I was in the middle of one of these 20 years ago. Even then it can drain the life blood , in my case my retirement savings and my job, just getting involved. Make a very long story short:
Inventor A comes to my company. Has a narrow patent . We agree to license it and pay a minimum royalty while we develop it and a gross royalty on sales. All is good.
Then Inventor B steps up with a Patent troll with a very Broad Patent that suggests they invented the entire category. The whole situation screams for a declaratory judgement to invalidate the board claim Patent when I see the prior art.
We get quotes. $70-$100G and a "maybe" on the results. Too Much. We meet with the other side. It was fruitless. At first we agreed in principle on a patent pool with a sharing of the royalties or a cross licensing program so they could "sell" their invention to other manufacturers.
Inventor A approaches me after the meeting just steaming that we didn't have the money to spend on the attorneys to invalidate and tells me that if they get one penny more than he gets, no deal. At that point, I had to trashcan it. The company I worked with was taking all the risk while these guys were fighting over all the profits.
End result, a third company company came in and using NEC engineers got around all of the patents. In addition they had money. 100s of millions. So all three went back to their respective corners. Twenty years later , long after the patents have expired and everyone is old with the testosterone gone. No one can say they made any money on it of any consequence although they are still trying.
We had generated a tremendous interest in the product via preview marketing. That blew the credibility when we failed to deliver. It was a no win situation.
Anything involving a patent fight , means a $1000/hour and someone with the means to fight. I can only guess how many inventions never saw the light of day because of these trolls. I made a vow never to get involved in a IP fight again. Anyone with a patent believes it is there God Given right to a gazillion dollars and F anyone else. That's what opposing patent attorneys want. No binary decision making. All emotion.
The best way to deal with this for those interested in reform is a court administered test before any proceedings. The patent troll must have a commitment to develop the product. If they have never developed a product or set-up a reasonable licensing program, the suit should be summarily dismissed with orders to the patent office to re-examine the patent. If the patent is dismissed the plaintiff must pay all court costs and a significant fine.
The idea that a BS patent has to go through a series of expensive courtroom proceedings to be re-examined and depositions required to garner the intentions of the troll will keep exponentially expanding this until it materially moves the needle on GDP. Then the politicians will get involved and say we must save the Troll Industry. It's a important part of the economy.
That's one way. There are other situations, but court ordered testing of the plaintiffs intentions regarding their IP, should be required. That may stop these before they get started and take the profit out of the troll business.
They let the banksters go free because the FBI claimed that all it's resources were aimed at terrorism (Yeah Right and who funds them?) and now they are spending millions to protect bullshit copyrights?
Daddario primarily makes guitar strings. There is nothing more profitable in the MI ( Music Instrument) industry than Instrument strings. Once they get past the capitalized costs of automation (that shark was jumped years and years ago) , they not only make strings for their brand but for numerous other brands too. 1000 Employees at 150 Million in sales averages out to $150,000 per employee in sales. We also are assuming all of them are located in the US too.
With gross profit margins up there with big Pharma and Software companies, the $750,000 dollars that Jim was bitterly complaining about is a tiny drop in the pre-tax profit bucket. I'd be real curious to see what the production employees average pay is, then see what the C-Suite pay is along with dividends to the entire Daddario family.
This is just one more company who uses connections to the govt to socialize the losses and privatize the profits. By having homeland security and other agencies go after the domain squatters he has pushed the cost of defending his trademark onto the taxpayer. That's par for the course these days.
Don't let the "poor ol me, small company" line fool people. They have probably announced a price increase that more than covers actual costs and "reserves which increases the tax deductions. They'll shift the deductible into another category like the catch all line called R&D as the prices stay elevated.
The problem with private companies is, one never sees how much BS is going on. $750,000 is exactly 1/2 of 1% of gross sales. You can bet prices went up to cover it and a whole lot more.
Having been through some minor patent battles as the check signer and decision maker, it gives me a pain to think that the validity of a patent is almost wholly dependant on how much money someone has to throw at it. This is when being right means being wrong.
Inevitably, small inventors are at an extreme disadvantage as are small companies when the other side is either being bankrolled by big money or it's a big busin4ess that is trying to keep a broad crappy patent alive and well by virtue of money. Often, Bankruptcy is a direct or indirect consequence of such a lopsided playing feild.
As a result, the first adjustment they should make , is how to monetarily even the playing feild when a patent dispute arises. Money should never define the validity or invalidity of a patent.
The rest is mildly interesting but it's not even close to the crux of the real problem which ultimately holds down all kinds of innovation which we desperately need right now.
