Angry Birds Maker Sued for Patent Violation
mashable.com
mashable.com
Lodsys in particular seems to have no shame.
I wonder if a few more of these higher profile lawsuits might pull the general public's attention from whatever the latest reality TV show is. Maybe then the political system could do something useful to stop the patent lawsuit insanity.
Don't mess with the publics ability to indulge in kids in tiaras or the brand of large booty they are into or there will be outrage to answer to.
I forget the details, and I might be wrong, but I think with the whole Microsoft XML file format suit thing, the suit boiled down to a company claiming they had a patent on using XML for document type file formats. But that's the whole point of XML, to be used as a general purpose markup language, to markup whatever you want. It's ridiculous to attempt to patent that when it's the whole point of XML to begin with. But the general public doesn't really know what XML is or what its for, so no one realizes how crazy it is.
If, on the other hand, someone tried to patent putting a doorknob on a door that leads into a postal office, as opposed to some other kind of building, everyone would realize how ridiculous it was. Because people know what doors and doorknobs and postal offices are.
It's not at all about just using XML as a file format, but about being able to build your own private business extensions to a vendor's (Microsoft's) file format and ecosystem. It may be a software patent and have all the attendant problems, but it is at least an invention and not pure bullshit.
Plus the plaintiff isn't in any way a patent troll — they were a real company with a shipping product that Microsoft was well aware of when they integrated "their" feature into Office.
This case is to software patent reform as "Hot Coffee" is to tort reform — it's almost perfectly constructed to spark nerd rage when initially described, except that the facts of the matter are entirely opposite: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonalds_Restaurant...
XML is called extensible and has things like namespaces exactly for that purpose.
We need a patent nuclear war. This needs to end. BRING IT ON LODSYS. May every patent holder in every nook and cranny start cashing in.
I couldn't agree more. I fundamentally disagree with what they do, how the patent system works, etc, but I think these malicious actors will serve to take down the system. The more patent suits of these sort go up, the better I believe the odds are that we'll end up with some sort of sanity.
Or we'll end up with more bullshit legislation which does nothing but make it harder to do legitimate business. We'll see.
As an example of the likely result, see the America Invents Act. Which changes us from first to invent to first to file. And then in section 18 carves out a big patent exception for the financial industry (because they had enough lobbyists).
BTW if you thought that our current system was bad, wait until it is irrelevant whether someone else previously shipped software product with your "invention" in it.
Edit:
I did find this: http://androinica.com/2011/03/microsoft-sues-barnes-noble-no...
I don't mind MS going after large targets with obvious infringements, but a lot of the alleged infringements are ridiculous. It seems to me that the complexity of modern hardware and software has made patents very difficult to administer, but then the question remains: would we be better off without patents altogether, or are we grumbling about minor annoyances compared to what we'd be dealing with without patents (e.g. lots of obfuscation)?
Personal opinion: They did it to squeeze Linux out of the desktop market.
Why does it have to be a "fairly small developer"? Microsoft has a legacy of a lot of broad patents owing to the fact that they've been rolling in billions for decades (and hence can stomach having a lot of people filing trivial patents). With that they try to either run competitors out of business, FUD users into avoiding alternatives, or outright demand some extortion fees (see every Android maker and Microsoft's current patent shakedown).
"Obvious infrginements" is loaded and has little meaning given the incredibly broad patents allowed by the patent system.
>would we be better off without patents altogether, or are we grumbling about minor annoyances compared to what we'd be dealing with without patents (e.g. lots of obfuscation)?
We would be far better off without software patents. There is absolutely no doubt about that. I neither encourages innovation (it more likely discourages innovation), and it only helps to entrench the most successful.
In my opinion copyright has worse problems than patents right now (because patents at least expire).
Given the reality that software source code is human
readable, and object code can be reverse engineered,
it is difficult for software developers to resort to
secrecy. Thus, without patent protection, the incentives
to innovate in the field of software are significantly
reduced. Patent protection has promoted the free sharing
of source code on a patentee’s terms—which has fueled the
explosive growth of open source software development.
