Tag Archive for Patent troll

| August 7, 2012
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Anti-Patent Troll Bill Introduced

A newAnti-Patent Troll Bill Introduced bill introduced in the House of Representatives attempts to deter frivolous patent litigation. The bill would force unsuccessful patent plaintiffs to cover defendants’ legal costs according to Daily Wireless. Introduced by Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) and co-sponsored by Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), the Saving High-Tech Innovators from Egregious Legal Disputes (SHIELD) Act is limited to patents related to computer hardware and software.

House of Representaive“Patent trolls don’t create new technology and they don’t create American jobs,” DeFazio said in a news release. “They pad their pockets by buying patents on products they didn’t create and then suing the innovators who did the hard work and created the product.”

The article explains that patent trolls often buy broad patents. The purchase allows them to file flimsy lawsuits against multiple companies for infringement. Despite very thin evidence to back their lawsuits, companies are often forced to settle. They settle because going to court can easily cost over $1 million in legal costs even if the company prevails, explained DeFazio in a press release.

Loser pays

Electronic Frontier FoundationThe Electronic Frontier Foundation explains the idea behind the SHIELD Act is simple. A plaintiff needs to believe that a defendant actually infringes a valid patent before it sues. If it doesn’t, then the plaintiff could be on the hook for the costs of litigation. They would also have to cover the winning party’s attorneys’ fees (which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in some cases).

Fee shifting, often called “loser pays,” is not a new idea. It’s long existed in copyright law, it allows a court to award the winning party costs and fees in certain cases. In patent litigation, the EFF says this type of provision would help tilt the playing field slightly more in favor of the good guys. Fee shifting would empower innovators to fight back while discouraging trolls from threatening lawsuits to start.

The EFF has set up a website defendinnovation.org to lead the battle against patent trolls and reform the U.S. Patent Office.

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Voter apathySigh – Today is primary election day here in the U.S. and I just got back from voting and a whopping 417 people in my neighborhood had voted. There are almost 17,000 people 18 years or old.

Voter apathy has everything to do with everything about where the US is today, including patent reform. Who are the politicians going to listen to?  I have covered the patent mess for a while here, here, here, and here. I doubt the political clout me and my 416 other neighborhood voters even matter when compared to the millions of dollars that Apple, Google, ATT, and the rest spend on lobbyists in Washington and Lansing to buy the legislation they want.

Have a nice day!

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| July 10, 2012
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Patent Trolls Cost the US $29 Billion

Patent Trolls Cost the US $29 BillionThe United States patent system is costing the industry more than $29 billion a year in unnecessary legal fees. A Boston University study crunched the numbers and worked out that the legal action conducted by “patent trolls” cost U.S. companies an estimated $29 billion during 2011.

United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) logoFortune defines patent trolls as entities that own the intellectual rights to innovations without innovating anything themselves, so-called “non-practicing entities.” They buy patents to sue infringers. According to the study, last year, 1,150 companies defended themselves against 5,842 patent troll lawsuits. Nearly half of those companies made less than $100 million during the year, which showed the authors that patent trolls aren’t just a problem for large firms, but rather a problem for smaller firms who have less money to invest in their own research.

The result is that the companies lost $29 billion in direct costs – legal and licensing fees. The study did not estimate indirect losses for defendants in things like delays in new products, loss of market share, or the need to change products.

Study authors James Bessen and Michael Meurer also found that the patent troll costs have escalated since 2005 when the study found a total of 1,401 claims were $6.6 billion in direct costs. The authors say increasing patent litigation in the U.S. is a significant tax on investment in innovation. To put the figure into perspective the total U.S. spending on research and development is $249 billion in 2009 but it is still a big tax.

Bessen and Meurer said it was rubbish that asserting patents played a socially valuable role in enabling small inventors to realize greater profits from their ideas. The report said that the costs of defending such legal action meant these organizations had less money to invest in their own research. The report claims that patent lawsuits were a social loss and not a transfer of wealth as the trolls claim.

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I have followed patent trolls for a while here, here, and here.

The ineptitude of Washington to do anything right enables patent trolls. The report concludes “The rapid growth and high cost of NPE litigation …  should set off an alarm warning [to] policymakers that the patent system still needs significant reform to make it a truly effective”

Most reasonable people should agree with the study’s recommendation to increase transparency in the patent system and that the courts should rigorously supervise patent damages awards to make sure that damages are proportional to the value of the patented technology.

Related articles
  • Patent Absurdity: Trolling the Courts for Profits (aleksandreia.com)

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| May 16, 2011
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25 Tech Firms Sued for Breaching 3G Patents

25 Tech Firms Sued for Breaching 3G PatentsTechEye points out a case started by Golden Bridge Technology (GBT) which lists 25 tech firms alleged to breach a number of 3G patents. In the case, Golden Bridge Technology (1:11-cv-00165-SLR, U.S. District Court District of Delaware)  GBT alleges the companies have breached patents 6,574,267 B1, and 7,359,427 on standards for 3G wireless communications including devices and base stations. The defendants, the filing says, have refused to license the patents.

GBT said its developments were adopted by 3GPP “as an important and necessary part of the 3G and UMTS standards.” GBT is seeking damages from the defendant’s alleged past and present infringement. All of the defendants, in one way or another, use GBT’s technology, it alleges.

