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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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Newspick discussion here please | 111 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Corrections here please, if needed
Authored by: tiger99 on Friday, May 03 2013 @ 05:44 PM EDT
Please indicate the nature of the correction in the title of your post to assist
PJ.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Off topic here please
Authored by: tiger99 on Friday, May 03 2013 @ 05:45 PM EDT
You know the rules. No on topic here, or you will be punished severely.....

[ Reply to This | # ]

Newspick discussion here please
Authored by: tiger99 on Friday, May 03 2013 @ 05:47 PM EDT
Please try to indicate which newspick you are referring to in teh title of your
post, and make a clickable link so it can still be found easily after it scrolls
down off the homepage.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Comes goeth here....
Authored by: tiger99 on Friday, May 03 2013 @ 05:49 PM EDT
If you are transcribing the Comes depositions you will know what to do.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Trolls please post here
Authored by: tiger99 on Friday, May 03 2013 @ 05:50 PM EDT
But do abide by PJ's rules or she will blow you away.

[ Reply to This | # ]

...speaking on behalf of the trolls..
Authored by: fudnutz on Friday, May 03 2013 @ 06:19 PM EDT
... I would like to thank pj for publishing our position. We
also thank you for that introduction after which no one need
throw rotten tomatoes. We too grapple with the challenge of
balancing power, greed, and innovation with the understanding
that innovation may only serve the powerful.

[ Reply to This | # ]

IPNav's impassioned plea
Authored by: Gringo_ on Friday, May 03 2013 @ 07:22 PM EDT
We could almost feel sorry for them beng misunderstood and branded
as common patent trolls.

However well crafted their response, it rings hollow, because it
presumes patents are granted for true invention. If you believe that,
perhaps you also believe in the Tooth Fairy and Santa Clause, and this
comment is not for you.

They totally ignore the study presented at the start of the article, which
states among other things that "software patents have “fuzzy
boundaries”: they have unpredictable claim interpretation and unclear
scope, lax enablement and obviousness standards make the validity of
many of these patents questionable, and the huge number of software
patents granted makes thorough search to clear rights infeasible,
especially when the patent applicants hide claims for many years by
filing continuations."

Congratulations PJ on a well researched and articulated article.


[ Reply to This | # ]

Why give the true villains a pass?
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 03 2013 @ 07:27 PM EDT
Because MOSAID is a "non-practicing entity" -- the euphemism for a patent troll -- the usual threat of counterlitigation for patent infringement will have no deterrent effect on its aggressive licensing plans.

I don't understand. You can't counter sue MOSAID; but what stops a company "X" from suing Microsoft for any patents that X owns that Microsoft is using and making it clear that Microsoft will not get rights to those pattents until they call their attack dogs off?

Indeed Google must have some patents not previously owned by Motorola, that Microsoft is using. What would happen if Microsoft were given the ultimatum of lay off all of Android or cease the use of Google's patents? ( Just make sure you sue in a venue outside of Washinton State. )

[ Reply to This | # ]

The problem in a nut shell...
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 04 2013 @ 01:06 AM EDT
From the IpNav paper:
Similarly, patents are valuable intellectual property, and if someone steals an idea – infringes a patent without paying for it – the patent owner is damaged.
This states the crux of the problem, the patenting of ideas vice the patenting of inventions.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Why, of course not
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 04 2013 @ 01:47 AM EDT
[Microsoft] believe that the most appropriate and effective policy response is not to regulate PAEs or their behavior directly [..]
Of course not. Myhrvold (an ex-Microsoft exec) received seed-money from billg. Regulating trolls would jeopardize that investment. His billness would not be pleased...

[ Reply to This | # ]

what is MOSAID?
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 04 2013 @ 02:03 AM EDT
Looking at the name it sounds like a terrorist organization. After reading the
article I'm with the same impression, just now I know what weapons are they
using...

[ Reply to This | # ]

Two very quick fixes
Authored by: Wol on Saturday, May 04 2013 @ 04:57 AM EDT
aimed directly at the trolls.

Firstly, it would make sense to give a Markman hearing access to the actual
invention. Failure to produce the invention or reasonable facsimile thereof to
such a hearing should be good grounds for summary dismissal. Hopefully that
wouldn't require legislation, but I'm not sure how one tells courts that's what
they should do.

And secondly, under English law, using incorporation to separate reward from
liability is a straightforward abuse. That should be the case in the US (doubt
it is, though :-) that would result in instant tearing of the veil. I can't
imagine an English court, on realising what is happening, not dissolving the
corporation on the spot and converting it to a partnership (joint and several
liability).

Cheers,
Wol

[ Reply to This | # ]

A common thread
Authored by: globularity on Saturday, May 04 2013 @ 07:00 AM EDT
Not one of these documents provides any claims of how their actions improve an
actual product.
The mere existence of a patent on a technology does not mean the patent owner
added any value to a product, there has to be a mechanism to add value.
Considering that some of these documents were probably written by lawyers going,
from input to conclusion without stating a mechanism is telling

Essentially they all are excuses as to why they should get money from people who
actually create things without doing anything to assist the creation of such
things, followed by justifications for the scam.

