U.S. Supreme Court Curbs Excessive Design Patent Damages

If the function of patents is to incentive capital markets to invest in products and processes that otherwise wouldn't see any investment because of the lack of a profit motive, then patent trolls are a good thing. The whole point of a patent is to grant a monopoly. Whether a patent holder enforcing the monopoly is a non-practicing entity (NPE) is immaterial.

Indeed, by the logic of the patent system so-called trolls are an unmitigated positive. They add liquidity to the patent system. Liquidity means the patent system, theoretically, is more efficient at incentivizing research and design.

If you have a problem with patent trolls, then it means you have a problem with something _else_ fundamental to the patent system. Maybe if you followed your beliefs to their logical end, you would question the validity of the necessity of patents. Alternatively, maybe what so-called patent trolls are exposing is the fact that patents are too freely granted, or granted for too long. Or that being able to sell patents at all, whether to NPEs or other companies, is just an end-run around anti-trust laws, which would otherwise blunt how rigidly a company could leverage patent rights in a market.

In any event, there's nothing negative about patent trolls, per se. They're simply exposing fundamental flaws in the patent system. I fear that focusing on so-called patent trolls will simply result in superficial legislative and judicial solutions.

E.g. the many shades of SEO in an attention economy, or downvoting for quality vs disagreement. Once a mechanism exists, it acquires multiple identities through use.

In terms of hot-button-topic stories getting buried, it's not just flagging - the flame war detection logic also plays a role. On diversity stories, for example, once they reach the front page we often see a large number of strongly worded (but clearly legitimate) anti-diversity posts. When people reply, heavy discussion ensues; and in any case, there's often a lot of piling on in agreement. Pretty soon the post is back to page 3 or 4. Of course there's the option of not replying, but leaving the anti-diversity viewpoint unchallenged strongly reinforces the stereotype of HN as a place that's hostile to diversity. So right now there isn't any good answer.

I'll be the first to admit that I can be a little snarky at times, particularly about things I'm passionate about, but I think most people could say that about themselves.

Out of curiosity, how did you all reach this conclusion?

“The worst illiterate is the political illiterate, he doesn’t hear, doesn’t speak, nor participates in the political events. He doesn’t know the cost of life, the price of the bean, of the fish, of the flour, of the rent, of the shoes and of the medicine, all depends on political decisions. The political illiterate is so stupid that he is proud and swells his chest saying that he hates politics. The imbecile doesn’t know that, from his political ignorance is born the prostitute, the abandoned child, and the worst thieves of all, the bad politician, corrupted and flunky of the national and multinational companies.”

One of Adam Smith's shortest sentences in Wealth of Nations is "Wealth, as Mr Hobbes says, is power." It's all about power and its distribution.

Politics is etymologically related to "polis", which is the greek word for "city".

The greek (and the later adaptation in latin) gave "politic" to designate 'the affairs of the city', and 'polites' for 'citizen'.

To put that simply, "politic" is supposed to be the management of a city.

I think that many readers are simply being uncharitable in interpretation because they don't like the message.

That aside, Ill omit such language in the future (though Ill leave it here for posterity sake).

I agree the comment would've been better without the use of the word coward, because it's obviously a charged term and a distraction here.

(See sibling reply if you care about why I chose to use it.)

Note that I'm not attempting to argue over where that should be a valid patent or not, just why it is so bare. If there were more specifics, you'd see them on that page.

Design patents do not last as long as utility patents, typically only 14 years, rather than 20.

Design patents are generally much easier to design around than utility patents -- you could use a sufficiently different corner radius, put a curve in one side, add a hood ornament, etc.

Most notably, and key in this case, the measure of damages is different: Disgorgement of profits for a design patent, versus a reasonable royalty for a utility patents.

The issue in this case was profits on what--the whole phone, or just the component of the phone to which the design is applied. A reasonable reading of the statute suggested the former.

Prior to that style phones came in a dizzying multitude of shapes, sizes, and styles. If there was a consideration for fitting into jeans surely Motorola or Nokia or Palm or RIM would have taken it into consideration.

The Blackberry device is another iconic design. It had rounded corners, but it also had other distinctive design features that made it obviously not an iPhone, such as the somewhat unique bottom curve on the device.

Samsung went out of their way to copy. I can't believe people are defending Samsung here. It's an insult to actual innovators.

They've made a narrowly defined design decision, and are only defending that, as oppose to a very generic obvious choice.

The less providence can be quickly, reliably, and consistently determined by consumers, the weaker will be feedback mechanisms in the market. When knock-offs flood the market, the original company will have less incentive to manufacture products with better quality, longevity, or whatever characteristic is desirable in the market. That's because they capture fewer of the dollars consumers fork over for those differences.

It follows that there's nothing per se illogical about making such fine distinctions as fractions of an inch. What matters is if the distinction serves the purpose of make the product distinguishable in the market to the degree that optimizes the market function of design patents.

“Congress — if it is to divide the states — must identify those jurisdictions to be singled out on a basis that makes sense in light of current conditions. It cannot rely simply on the past,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

> or a drive to introduce evidence-based decision-making into politics

“If Congress had started from scratch in 2006, it plainly could not have enacted the present coverage formula. It would have been irrational for Congress to distinguish between states in such a fundamental way based on 40-year-old data, when today’s statistics tell an entirely different story,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote.

Beyond singling out southern states, and deciding whether individual court cases could be sufficient rather than having special federal oversight, the core arguments made against the act was that the current data doesn't support the need for such an act in 2016.

The justices who dissented even agreed that racial discrimination was still an issue in the country. But they found this law and the arguments supporting the continuation of special federal powers over specific states to be a poor and outdated means to confront this issue.

I probably gave you less benefit of the doubt about this because your account has a history of being snarky and uncivil in comments. It would be good for all of us if you'd work on eliminating that; it lowers the level of discourse we're trying for here, and (case in point) fosters misunderstanding.