The defendants in the case are:

  1. Amazon (AMZN),
  2. Acer,
  3. Barnes & Noble (BKS),
  4. Deutsche Telekom,
  5. Dell (DELL),
  6. Exedea,
  7. Garmin (GRMN),
  8. Hewlett Packard (HPQ),
  9. HTC,
  10. Huawei,
  11. Lenovo (LNVGY)
  12. LG Electronics,
  13. Novatel (NVTL),
  14. Option NV (OPTI),
  15. Palm,
  16. Panasonic (PCRFY),
  17. Pantech,
  18. Research in Motion (RIMM),
  19. Sharp (SHCAY),
  20. Sierra Wireless (SWIR),
  21. Sony (SNE),
  22. Sony Ericsson,
  23. T-Mobile,
  24. UTStarcom (USTI) and
  25. ZTE (783).

In addition, it wants treble damages against T-Mobile, HTC, LG, Palm, RIM, and Sony Ericsson, and lawyers costs.

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Like I have pointed out, again and again, many firm’s business plans have de-evolved into patent trolling.

Does GBT deserve to collect a tax from every innovator?

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| February 16, 2011
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Big Blue Wants to Patent Patent Trolling

Big Blue Wants to Patent Patent TrollingConceivably Tech reports that IBM (IBM) has filed a patent application with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to automates the management of intellectual property. The system that would manage Big Blue’s intellectual property (and others who could afford IBM’s costs) comes with a “defend” module to formulate a strategy in the case of patent infringement.

IBM logo TechEye says that Big Blue’s patent is designed to automate the patent process from beginning to end including suing other companies that the computer believes are infringing on a copyright. The patent components are divided into a “direct” part, which includes the overall strategy such as R&D, portfolio, filing, budgeting, and forecasting. “Control” covers factors such as market alignment, invention evaluation, IP valuation, and inventor training. “Execute” includes trade secret protection, trademark creation, IP landscaping, technology monitoring, and competitive intelligence. Conceivably Tech quotes the “defend”, “influence” and capitalize modules of the application:

“defending against infringements and invalidations of said IP rights based on said business strategies and monitoring market and competitor actions to develop risk management plans; an influence computer module including a standards influencing unit, a legal and regulatory influencing unit, and a policy influencing unit; and capitalize computer module for identifying potential licensees and potential assignees of said IP rights, and managing licensing negotiations, cross-licensing negotiations, and assignment negotiations based on said business strategies.”

TechEye points out the irony of how the software was created. They point out that an IBMer collected all the experience IBM gained from filing more than 100 patents every week and put the data into a chart. From there Big Blue decided that given the way the IP world is shaping up these days, they should patent IP themselves. Thus IBM has patented the patent process. What they came up with is:

TechEye concludes that IBM’s patent application is really an automated troll. They conclude that if the patent office approves this, then it means that every time you patent something you have to give IBM a fee to see if you did it differently from Big Blue’s process. Otherwise, its software might send you a subpoena.

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This must seem like a god-send to organizations whose business model has de-evolved into patent trolling. Some of these cases I have written about are the CSIRO Wi-Fi patent activities, all the craziness in the smartphone market, and MSFT co-founder Paul Allen’s attempts to sue most of the web.

Gotta give it to IBM, its like TechEye says, “If you can’t beat the trolls, patent the process that creates them.”

Do you believe the U.S. Patent Office is still useful?

Does IBM deserve to collect a tax from every innovator?

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| June 5, 2010
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Aussies Strike Wi-Fi Again

Aussies Strike Wi-Fi AgainAustralia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) has filed suit in the U.S. District Court in Texas again according to an article on :Rethink Wireless. The Aussies have slapped AT&T, (T) T-Mobile, and Verizon (VZ), with patent lawsuits. The Australian science agency, emboldened by its settlements over Wi-Fi patents with Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft is now going after U.S. retailers.

CSIROAccording to the article, patent trolling is a lucrative business, for CSIRO. In 2009 CSIRO brought in about $205m in royalties largely because of a massive out-of-court settlement. CSIRO made a deal with 14 vendors including Microsoft, Intel, Dell, Toshiba, and HP (which I wrote about here). According to CSIRO’s annual report, this settlement helped turn its budgeted deficit of $34.2M into a profit of $122M. The CSIRO now claims 161 active patent licensees. Many licensees are connected to the patent issued in 1996, which CSIRO says includes all 802.11 Wi-Fi products.

Wi-Fi patent trolling plan

ATT logoIn the article, Nigel Poole, executive director in charge of commercialization at CSIRO says this is a deliberate plan. “There’s a legal strategy here that has been thought through very carefully and to a layperson, it looks like a pincer movement. You’ve got court action CSIRO says its proceeds from royalties are invested in new research, and presumably, that could lead to new patents and licensing claims.”

Broadcom and Atheros have counter-sued CSIRO on the behalf of the Wi-Fi industry to have the patent declared invalid.

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Seems the Australians have gotten pretty good at patent trolling. Maybe they can build their entire broadband infrastructure on the backs of U.S. consumers. Too bad the U.S. government didn’t think of this first.

This should be a big test for AT&T. AT&T is testing Wi-Fi data offload for smartphone users by creating a giant pilot Wi-Fi hot zone in New York City’s Times Square. The pilot will offer its mobile broadband customers free access.  It is widely believed that after the pilot AT&T may deploy more hot zones in other areas across the country.

Many of AT&T’s smartphones support auto-authentication at AT&T Wi-Fi Hot Spots. The automation makes it seamless for subscribers to connect to its 21,000 hot spots. AT&T’s Ralph de la Vega has indicated in the past that offloading data traffic onto Wi-Fi would play a large role in curbing its overwhelming data growth.

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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