Columbia Professor Latest To Go On The Patent Offensive

from the very-offensive dept

Over the last year or so, we've seen two disturbing trends in enforcing patents. The first, is seeing patent holders suing a bunch of companies at once rather than just one or two, as used to be standard. They do this because they fear that some type of patent reform is coming, either via Congress or the courts. So they want to get as many patent suits in as quickly as possible. The second trend is that, rather than taking patent infringement cases through the court system (which is bound by the recent precedents set by the Supreme Court that loosen patent rules), they use a loophole: taking patent infringement claims to the US International Trade Commission (ITC). The ITC has the authority, if it believes that infringement occurs, to block the import of infringing goods. The ITC doesn't need to pay attention to what the courts say, and doesn't need to wait for the USPTO to review a patent. It can simply decide infringement occurred and ban the import of the goods. This is, effectively, the equivalent of an injunction against the product (just the sort of thing the Supreme Court said should be used more cautiously).

A Columbia professor has now picked up on both of these trends, getting the ITC to investigate 30 companies for violating her patents on LED and laser technologies. Among the companies investigated: Sony, LG Electronics, Hitachi, Toshiba, Panasonic, Motorola, Nokia, Pioneer, and Samsung. Whether or not these patents turn out to be valid, it's a cheap tactic to use the ITC rather than going to the courts to fight this battle.

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'Open DRM' Is Snake-oil

from the oxymoron dept

A Pioneer spin-off called SyncTV has launched. Consumers will apparently be able to subscribe to "channels" of content, and eventually you'll be able to play those channels on a variety of devices around the home, as well as portable devices. So far, it looks like little more than vaporware, as their public website doesn't have any real details about pricing, supported devices, etc. What really irritates me about the coverage of the launch is the description of Marlin as an "open-source DRM system." This phrase is a contradiction in terms, and anyone who claims their DRM scheme is open source, or based on open standards, is either confused or trying to mislead. For a product to be considered open source, not only must the source code be publicly available, but there can't be any legal restrictions on the modification and re-distribution of the product. On the other hand, DRM works by ensuring that approved devices won't perform certain operations, such as converting content to an unencrypted format. The two sets of requirements obviously can't be reconciled. SyncTV's site phrases things slightly differently, describing its platform as "completely based on open standards." But this, too, is deceptive. An open standard is one that anyone is free to implement without asking for permission. HTML is an open standard: you don't need a license from the W3C to create a new web browser. On the other hand, a DRM scheme requires a licensing authority to verify that each new device to verify that it complies with the rules of the DRM scheme. And we've seen incumbents use this approval process (and the DMCA, which gives it the force of law) to squash innovative competitors that threaten their business models. Marlin could turn out to be marginally better than some existing DRM schemes if it employs less restrictive licensing terms. But it's still a DRM scheme, and that means there's nothing "open" about it.

Timothy Lee is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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