Thus, without patent protection, the incentives
to innovate in the field of software are significantly
reduced.
Maybe if we did something to fix the problems it wouldn't be so bad. Right now it's hard for little guys to get patents, partly because it costs a lot of money and time (lawyers are expensive). It's also too easy to patent trivial things so big companies can patent the simplest things at a relatively minuscule cost for them.
Umm, no. Not in the slightest. Do you live in backwards day?
If we wanted to reward innovation we'd reward innovators. Instead of wasting money on patents and court we'd give it to people who (according to their peers) did the most to help us. No forms, no lawyers, just grants to helpful inventors and teachers.
> If we wanted to reward innovation we'd reward innovators. Instead of wasting money on patents and court we'd give it to people who (according to their peers) did the most to help us. No forms, no lawyers, just grants to helpful inventors and teachers.
So inventor X spends 5 years to research and make a cool thing and we grant him $1 million, after which the big corporations copy his idea and make billions. If he could have licensed his idea for the couple of years he had exclusive rights to it that makes it far more worthwhile for the inventor.
Also, where does the money for these grants come from? Shouldn't big corporations with billions have to pay to profit wildly from brand new inventions?
You're also ignoring the potential for corruption. Honestly, your plan is pretty naïve for this modern world. Instead of throwing out what we have we could try to fix it. At least we know some of the current problems, we have no idea what problems some other brand new scheme would have or how corporations and lawyers would twist it to serve their purposes.
Oh yeah, never mind the government interference - it's only temporary. Never mind that it's still six times longer than the lifetime of the tech involved. Just like how copyrights are 'for a limited time' despite being longer than the average lifespan.
No, what's key here is untrained and uninterested people trying to provide a stimulus to something they don't understand by handing out monopolies on development. If you were to invent an analogy suitably horrible it would involve blind people and hand grenades.
> So inventor X spends 5 years to research and make a cool thing and we grant him $1 million, after which the big corporations copy his idea and make billions. If he could have licensed his idea for the couple of years he had exclusive rights to it that makes it far more worthwhile for the inventor.
And if wishes were unicorns... But back on planet Earth, patents only screw over inventors. Make a mistake in your paperwork and it's worthless. Don't file on time, worthless. Can't afford legal battles, worthless.
That million dollars that you scoff at would certainly be comforting to the 99.986% of independent inventors who don't win patent-bingo though. And teachers, authors, etc, would be eligible for this, unlike now.
> Also, where does the money for these grants come from?
From the dismantled patent system and the court costs that go to adjudicating it. Also, the innovative gains and lessened frictional costs of patents would mean higher profits and thus tax revenue.
Think what we might accomplish if every patent attorney and everyone involved in the industry stopped throwing their life's effort into a productivity black-hole and did even one useful thing with the time, instead of dragging everyone down to provide a relative boost to their team.
> Shouldn't big corporations with billions have to pay to profit wildly from brand new inventions?
Under this scheme they'd pay whatever you wanted to tax them, much like now.
But why should someone have to pay to use an idea just because someone else (might have) had it first? As long as you operate from ridiculous premises like that you'll keep coming up with solutions to non-problems - like patents.
> You're also ignoring the potential for corruption. Honestly, your plan is pretty naïve for this modern world. Instead of throwing out what we have we could try to fix it.
As my system could be expressed in about a page of non-legalese, I'd wager it'd have one ten-millionth the loopholes and cruft the patent system is carrying and would thus a lot less likely to be subverted.
But even if my system were totally corrupted it'd, at absolute worst, reward the wrong people. The patent system, on a good day, brings ruin and destruction to many worthwhile companies and ideas. Engineers are told (on sound legal advice) to never look at patents so the theoretical benefits to society aren't even being provided.
The patent system is already a run-away worst-case scenario.
