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The information on Groklaw is not intended to constitute legal advice. While Mark is a lawyer and he has asked other lawyers and law students to contribute articles, all of these articles are offered to help educate, not to provide specific legal advice. They are not your lawyers.

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Private Documents? | 146 comments | Create New Account
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IBM sending the agreement to Reuters: A way to win by losing??? Sly fox?
Authored by: PJ on Monday, July 30 2012 @ 10:08 PM EDT
Maybe it will finally motivate the big pockets
guys with tons of patents to finally really
fix the patent system if they find their precious
secrets are being spilled, even as third parties.
Nothing else seems to light a fire under them.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Dear Wol: You *must* grin. Suppose IBM knows they (and everyone) is paying too much?
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, July 30 2012 @ 10:08 PM EDT
And that exposure of information will make the market more efficient?

Or that the patents themselves are ridiculous, and they can make hay for reform
(which is, per my oracular powers, officially IN the cards now) and make
themselves out as better citizens?

IBM, particularly, has a much wider interest than one or a few patent
negotiations to consider in this case. Loss of secrecy on the particular
agreement is only a very small pawn for them.

(Christenson)

Oh, and, as a corporation, not a real person, where did that right of privacy
arise? Have you bought as much as a house lately? The amounts at issue here
are substantially larger.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

IBM sending the agreement to Reuters: A way to win by losing??? Sly fox?
Authored by: jvillain on Monday, July 30 2012 @ 10:31 PM EDT
They aren't asking to route through some ones medicine cabinet this is corporate
information. And as a corporation shouldn't you be avoiding doing any thing that
you truly need to hide?

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

IBM sending the agreement to Reuters: A way to win by losing??? Sly fox?
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, July 30 2012 @ 11:36 PM EDT
Frankly, I think the balance between the pro-innovative justification for
allowing patent rights in the first place and the pro-competitive limitations of
those rights would be well served by requiring *all* patent licensing terms to
always be public information.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Bystanders getting hurt
Authored by: The Cornishman on Tuesday, July 31 2012 @ 05:45 AM EDT

The third party corporations who would like to maintain the veil of secrecy over patent licensing agreements are frightened of a change in the ground rules for the elaborate and lucrative game being played with patents in the US, and which several of them would like to see extended worldwide.

As we have seen with monotonous regularity, first of all, many patents get granted which subsequently fail to meet challenges in court. Secondly, they get used in ways that Congress never envisaged, viz. as an arsenal to threaten and bully market opponents.

If I'm going to threaten someone with an arsenal, it's in my interests to conceal its true strength. For instance, Mr Gutierrez claims that the Linux kernel infringes (or infringed at some point in time) two hundred and thirty five of Microsoft's patents. The three significant digits are as far as the specificity goes. It is in his interests to conceal the identities, ages and values of the patents that he (allegedly) has in mind. We say "FUD" so often that we're in danger of forgetting how powerful fear, uncertainty and doubt are, in a commercial setting.

So, it would be a game changer if companies were less able to conceal their patent skirmishing under a legal fog blanket. Whether companies should be allowed to manipulate the market (for that is what it amounts to) by hiding behind NDAs is for debate. Companies are required to produce vast amounts of information to maintain regulatory transparency. Why not add patent licensing arrangements?

Now, a genuine legal question for the people around here who know answers. One of the points in contention in Oracle v Google was one of marking. Google contended that some Oracle products should have been marked with identities of the patents that they practice, and I seem to remember that they won their point. Why then is it not both necessary and desirable for Amdocs, who recently signed a deal with Microsoft relevant to putting Linux on servers, to label their products with the details of the patents that they practice?

---
(c) assigned to PJ

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Private Documents?
Authored by: 351-4V on Tuesday, July 31 2012 @ 11:00 AM EDT
These "private documents" end up costing consumers thousands of dollars each
year. That's you and I that are paying higher prices for electronics because
these agreements are kept private. I'd say that they had no right to keep these
agreements private in the first place as they affect so many people. Taken to
an extreme, don't be shocked if some class-action motions are filed based on
these documents.

Time to make the popcorn.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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