Techdirt. Stories filed under "invalid" Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us Techdirt. Stories filed under "invalid"http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Thu, 13 Sep 2012 14:34:00 PDT University Of California Won't Give Up: Sues Facebook Over Already Rejected Patents Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120913/11135120376/university-california-wont-give-up-sues-facebook-over-already-rejected-patents.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120913/11135120376/university-california-wont-give-up-sues-facebook-over-already-rejected-patents.shtml decade at this point. It's a trolling operation connected to the University of California, and used to take some ridiculously broad patents and try to shake down companies who actually innovated and did incredibly obvious things on the internet. Eolas' various lawsuits had gone back and forth over the years, and finally, earlier this year, a jury in East Texas (surprisingly) invalidated some of the key patents.

This summer, the judge in the case agreed that the key patents were invalid. Eolas had ridiculously tried to argue that the fact that some other companies had previously licensed the patents should have been shared with the jury to prove the "validity" of the patents. Of course, that's ridiculous on its face as trolls often convince companies to license bogus patents because it's cheaper to settle and license than to fight a bad patent lawsuit (even if you win). Of course, the judge blasted Eolas over this desire... because earlier in the case, Eolas had specifically argued that the jury shouldn't be allowed to know of Eolas' previous "business success or failure." Basically, Eolas didn't want the jury to know it was a troll without any real business. However, as the judge realized, Eolas can't hide that bit of info and then want the jury to have this other bit of info from its past.

Thus, for all intents and purposes it seemed that those two key patents -- 5,838,906 and 7,599,985 -- were effectively dead.

So it was a bit of a surprise to find out that Eolas/University of California has now sued Facebook, Disney and Wal-mart over those same patents (and a couple others). Apparently, Cal and Eolas figure that if they just keep suing, maybe one of these times they'll win.

What's really amazing is that this scorched earth, anti-innovation effort hasn't created more backlash for the University of California, and Berkeley in particular, given its proximity to Silicon Valley. You'd think that alums of the University who work at the various innovative tech companies that keep getting sued would speak out against their alma mater. It's pretty sad to see the University of California trying to set up a tollbooth on innovation by using such ridiculous patents.

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]]> they-won't-give-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120913/11135120376 Mon, 29 Mar 2010 15:13:45 PDT Judge: Gene Patents Are Invalid Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100329/1506458769.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100329/1506458769.shtml huge ruling, U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet has said that gene patents are invalid. As you may recall, last May, the ACLU was the first to finally challenge whether or not genes could be patented. There was a lot of back and forth over the case, with many saying that a ruling against gene patents would throw a wrench into the business plans of many companies, because so many biotech/medical companies have been relying on the idea that gene patents must be valid for so long. But just because many companies relied on a mistaken understanding of patent law, doesn't mean that it should be allowed to continue. The judge made the point clear when it came to gene patents, saying that they:
"are directed to a law of nature and were therefore improperly granted."
The case was brought against Myriad Genetics, who will surely appeal, so this is nowhere close to over. But it involved a test for breast cancer, that Myriad basically had a monopoly over -- and the claim was that this not only made it more difficult for women to get tested, but it also greatly discouraged other research in the field. In part, this was because the patents that Myriad held were incredibly broad.

Patents, of course, are not supposed to be granted on things found in in nature -- and it's hard to argue against the idea that genes are found in nature. Supporters of gene patents often claim that they're not really gene patents, but a patent on identifying the gene, which is a nice semantic game that the judge clearly saw through. This is a huge step forward for encouraging more real research into genetic testing, rather than locking up important information.

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]]> huge-news http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100329/1506458769 Thu, 1 Oct 2009 23:42:00 PDT Court Invalidates Key Patent Claims In Acacia's Streaming Media Patent Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091001/0211456380.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091001/0211456380.shtml patent busting project keeps on seeing success -- even if it's taking forever. The number one patent on the list was Acacia's streaming media patent, that was brought to court more than six years ago, basically going after anyone who did online streaming media. Acacia, of course, is one of the biggest and most well known of the patent hoarding firms that started getting lots of attention earlier this decade (the company now often tries to hide patents in shell companies, since the Acacia name is now so closely associated with "patent troll"). With this patent, Acacia was especially sneaky, in that it started by going after porn sites, figuring they wouldn't want to fight back.

Either way, a district court has just tossed out the 10 claims that it was asserting in its lawsuit against cable and satellite TV providers, claiming that they're all invalid. The EFF doesn't get credit for this one, since it wasn't through a USPTO patent review process, the overall impact is the same. For all intents and purposes, the parts of this patent that were being asserted against so many companies have been declared invalid. It doesn't change the fact that tons of companies have spent years and years fighting it and paying legal fees, but that's our patent system for you. Encouraging "innovation" the same way the mob encourages "safe neighborhoods."

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]]> down-goes-another-one http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20091001/0211456380 Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:16:00 PDT Court Strikes Down Blackboard E-Learning Patent Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090728/0233445678.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090728/0233445678.shtml suing others. After a lot of controversy, the company agreed not to sue open source e-learning companies, but everyone else was fair game. The only problem? The patent was almost certainly ridiculous, and numerous thorough breakdowns of the patent raised serious questions about how it ever was approved in the first place. But, of course, the process of invalidating a patent is notoriously slow, and a company can cause lots of trouble in the meantime. In Blackboard's case, it went after competitor Desire2Learn.

Even as the Patent Office realized it needed to rethink the patent, the lawsuit moved forward, with Blackboard scoring a win. Of course, just weeks later, the USPTO gave an initial rejection of the patent. The original court ruling was (of course) appealed (separate from the USPTO ruling), and the good news is that the appeals court has dumped the entire patent. Only took a few years and millions of dollars wasted in legal fees for Desire2Learn. Too bad such money couldn't have gone towards actually improving e-learning. In the meantime, why doesn't anyone ask how such a patent got approved in the first place?

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]]> took-'em-long-enough http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20090728/0233445678