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  fogbugzd (profile), Oct 6th, 2011 @ 2:45pm

  
  

  Google bought Motorala in large part because it gave them a war chest of patents to defend themselves against other cell phone OS producers such as Apple and Microsoft.
  
  Unfortunately that type of defense is useless against patent trolls because non-producing entities by definition don't produce anything Motorola/Google can counter sue for. All IV has to do is keep throwing weak patents against the wall until a judge in East Texas lets one stick.
  
  Getting a worthless patent or two invalidated doesn't really matter to IV because they have a lot more worthless patents to draw on. The real danger that they face is making enough big companies like Google mad at them that software patents get tossed out as invalid.

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  :Lobo Santo (profile), Oct 6th, 2011 @ 2:57pm

  
  

  Re: Pish

  Two Words: Ninja Attorneys.
  
  I heard a rumor from an allegedly reliable source that the Googster totes has a couple Ninja Attorneys on retainer. If those guys(?) get the case, IVy-trollingston will not only lose, it will Quake (or is that Doom?) in fear!! (mwa-hahahahahah!)
  
  So... yeah, no worries.

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  The eejit (profile), Oct 7th, 2011 @ 6:11am

  
  

  Re: Re: Pish

  Then we will see id RAGE from IV. Or is that on IV?

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  Anonymous Coward, Oct 6th, 2011 @ 6:07pm

  
  

  Re:

  Guess who's running IV? A former Microsoft executive. So is it a coincidence that now IV is suing Motorola/Google? I think not. IV seems to be Microsoft's patent troll division that they'll probably use more often from now on, against other companies, too so they stay "clean".

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  Sean T Henry (profile), Oct 7th, 2011 @ 5:49am

  
  

  Re:

  Google should start asking for the patents at hand in lieu of payment for fees by companies that do not produce anything. This way they will get "paid" instead of the company disappearing leaving the bill with the willing company.

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  Bwendo (profile), Oct 6th, 2011 @ 2:54pm

  
  

  Patents

  Flooding the market with so many patents as to make any case unworkable is part of the tactic too.
  So contenders give up before even trying.

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  Anonymous Coward, Oct 6th, 2011 @ 10:40pm

  
  

  Re: Patents

  if you try, in even the slightest way, you can find a previous patent or prior art. it just take a ton of money to defend.

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  Sean T Henry (profile), Oct 7th, 2011 @ 6:10am

  
  

  Re: Re: Patents

  6,412,953: Illumination device and image projection apparatus comprising the device
  Candle and hands - a device to projecting an image on a wall
  
  7,810,144: File transfer system for direct transfer between computers
  Luckly computers do not directly transfer files to each other they have something between them be it a router, media, or component in the computer but not the computer its self.

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  Anonymous Coward, Oct 6th, 2011 @ 3:08pm

  
  

  Thank God Judge Ward retired 5 days ago (in East Texas).

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  Anonymous Coward, Oct 6th, 2011 @ 3:09pm

  
  

  Re:

  That's bigger news than this article.

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  Richard (profile), Oct 6th, 2011 @ 3:31pm

  
  

  Intellectual Vultures

  Why is it that I always read their name this way?

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  Anonymous Coward, Oct 6th, 2011 @ 3:54pm

  
  

  Re: Intellectual Vultures

  cognitive bias?

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  fogbugzd (profile), Oct 6th, 2011 @ 5:58pm

  
  

  Re: Re: Intellectual Vultures

  >>cognitive bias?
  
  Quite possibly, but honestly it is good to see the trolls come back to Capistrano. I was worried by the lack of trolling lately.
  
  I think we really do need to trolls. I prefer the higher quality trolls that actually make valid points. They contribute to the quality of the discussion. I even value the feeble trolls that have dominated the traffic lately. Even the mindless and feeble trolls let us know that xPAA takes TD as enough of a threat that they are willing to give us some attention.

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  Austin (profile), Oct 6th, 2011 @ 4:37pm

  
  

  In layman's terms...

  The patents are for...
  
  - FTP, SAMBA, HTTP, SFTP, or even just a damn USB cable
  - Projectors. Any kind of projector.
  - Wifi routers. All of them.
  - Any and every smartphone that includes a cradle or dock.
  - The Apple App Store, the Android Market, Synaptic on Linux, any other "app store"
  - Dropbox, the cloud in general.
  
  Isn't there supposed to be some sort of test for, yanno, obviousness? Shouldn't ALL of these patents FAIL that test? Or prior art? Or just the "you've got to be shitting me" test in general?
  
  I mean nevermind the lawsuit. Hell, nevermind the bad patents. In this case, if one patent examiner approved more than one of these patents, someone needs to either fire him, or move the examiner out of his cave to a new residence that has electricity. Seriously, half the issue here is the village IDIOTS working in the USPTO who couldn't take a 10-second glance at this (as I did) and see how blatantly obvious it is that these are BAD PATENTS and SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN GRANTED TO BEGIN WITH! To anyone! Ever!

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  Anonymous Coward, Oct 6th, 2011 @ 6:11pm

  
  

  Re: In layman's terms...

  I think the problem is that they get paid for patent ACCEPTED, so that's an incentive to accept as many as possible. They should change the system so they get paid for patents REJECTED.

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  Anonymous Coward, Oct 6th, 2011 @ 7:34pm

  
  

  Re: In layman's terms...

  You are talking about a place where they approve patents on toast.
  
  What did you really expect?

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  Anonymous Coward, Oct 6th, 2011 @ 7:35pm

  
  

  Re: In layman's terms...

  http://www.google.com/patents/about/6080436_Bread_refreshing_method.html?id=IpwDAAAAEBAJ

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  Anonymous Coward, Oct 6th, 2011 @ 6:57pm

  
  

  If tech companies hate [software/obvious hardware/etc] patents so much, why don't they all contribute to a fund that lobbies to eradicate them?
  
  Surely this is a better long term strategy than continually wasting time year-over-year on these patent wars...
  
  These companies are flush with cash, I'm pretty sure if say only ~50 of these companies contributed money to a generic fund this would not be shareholder-revolted.

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  Anonymous Coward, Oct 6th, 2011 @ 7:01pm

  
  

  Re:

  Publicly they might say they want patent reform. But the major players, the ones run mostly by lawyers, would rather the patent system get worse as long as they can say on top of the pile. They're only paying lipservice till they can tighten the noose around FOSS.

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  illuminaut (profile), Oct 6th, 2011 @ 7:40pm

  
  

  Re: Re:

  The problem is more that while a software-patent free world might work out better for them long-term, the short-term consequences would be unpredictable and risky. If you're used to think in terms of fiscal years it's an unacceptable risk to take.

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