Patent Troll Wins Again
from the open-that-cash-register dept
Just last month, we wrote about the patent challenge to Forgent’s patent that they believe covers JPEG compression. Remember, this is a company that had this random patent sitting around for many years, that they did absolutely nothing with. It was only a few years ago (just as the patent was getting close to expiring) that they realized that the patent might cover JPEG image compression. Realize that this company had absolutely nothing to do with the success of JPEGs, and actual JPEG technology was developed entirely without using these patents. Forgent just happened to notice that they had some patent no one really had noticed that sort of covered the same stuff — and they saw it as a cash register. So far, it’s worked. It’s often such a pain to fight these patent lawsuits that it’s easier to just pay the troll to leave them alone. That appears to be what’s happening now with Yahoo, who has agreed to pay Forgent, adding to the over $100 million the company has squeezed out of this patent. So how does this encourage innovation? It’s rewarding a company that had nothing to do with the technology creation or its ongoing success. Instead, even the company admits it’s a “lottery ticket.” It’s hard to see how this encourages anything other than patent hoarding.
Comments on “Patent Troll Wins Again”
No Subject Given
Sofware patents don’t encourage innovation. I should be able to write any software I want without worrying if someone else already patented that idea. If I can do it better, then I should be able to compete. Software patents discourage competition which is what leads to a healthy vibrant economy. Instead patents create unnatural monopolies. They cost the country billions of dollars that could be spent on Research & Development instead.
Re: No Subject Given
Let’s suppose a brilliant systems software engineer uses a few visionary tricks to pull together some concepts in software (R&D) – and pays to get the patent. Then a big company, much later on, merely copies it and literally makes billions of dollars, where they would not have. The guy who thought of it is left with nothing but maybe has the better thought-genes. The big bully with all the bucks just gets that much richer… Nah – the patent should hold to help survival of the better genes, not survival of the bigger bucks, then there is more likelihood of more forward-thinking ideas in the future.
If you personally paid for all that R&D and then had it stolen by just someone copying – wouldn’t you want to have patent protection? Because companies would not spend tons on R&D without IP protection your statements seem hypocritical…
Re: Re: No Subject Given
I’m afraid you’re setting up a specific situation and leaving out many of the details.
Let’s suppose a brilliant systems software engineer uses a few visionary tricks to pull together some concepts in software (R&D) – and pays to get the patent. Then a big company, much later on, merely copies it and literally makes billions of dollars, where they would not have. The guy who thought of it is left with nothing but maybe has the better thought-genes. The big bully with all the bucks just gets that much richer…
First off… how did the big company find out about it in the first place? Was the brilliant engineer successful in building a product and bringing it to market?
If you personally paid for all that R&D and then had it stolen by just someone copying – wouldn’t you want to have patent protection? Because companies would not spend tons on R&D without IP protection your statements seem hypocritical…
The idea that companies wouldn’t spend on R&D without patent protection is a myth. Just look at history. Not even very far back history. In Italy, for example, the patent system didn’t cover pharmaceuticals until the late 70s. Up until then, Italy had a thriving pharmaceutical industry, with plenty of new drugs being introduced. It was the fifth largest pharma industry in the world, and it worked because the firms kept investing in R&D and new products to stay ahead of the competition.
Then what happened? In 1978 pharma patents came to Italy and the industry practically disappeared, because the incentive was gone to invest in new drugs.
So, stop believing the myth and start looking at the reality.
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I really believe that the entire patent system needs to be redesigned from the ground up so things like this cannot happen.
No Subject Given
We need to “educate” non-techies about the dangers and costs of software patents. And lobby congress for patent-reform and ideally the elimination of software-patents.
Uhm what?
I was under the impression that it was illegal to patent or copyright any naturally occurring or mathematical algorithm… How is this working? The LZ compression scheme used in GIFs “requires a license” which is also illegal.
Re: Uhm what?
I was under the impression that it was illegal to patent or copyright any naturally occurring or mathematical algorithm… How is this working? The LZ compression scheme used in GIFs “requires a license” which is also illegal.
It is legal, however, to patent a process and an application. So while one would not be able to patent an algorithm, one could (and did) patent the process of applying that alogorithm to computer stored graphical files.
It should also be noted that the GIF patent has now expired, so anyone can use it without fear of anyone else.
No Subject Given
SO, you buy a house and decide to rent it. You should have no right to charge money for it because you had absolutely nothing to do with building it.
Re: No Subject Given
Of course that argument given (house-rent) is completely absurd and has nothing to do with the issue at hand.
Other than that, great point!
Re: Re: No Subject Given
if people exploited patents this way 100 years ago, we would be behind technologically about 99 years
Re: No Subject Given
No, but the original owner did have something to do with building it. He either contracted someone to build it or built it himself. Then when you bought the house, the rights to charge for rent were transferred with you.
Your analogy doesn’t hold for other reasons, as well. Patents are meant to give people a reason to innovate. This is hardly innovation at work.
Re: No Subject Given
Physical Property differs from Intellectual Property.
Most of Microsoft IP was stolen. If you steal IP, do you really own it?
Re: No Subject Given
SO, you buy a house and decide to rent it. You should have no right to charge money for it because you had absolutely nothing to do with building it.
Hurray for red herrings and bad analogies. As we’ve pointed out before, there’s a huge difference between owning a tangible thing and an “idea.” Not only that, but owning a house means managing the continue market for that house. That’s not what’s happening here. Forgent has nothing to do with the market for JPEGs. They just suddenly claimed they owned it.
This would be more like you owning a house and renting it out for a while, and then someone else suddenly showing up and saying that they have some other ownership rights for the land, and that you need to pay them a fee to keep renting it out — even though they don’t actually own the house or the land.
Re: Re: No Subject Given
If the government insists on granting patents on software, then we must insist that the holder of the patent be required to use, license and/or enforce the patent within a very short time frame (say one or two years) to maintain the full life of the patent, otherwise the patent expires.
Re: Re: Re: No Subject Given
I agree. The name sort of cybersquatting requirements should be applied to patents. If you patent something and then make no effort to use the patent other than to block others, you should risk losing the patent. I also think that cost of patent creation should be a factor too. If my only cost was the fee of filing a patent application, how much should I be able to reap in licensing fees?
Re: Re: No Subject Given
I feel that the analogy is missing the point not just in the tangibility of goods, but because software patents are on ideas and processes that are incredibly obvious.
If someone pantented renting out a house and then told you that you couldn’t rent your house. That would be anagelous to the situation with software patents.
Re: Re: Patents in the house
Not that it matters, but there are tens of thousands of patents involved in building the house, from the tools, the appliances, the fixtures, even the design of the windows and fasteners. I guess it could be argued that houses would be cheaper without all those intellectual property encomberances, however I doubt the companies who made all products would be successful, since every single item could be copied and sold for cheaper, since the cost of innovation would be out of the equation. Having born the cost of innovation, the originating companies would have been unable to compete on price.
No Subject Given
These software patends are draining the countries talent pool. What is it going to take to get some reform here? Clearly the threat of switching off all Government Blackberries isnt enough. Maybe onve India and China get the hang of the US Patnet system they will be able to file a few thousand per week and follow up with enough law suits to stifle US innovation altogether. Maybe then we will se some reform.
Re: No Subject Given
“Clearly the threat of switching off all Government Blackberries isnt enough”
There is no threat of switching off government blackberrys because they will be exempt from any court order that shuts down the Blackberry network. If there was a real threat, then it is concievable that the government would get involved, something NTP and other patent trolls do not want.