Biggest patent troll of 2014 gives up, drops appeal

Under the American rule (as opposed to the English rule) loser pays is very rare. Specifically for patents the law only authorizes them in "exceptional cases". In this case they were ordered for filing numerous frivolous lawsuits. Nothing in the scenario you outlined suggests anything exceptional. Defendants are allowed to defend themselves.

If a court finds a defendant meets this high burden as to the plaintiff's actions, then yes I think the real parties in interest behind the corporate veil should be on the hook. What's the alternative? That defendants who were the victims of frivolous lawsuits have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars out of their own pockets? Who knows what assets had to be sold to raise that money or whose livelihood was destroyed? How is that an equitable outcome?

We also do not want what we have now - where you can sue with impunity as a patent troll as a means for profit. Because you cannot hold individuals liable for their businesses, people can exploit that loophole for profit.

But what you touch on is a more fundamental issue that the "justice" system in the US is more often than not a competition between who has the most money on hand, and as a means for lawyers to profit generously, rather than anything righteous or just.

It would be nice if it only applies to scummy patent holding shell companies though!

It's a great system in commonwealth countries. It discourages litigation from larger companies precisely because the judge has discretion to award costs. In some cases the judge can even award in favour of the plaintiff, and then award costs against them as well. Yes - you should want this.

Only for litigation they initiate.

You can't limit the liability on penalties for breaking laws.

Some laws are clear and unambiguous, for example no one uses a corporation to shield themselves from a murder investigation.

Others laws can be fuzzier, like the laws that separate harassment and real intellectual property lawsuits.

Watched a National Geographic "American Genius" episode that covered the Farnsworth/Sarnoff TV saga.

I read the paper, thanks. It is mostly concerned with events from 1916 on. The Wrights had earlier demanded and gotten 20% royalties, and had a history of liberally and repeatedly suing other aircraft manufacturers. It is also pretty clear, despite the paper's claims, that the leaders in manufacturing and innovation were in Europe.

Note also that current patent litigation hasn't exactly retarded the computer industry, but it has imposed huge costs on it, and it's hard to see any evidence that such patents have promoted the arts and sciences in any way.

Absolutely. James Watt didn't invent steam engine but came up with an innovative design that gave him a big advantage. He based this on other, unpatented, technologies. Then he sued the living day lights out of all his competitors and if argue prevented innovation for years.

That has been shown to be a myth as well: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1589712

Yes, just googling "small plaintiff ip case" brought up one example: https://www.iplitigationcurrent.com/2014/10/08/attorneys-fee...

Not sure why you ask though. Are you getting at that looking out for small plaintiffs is a waste of time if they never win anyways? Because I don't think that's a good road to go down.

To address your last point, defamation is something that has to be proven in the US, and the standards for it are quite high (compared to the UK, for example, at least). A defendant can't attempt to argue and prove damages caused by the plaintiff without filing a countersuit, so I'm not sure how courts could go about handing out "yellow cards."

Why is this downvoted? Copyright and patents are two completely separate things.

> Wish we could do this for extending Copyrights so that Disney

I am saying I wish a court could just make rulings on copyrights.

http://artlawjournal.com/mickey-mouse-keeps-changing-copyrig...

a fitting coincidence for this joke of a patent. /imo

The claims establish the legal bounds of a patent, however, they must be read in light of what is disclosed in the specifications. The enforceable scope of this patent is fairly limited.

Good note, thanks for the warning. My quote is the patent applicant's summary of its invention and so worth taking with a large side of salt. I'm far from an expert but my interest has been piqued.

Reviewing the document after this note, I would say that the claims[1] themselves seem more vague than the diagrams suggest, but refer to the diagrams. Taken together the claims and diagrams referenced therein suggest a specific device, but the claims taken alone could equally apply to a much broader set of possible devices, which are nonetheless at least superficially distinct from the traditional tin-can walkie talkie. However, the nesting configuration does not seem to be covered by the claims explicitly, though it is illustrated in the diagrams.

If the claims irrespective of any referenced figures compose the whole of the patent, then it would seem that this patent took the general idea of a tin can walkie talkie and added a couple very straightforward practical construction considerations to obtain a patent that covers a large chunk of the possible ways you would want to go about mass producing a tin can walkie talkie inspired device. To wit, the claims seems mostly descriptive of a tin can-style walkie talkie with notches cut into the lip surrounding the diaphragm, then limited to more common modern mass production materials including poly resins, paper, and plastic. That is pretty broad without bringing significant innovation to the idea (unless I'm missing other nuances in the claims that make the invention described distinct from the platonic idea of a tin can walkie talkie other than the notches and the material).

If on the other hand, the specifics set out in the figures add restrictions to what is covered by the patent, i.e. if the patent doesn't cover items which could be construed to hold to the text of the claims, as long as they substantially diverge from the specifics of the figures, then the patent seems fairly specific.

I would be interested in any commentary on whether the figures are purely illustrative or if they actually add specificity apart from the text of the claims that further restricts the scope of the patent. Given the comment I'm responding to, I'm guessing that they are purely illustrative, which in this case seems to mean completely misleading since a more accurate illustration of the 'innovation' would be a tin can with notches in the lip surrounding the intact end of the can along with a note "not made out of tin", more or less.

[1] The claims:

1. A device for communicating comprising a flat base and a hollow frustum integral therewith and extending outwardly therefrom, retaining means at the smaller end of said frustum, a discrete diaphragm complementary in shape to said smaller end of said frustum and held thereagainst by said retaining means, and means for connecting a string between a pair of said diaphragms, whereby when a string between two diaphragms is under tension conversation into one device is transmit ted via the string to the other device.

2. The device set forth in claim 1, wherein the intersection between said base and said frustum is oval.

3.The device set forth in claim 1, wherein said resilient retaining means includes an inwardly facing flange at the smaller end of said frustum with a plurality of tabs spaced therefrom and integral therewith.

4. The device set forth in claim 3, wherein there are tabs spaced equidistantly around the periphery of said flange and spaced therefrom to define four undercuts therebetween.

5. The device set forth in claim 1, wherein said connecting means is spaced apart apertures in said diaphragm.

6-9 just cover suitable materials