Does it really make any difference if a patent was granted to a little, big,
skinny or fat guy if they contributed nothing to improving a product why are
they deserving of any money?



---
Windows vista, a marriage between operating system and trojan horse.

[ Reply to This | # ]

IPnav offers a straw man...
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 04 2013 @ 07:59 AM EDT
it is not a question of black or white.
The modern PAE is exploiting the fuzzy middle ground
Their entire submission offers no more than 'look over there'


Who else will notice?

Concentrate on what they are actually doing and not on what
they say their execiting new innovative business model is
going to be.

Probably shouldn't have posted this

I'll go back to sleep

[ Reply to This | # ]

Rent Seekers
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 04 2013 @ 08:41 AM EDT

Really all Microsoft has been since they managed to negotiate the original open IBM contract which allowed them to sell DOS across the entire market is Rent Seekers. They've continued to try to expand this business model into new fields (if I missed any please comment):

1) Windows Media Audio
2) Windows Media Video
3) HD DVD
4) Windows Media DRM
5) Direct X
6) Windows itself
7) Windows CE
8) Windows RT (and the Metro interface x86 versions)


Every one of these was Microsoft attempting to continue to collect fees for every CPU sold. I've seen industrial machinery running Windows NT (which crashed), hand helds running Windows CE (even in Apple stores), etc.

The common thread is each gets replaced by something better, because Microsoft doesn't deliver superb products, only mediocre.

Wayne
http://madhatter.ca

[ Reply to This | # ]

  • XP and CE - Authored by: albert on Saturday, May 04 2013 @ 12:13 PM EDT
    • XP and CE - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 04 2013 @ 04:25 PM EDT
China
Authored by: cassini2006 on Saturday, May 04 2013 @ 11:16 AM EDT

Just to keep things in perspective, China is going to be, if it is not already, the largest market in the world. China's inventors, by and large, are not tied down by patents, and are largely free to do whatever they want. To the extent that China has a patent system, it is most effective at locking out the US.

Thinking on a world-wide basis, how are US companies going to compete against China, given an US patent system like this?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Everyone, "TROLL" is much too polite a word!
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 04 2013 @ 12:20 PM EDT
We need something that is more forceful, like:
"Patent Extortion Entity"

Controlling the vocabulary tends to control minds...and if we call spades
spades, we will win sooner. Polite alphabet soup (PAE) isn't good enough.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Let's Hear From the Trolls For a Change ~pj Updated
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 04 2013 @ 03:37 PM EDT
The problem is the cost of fighting the suit. Fix that, and things should
get better. However I still can not afford to do a patent search every
time I compose a function, or method. The current practice of
patenting things like a not function, or the pattern of bits that identify
the location of other bits, has got to stop!!!

[ Reply to This | # ]

Entitlement? ring a few bells?
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 05 2013 @ 05:41 AM EDT
The patent owner is not receiving the income he or she is entitled to.
If the product isn't getting developed preparatory to being marketed, then the patent owner is displaying signs of entitlement.

IPNav is being ingenuous, isn't it!?! Someone who is neither researching nor developing a product, yet lays claim to the profits of someone who is doing that hard work, on account of some pieces of paper that could be in Gibberish, the official language of the Gibbers, for all we know or care.

Strange how the people who scream "entitlement" when a poor man asks for a dime or a loaf of bread, don't do anything of the sort when a rich man demands the lot from a poorer man who's just shown more get-up-and-go than him.

Wesley Parish

[ Reply to This | # ]

Why must you twist everyting an obviscate to support your position?
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, May 06 2013 @ 11:21 AM EDT
Your focus is too narrow. Why do you avoid the bigger picture, which includes
the inventors?

"They will make money from software patents instead of products? That's the
new business model? Because if so, the likelihood of becoming a drain on the
marketplace instead of encouraging innovation is real. Patents protect and
benefit the old, not the new. "

"They will make money from software patents instead of products?"

No, they will try to make money from the research and development that is
reflected in the patents and for which they must have offered the best price
when they purchased the patents.

"the likelihood of becoming a drain on the marketplace instead of
encouraging innovation is real." The inventors that invented the
inventions covered by the patents were encouraged to do so by the promise of
profiting from the sale of the patents. Why do you overlook this aspect?

"Patents protect and benefit the old, not the new."

If its so old, why do you want to copy it and/or use it?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Let's Hear From the Trolls For a Change ~pj Updated
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 08 2013 @ 06:31 PM EDT
Question: Are patent trolls a problem in other fields than software? Are there,
for instance, patent trolls that sue people using basic patents on, for
instance, simple technical aspects of machines?

If not, then this might be an indication that the problem is indeed not in the
business model, but in the low quality of patents being issued.

It's kinda weird, but my feeling is that the Microsoft quote is right on the
mark (although my solution -- banning all software patents -- might not be
precisely the one they are after). I really think the problem is not the
business model of these trolls, but the bad rules that make these business
models lucrative.

[ Reply to This | # ]

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