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Small Companies get flattened
I was in the middle of one of these 20 years ago. Even then it can drain the life blood , in my case my retirement savings and my job, just getting involved. Make a very long story short:
Inventor A comes to my company. Has a narrow patent . We agree to license it and pay a minimum royalty while we develop it and a gross royalty on sales. All is good.
Then Inventor B steps up with a Patent troll with a very Broad Patent that suggests they invented the entire category. The whole situation screams for a declaratory judgement to invalidate the board claim Patent when I see the prior art.
We get quotes. $70-$100G and a "maybe" on the results. Too Much. We meet with the other side. It was fruitless. At first we agreed in principle on a patent pool with a sharing of the royalties or a cross licensing program so they could "sell" their invention to other manufacturers.
Inventor A approaches me after the meeting just steaming that we didn't have the money to spend on the attorneys to invalidate and tells me that if they get one penny more than he gets, no deal. At that point, I had to trashcan it. The company I worked with was taking all the risk while these guys were fighting over all the profits.
End result, a third company company came in and using NEC engineers got around all of the patents. In addition they had money. 100s of millions. So all three went back to their respective corners. Twenty years later , long after the patents have expired and everyone is old with the testosterone gone. No one can say they made any money on it of any consequence although they are still trying.
We had generated a tremendous interest in the product via preview marketing. That blew the credibility when we failed to deliver. It was a no win situation.
Anything involving a patent fight , means a $1000/hour and someone with the means to fight. I can only guess how many inventions never saw the light of day because of these trolls. I made a vow never to get involved in a IP fight again. Anyone with a patent believes it is there God Given right to a gazillion dollars and F anyone else. That's what opposing patent attorneys want. No binary decision making. All emotion.
The best way to deal with this for those interested in reform is a court administered test before any proceedings. The patent troll must have a commitment to develop the product. If they have never developed a product or set-up a reasonable licensing program, the suit should be summarily dismissed with orders to the patent office to re-examine the patent. If the patent is dismissed the plaintiff must pay all court costs and a significant fine.
The idea that a BS patent has to go through a series of expensive courtroom proceedings to be re-examined and depositions required to garner the intentions of the troll will keep exponentially expanding this until it materially moves the needle on GDP. Then the politicians will get involved and say we must save the Troll Industry. It's a important part of the economy.
That's one way. There are other situations, but court ordered testing of the plaintiffs intentions regarding their IP, should be required. That may stop these before they get started and take the profit out of the troll business.
Ya gotta be shittin ' me
They let the banksters go free because the FBI claimed that all it's resources were aimed at terrorism (Yeah Right and who funds them?) and now they are spending millions to protect bullshit copyrights?
This country is going down hard
Daddario
Daddario primarily makes guitar strings. There is nothing more profitable in the MI ( Music Instrument) industry than Instrument strings. Once they get past the capitalized costs of automation (that shark was jumped years and years ago) , they not only make strings for their brand but for numerous other brands too. 1000 Employees at 150 Million in sales averages out to $150,000 per employee in sales. We also are assuming all of them are located in the US too.
With gross profit margins up there with big Pharma and Software companies, the $750,000 dollars that Jim was bitterly complaining about is a tiny drop in the pre-tax profit bucket. I'd be real curious to see what the production employees average pay is, then see what the C-Suite pay is along with dividends to the entire Daddario family.
This is just one more company who uses connections to the govt to socialize the losses and privatize the profits. By having homeland security and other agencies go after the domain squatters he has pushed the cost of defending his trademark onto the taxpayer. That's par for the course these days.
Don't let the "poor ol me, small company" line fool people. They have probably announced a price increase that more than covers actual costs and "reserves which increases the tax deductions. They'll shift the deductible into another category like the catch all line called R&D as the prices stay elevated.
The problem with private companies is, one never sees how much BS is going on. $750,000 is exactly 1/2 of 1% of gross sales. You can bet prices went up to cover it and a whole lot more.
Money
Having been through some minor patent battles as the check signer and decision maker, it gives me a pain to think that the validity of a patent is almost wholly dependant on how much money someone has to throw at it. This is when being right means being wrong.
Inevitably, small inventors are at an extreme disadvantage as are small companies when the other side is either being bankrolled by big money or it's a big busin4ess that is trying to keep a broad crappy patent alive and well by virtue of money. Often, Bankruptcy is a direct or indirect consequence of such a lopsided playing feild.
As a result, the first adjustment they should make , is how to monetarily even the playing feild when a patent dispute arises. Money should never define the validity or invalidity of a patent.
The rest is mildly interesting but it's not even close to the crux of the real problem which ultimately holds down all kinds of innovation which we desperately need right now.