It's now abundantly clear that this argument was put before someone who is not familiar with the difficulty inherent in divining the intent of original source code, much less source that has been reverse engineered off the opcodes.
In general we don't enact legislation entirely against the worst cases, for good reason.
If software could not be copyright unless it was registered with the library of congress, then the library could run a filter on all new arrivals and check they were different from previously posted source from other sources.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_designThis weekend's This American Life was an hour long feature on the software patent mess. It's a good intro to the situation, especially to the non-tech public. Share with your friends (and send donations as a thank-you!).
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/w...
http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/07/lodsys-sues-rovio-ov...
More on-topic: they finish off the show by pointing out that Lodsys's registered address (104 E Houston St. #190) is the same as Oasis Research, a front company for Intellectual Ventures: the ultimate patent troll and the focus of the entire show.
A patent should be nominated to its inventor personally and for a company to profit from it they would have to connect with that person. They could employ him or otherwise compensate him for being able to do things that were patented.
This would diminish possibilities for all kinds of trickery and return the power back to the actual inventor. A company who wishes to invest in patents would have to compensate these inventors more than fairly to reach an agreement where the inventor only licenses the patent to that company. Futile, bogus, or useless patents wouldn't be paid for so nobody wouldn't bother to file them. Inventors would have a big financial incentive to invent things that are truly good enough to be worth somebody paying for them.
Also, under current law, an exclusive licensee can be granted the right to sue on a patent. So you'd have to change that part of the law as well, for your scheme to actually change anything.
Not just any solution, a non-obvious solution. If presented with a new problem, as tech often is, you can think up a solution in a day, it shouldn't' be patent-able because others are going to come up with that same solution. The one click check out is an example of this.
But if they at least only granted patents to specific almost-obvious solutions, and not just to any solution (which is the same as patenting the problem), it would be a little better: You could at least try to find a different solution...
Giving in to Lodsys might make fiscal sense in the short term, but they would be painting a target on themselves for the snowballing patent troll industry. All genuine technology companies, but especially those at the formative stages like Rovio, need to think about the future health of their industry. Don't negotiate with terrorists.
Lodsys cases are the most BS cases I've ever seen. Unlike large evil corporations who are at least contributing some sort of innovation, all Lodsys manages to do is stifle innovation, and screw over the entire public.
Too bad we can't file a class-action suit against Lodsys for emotional damages.
Lodsys has been suing for such absurd things that maybe they are indirectly contributing to the downfall of the patent system as a result of public uproar.
So Lodsys is pretty much a front for Myhrvold and his despicable company.
[1] http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/07/25/138576167/when-pat... (this is pretty much a full transcript of the show)
The office was in a corridor where all the other doors looked exactly the same —locked, nameplates over the door, no light coming out. It was a corridor of silent, empty offices with names like "Software Rights Archive," and "Bulletproof Technology of Texas."
[1] 104 E. Houston street, suite 190, Marshall, Texas
The benefit to society of granting a patent is that it gives companies an incentive to do R&D. The cost to society of granting a patent is that other companies have to pay money to use the same idea. In a healthy patent system, the average benefit of a patent is equal to the average cost of a patent.
If the average benefit is higher than the average cost, the Patent Office should be more lenient in granting patents, or should lengthen the term of the patent. The former solution would increase the number of patents, but the new ones would have lower average benefit. The latter solution would reduce the average cost of a patent. Likewise, if the average benefit is lower than the average cost, the Patent Office should be stricter in granting patents or should shorten the term of the patent.
The average benefit from a software patent is quite low; most software patents are for an obvious solution to an uncommon problem, not for a clever solution to a common problem. The average cost for a software patent is (currently) pretty low too, because patent holders usually don't assert their rights; but if patent holders asserted their rights whenever they could, the average cost would be very high. The solution is for the US Patent Office to be much stricter about assigning software patents.
