at least absurd as it stands, however to say "there can't be new ideas if we've been at it for 100 years" is a bit pessimistic.
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I thought you patent implementations and not ideas.
Not really. A description of "one possible implementation" is required for an application. But it's the idea that counts.
But generally 'on a computer' while sounding dumb, is another implemeIntation
Except that "on a computer" or "using the Internet" are poor excuses for extending the patent coverage for prior art. Computers and the Internet have been around for a while. While they might have had patent coverage themselves at one time, that has long since expired. And their original innovation was very general purpose.
Example to illustrate the point: Ages ago, farmers used to carry
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A description of "one possible implementation" is required for an application.
Just thought of an example. The original Lamarr/Antheil patent for frequency hopping radio described an implementation involving two synchronized player piano rolls. Some people in the war department declared it as useless because "We can't fit a piano in a torpedo." In reality, a tiny mechanical music box movement would have worked as well. And fit inside a torpedo.
The patent covered the idea. Not the piano.
Re: Patents are getting too unreasonable (Score:2)
It depends on if the new implementation is obvious or innovative. Like people wanted to do something with a computer that a human could already do, but something about the ecosystem just fundamentally couldn't be figured out.
A typewriter existed, but I wouldn't be surprised if the first electronic computer keyboard was patented, despite being "a typewriter but on a computer".
Conversely, if on the back of otherwise patented keyboards, processors, monitors, and data storage technologies you add "order a book
Lolly Lolly get your "on X" here... (Score:1)
> But generally 'on a computer' while sounding dumb, is another implementation that can be patented as long as it doesn't step on a prior implementation that did not use a computer.
This pattern also happened when solid state circuits became common. Vacuum tube circuits were converted to solid state and re-patented as "on solid state circuits". Then it was "on a computer", then "on a network", and now "on AI". It's merely a land rush to get "up-cloned" patents before others do. It speeds lawyers, not inno
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however to say "there can't be new ideas if we've been at it for 100 years" is a bit pessimistic.
Barely pessimistic. I was trying to think of anything absolutely new, without prior lineage, in electronics for the past 50 years and come up blank. Which is not to say there are not any, simply nothing that comes to my mind that I would consider as new in every way. I mean, REALLY new things, not like a blue LED (we've had LEDs since 1962), not MOSFETs (1959), I mean really new. Not chips either, as it is not a break through, simply a refinement of application of single transistors. Even Maggies aren't tha
End it! (Score:4, Insightful)
The software patent system is just a jobs program for lawyers. Time to ban patents on software. The original reasons for having patents don't hold often enough for software to justify the waste and red tape. The few "gem" patents don't make up for the mass cruft. Killit! . Don't rob 100 Peters to save one Paul.
A vaunted example often given is CAT-scanning. But it's merely glorified ray-tracing, and ray-tracing was "discovered" about a decade earlier (without a patent). And it has a lot of similarities to triangulation used in determining where enemy radio signals are coming from in WW2. Extrapolating 2D triangulation techniques to 3D is trivial for mathematicians.
Almost any random group of "computer vision" experts of the time with a few mathematicians would come up with a similar solution. The hard part is the elbow grease of tuning all the parts via trial-and-error, NOT the starting concepts. It was the new computing power that made it feasible, human brain power wasn't the bottleneck prior.
Some argue patent revenue motivated them to make CAT to begin with, but without patents it could have become cheaper and ubiquitous faster, even if started a few years later. That "late" creation wouldn't be slowed by patent royalties for 20-ish years. Thus, a faster ramp up is probably better than an earlier start, or at least breaks even. They'd spend resources doing instead of suing.
If your top examples fall apart, the rest are likely weaker, and most are.
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It's much more than glorified ray-tracing.
I don't know how many "computer vision" experts there were in the 1960s [isct.org] when it was first invented, but it was a physicist and an engineer [catalinaimaging.com] that won the Nobel prize for the CAT scan - I'm pretty sure they were well versed in the mathematics require
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> "computer vision" experts... in the 1960s
The 60's patent by Oldendorf was analog, IINM. The digital version of a patent came from EMI in the 70's.
> It's much more than glorified ray-tracing.
Example? Most the math came from the Radon transform from 1917, and some from Stefan Kaczmarz in 1937. There is contrast clean-up and other enhancements, but these were also known to computer vision students in the 70's.
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Patents have always been unreasonable.
In the late 18th century, the sewing machine was considered high-tech. It was impossible to build one however, as there were dozens of patents you were violating just by building one.
Even worse, many patents were for the exact same thing. And more patents were issued every day that overlapped with dozens of other patents.
The situation was only resolved because the Singer corporation decided to buy up all the patents and solve the problem by brute force. Of course, it al
Ideas obfuscated into legalese (Score:3)
Companies file these ideas as patent applications and the modify them and modify them until a time comes when someone else has actually invented something and then the finalize the patent and go after the real innovator. This is not how the patent system is supposed to work -- it has become a playground for attorneys, not engineers. It is not supposed to protect science fiction until it becomes reality.
The patent office needs to start enforcing the "enough information to enable someone skilled in the relevant field to understand and replicate the invention based on the description in the patent application" requirement of the patentability test which will eliminate many of these "idea" patent troll patents.
Election year opportunity (Score:2)
IMO, there is a great election year opportunity here to get some votes. Patent reform would be really popular.
Re: (Score:2)
That's a good one.
The number of people who care wouldn't even be noticed in the noise of voters.
Outlaw rent-seeking (Score:3)
The thing is, our many of our property laws seem to be written by an awful lot of rent-seekers.
prior art vs first to file (Score:2)
I thought US Patent law got updated through a treaty like 20 years ago so it was no longer "first to think of it" but rather the more common "first to file." So, what does prior art have to do with it any more, unless it was already patented?