Patent troll asks judge to turn off FaceTime and iMessages

Most users would probably blame Apple for being so careless with how they implemented their feature set... and then they would install Google Duo[1]

[1]http://www.androidcentral.com/duo-googles-attempt-most-human...

/sarcasm

Then start with fining large corporations who each hold numerous patents that do not ship a corresponding "viable product" for.

Patents are much like little pieces of law. And we can either believe in law in its entirety or ignore it whatsoever. I choose the former. If someone uses and abuses exceptions and loopholes in the law, the problem is with the law, not person using that to their advantage.

A patent troll typical incorporates a vehicle and often they are public. This limits their risk as they are not opened to lawsuites (as many companies) but in cases of partnerships it is sometimes possible to target the partners themselves. When they take what is essentially a SPAC[1] public, it is likely only insiders invest. They must disclose their assets and thus, the "portfolio" is what is taken public. Even outside investors are likley either people contributing patents, banks/fin inst. with knowledge of space/lawyers/esecutives executing strategy. This extremely high level of consolidation would make it much easier to manipulate their share price. This is some of what I suggested above. Either during the IPO, in the media, or during trading trying to negatively impact patent trolls to disuade them from existing. What I suggested orignally may not be the correct strategy, but the thought was that it could be possible and very situationally, cooperate in a market as consolidated as this to make the cost of trolling so high that it would be unprofitable or very risky, ideally legislation/patent reform would fix these problems but this would be the patch.

This would be a combination of hostile takeovers of companies, buying and open sourcing patents, and actively trying to make the risk and cost of capital so high, or an executives failure so humiliating there would be less people trying to raise, and the difficuly would go up substantially.

Obviously, massive market coordination would be very difficult, but it is considerably easier to do this if a company is neccessarily consolidated as (I suspect) trolls might be, given they aren't real companies and are quite niche.

Another possible benefit is that if a patent troll tried to dump a portfolio into another shell after a loss, or otherwise do something negative, a minority stake could bring lawsuits against the individual person. For example, a group of 10 troll execs would not think twice about started an identical company and moving assets packages there. If you were a shareholder of a real company, you wouldn't give away a lot of "IP" for free but they can, as they pass it to themselves or partners.

A minority, but legal sharholder, could sue the individual executives for breach of fiduciary responsibiltiy and other than raising the risk financially, personal individuals could face risk if not operating 100% above board.

[1] Special Purpose Acquision Vehicle

edit; Also, being inside would allow information to be accessed about internals. Outside investors could be found and outed (if actual entities) and tried in the media. E.G. if a hedge fund or firm had money in, they would be outed and scandalized for hampering innovation and PE & VC funds would refuse(if possible) their investments in future funds if they continued to fund such poor investments. A logical argument could be made to such hedgefunds as well, that it is possible for a risky mediocre return from a patent troll, they may actually cause damage to their own portfolio if one company is in the ecosystem or directly affected by a PT>

Apple could buy the troll suing it hundreds of times over(although assuredly it isn't for sale now) so patent trolling could be limited if they were stopped within the mareket. It is already a risky investment as they must litigate smaller companies to prove the patents as they gain the crediblity to go after larger ones.

Small companies are fighting them in court, big companies are fighting them in court, it makes sense that we take the fight to the market, and hurt them financially as well.

Would that be Nortel / Rockster Consortium approach? Sadly, big companies will be tempted to 'monetize' the patents and/or use them as a competitive advantage: and both are enforced via litigation. I supposed being sued by a big tech company rather than a patent troll is better?

The worst case is when a tech company buys patents, sells them to an NPE and then sics it on competitors, it's a good thing that'll never happen.

* company does not have a product using the technology.

* company has not existed longer than the product infringing on their technology, and is not a whollly owned (or largely owned) subsidiary of another company.

* company is suiing for a sum larger than its own market cap.

* company wants an injunction placed on the "infringing" technology & ops.

* company awarded a sum 3x its market cap and is asking for a sum close to its market cap on top of that.

So, yes, I get it and noted it in a different comment, age and marekt cap alone would be bad for startups and imperfect metrics. I believe that if you consider the above points, there is a way to create scale/filter for trolls that would allow "real" companies to actually operate.

If a company has no product, and its primary source of revenue is from direct litigation and settlements, is new/has recently restructured itself, is a public company with highly consolidated holdings, and is a patent troll, it should be considered a patent troll.

edit: I was incorrect, they IPOd in 2015. They started suing apple(or the article I read referenced the suit) as early as 2013 so they are in fact older.

I thought I've seen some of the patents mentioned in the lawsuit rendered invalid by the patent office later.

IMHO The patent laws should be amended to require entities to both "articulate a solution" and "add value" to make the patent valid.

For ARM (as a NPE) their patent licenses are bundled with a low-power processor core design that provides a solution to licensees requirements. The core design adds value to the basic technology covered by the patent.

The VirnetX patents shouldn't be valid as they merely describe an element of a design, and not a particular means of implementation. This may fall under Sec. 112(f) "Means-plus-function" [0], but getting the patents invalidated is not easy.

The EFF have tried to bust "stupid patents" [1] somewhat successfully. Please donate to support this worthy cause.

[0] http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s2181.html

[1] https://www.eff.org/about/staff/daniel-nazer

From what I can tell, ARM started 30+ years ago and sold physical chips. I am missing when they morphed into mainly selling chip designs - and how were they able to make such a transition without the publicity of lawsuits.

Given that patent trolls usually retroactively sue for stuff they didn't have anything to do with, I'd say it would be very satisfying.

Lots of stuff the government does that pundits love to fight over is also called out as forbidden in the Constitution. Doesn't stop the government.

Well here's a study showing that the user of the term "troll" had become widely used by media without any evidence to support their negative views. This has led to judges forbidding the use of that term at trials as it is unfairly prejudicial.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2768939

If it is improper in the court of law, one can reasonably assume it is improper in the court of public opinion as well. The effects of this bias can be seen in the usual comments on patent-related threads here and other forums, where the USPTO is regularly derided by people who don't know the first thing about patents. These people know only what the media tells them, and as the paper shows, media is highly biased. This bias is being spread to a large audience and is also being used to push for reform that may not necessarily be balanced. I'd say, yes, such rhetoric is hurting the patent system.

Look at Goodyear. He was an NPE. He invented vulcanized rubber. Never saw a dime. They even stole his name and built a company around it. He didn't have the resources to sue.

Look at Robert Kearns. He was an NPE. He sued. It destroyed his life.

There's no special qualification to come up with an idea. Patenting is a painful process. But it's a way to protect yourself. Just because people are involved in a lawsuit doesn't say or mean anything.

Regardless, this company is not an NPE. They have a working implementation of their secure messaging patent that is available on the app store.

> In what way is it "doing harm" to the patent system?

It's doing harm by framing inventors as villains rather than innovators. You've judged this company based on no other information than that they are referred to as patent trolls in an online article. If it's that easy for a large company to quell innovators, then the purpose of patents in the first place - to foster innovation - is gone.

--- Regardless the verbiage is frequently inappropriate and certainly in this instance.

"To promote progress" is the core rationale for this power; I would argue that if the current implemention no longer does that, or in fact inhibits progress, then Congress needs to redefine how this works in law.