In a healthy patent system, patent trolls aren't a bad thing. Patent trolls raise the price of patents by buying and using them; that increases the incentives to do R&D. Since in a healthy patent system, the cost to society of the patent troll asserting its patent rights is equal to the benefits from the R&D that gets done, that isn't a problem.
Without addressing any of the other interesting points you raised, I have to rebut this one. I'll start by rewording the sentence to be more accurate by my judgment:
The problem is with the US patent system, and with the patent trolls.
I base my argument on the notion that ethics and morality exist independent of any legal system. Whether what the trolls are doing is legal is irrelevant; they are acting against the interests of society at large and small inventors in particular, under the guise of helping small inventors. Thus, what they are doing is unethical, and they are therefore part of the problem.
As in, what is actually being done that was "invented" by Lodsys so that other developers can either avoid it altogether, or know if they need to license something.
As a legal matter, if you have a policy/history of proactively searching for patents, when (almost inevitably) someone alleges infringement, they can assert that because of your policy you must have seen their patent and thus infringed willfully, opening yourself up to treble damages and putting you in the position of having to prove a negative. Any IP lawyer will advise that inventors should never look.
Everybody always replies the same way, "it's broad", "there's prior art", etc, but does anybody ACTUALLY know how a game like Angry Birds specifically infringed on these patents in such a way that they will have to pay royalties?
All the article says is that the patent allegedly covers buying new levels from within the game. So the patent is probably some generic nonsense about a method of having an ordinary computer do ordinary things. But nobody prior to them patented or mentioned doing those particular ordinary things on a computer, so it's not considered legally obvious, no matter how much it makes us want to bang our heads on a wall.
EDIT: I should mention that we won't know if they infringed at all (or whether Lodsys has a valid patent) unless it goes all the way through the system. Depending on what's being demanded, they may find it cheaper to settle, even if the patent is garbage and they may do so as a pure business decision.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_District_Court_fo...
http://www.scribd.com/doc/60587096/11-07-21-Lodsys-Amended-C...
Troll: "We think you violated our patent, pay or else"
Company: "But how?"
Troll: "Look at the patent, it's not our job to tell you what you did wrong, in fact, it is our interests not to tell you"
Company: "But the patent is completely vague, it could be anything"
Troll: "Ah hah hah hah... Still want to go to court to fight this? "
The real problem is that one can't actually steal a patent (or copyright). It's virtual property. And there is no closely guarded secret, either; quite the opposite: a patent is published openly as part of patent process. Downloading any documents from Lodsys and disseminating them on the 'net won't hurt them in any way.
Also, I doubt there are any interesting technical documents on this invention (or any other invention for that matter) on Lodsys' computers ;-)
My impression in the last five to ten years is that the sleeping bag is looking like stuffed sausage with all the members and IP interests squirming around in there.
If Angry Birds wins this case, people will complain that given enough money companies can ignore laws. If Angry Birds loses, people keep complaining about patent trolls.
At lest the religious argument are the one I value most. One concept is that ideas should be free. Another is that ideas are property which should be respected.
The legal argument is that it is difficult to create independently many kinds of software without infringing some patent. This implies that patents are being granted on things that are obvious to those skilled in the art. I.e. most patents are probably not valid. An alternatively the legal argument is that software is mathematics and mathematics is not legally patentable.
And the economic argument is that these monopolies are used by established players to stifle innovation, for example the history of flight in Europe and the US, where the Wright brothers patents killed innovation.
I think it is a really hard issue, because I don't think it can be determined well with any system of governance that we have. The voters are not well informed so democracy won't work. Lobbyist and experts represent established monopolies which are not innovative, so other systems won't either.
They are making themselves a big target. Those that didn't really follow patent news previously likely all know now who Lodsys/IV etc. are and what they are up to.
I hope these cases lead to reform of the entire system.
If I make a website containing content illegal in <some country>, am I committing a crime in <some country> if someone from there looks at my page?
"US Smash!" and all that jazz.
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One more reason I wish hn still displayed points.