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Comment by jaebrown | Hacker News Reader

Not to say you're not right but just about every company behaves indecently. Samsung, Google, Microsoft and others all have their offenses in the people's eye for what is right but this is business and we people should just let it play itself out in court.

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As consumers , collectively we can influence corporate behavior. If Companies feels that customers can punish them for such acts they may refrain from it in the future. The point is , the scale of the protest should be big enough for them to sit up and notice

If the patent system is so broken that it's abused by all kind of trolls (including Apple), do you think courts can fix it? Only patent reform can change something. And meanwhile, boycotting works too.

It seems your from USA; I'll assume you mean the US patent system, and I gather that in the USA you elect judges but do you think that the courts should be "fixing" the law. Do you elect the judiciary to alter the law?

Unbiased application of the law seems much more becoming of a judicial system than rewriting of it.

If you have your judiciary do the statute [re]writing then do you want your government doing that too?

Courts don't create laws, they interpret and apply them. Laws are created by the legislative power (i.e. congress). Courts is the judicial power. I.e. to fix this mess, legislative power needs to reform the patent law.

Here is a proposal: https://defendinnovation.org

You said that the patent system was broken and asked "do you think courts can fix it" (my emphasis). I know that in general legislative power is not within the remit of the court (you might say it was ex judica, fnar-fnar) - you appeared to be saying that the courts should be fixing it though, hence my post.

I was asking, commenting on what jaebrown said earlier, quote:

this is business and we people should just let it play itself out in court.

So I asked: do you think courts (alone) can fix it? I.e. really courts won't help, until the law is fixed.

> but this is business and we people should just let it play itself out in court.

I'd be okay if the patents in question were not trivial and something really innovative(like RSA).

Also, consumers should make decisions based on their convictions too. For example, I shop at CostCo instead of Sam's Club because CostCo treats their employees much better than Walmart(which owns Sams) does.

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." - Gandhi

I totally understand your point but these are the rules in which the game they play in. Each company has the money to make a stand for the change they want to see and if it was truly broken, I think we would see a unified body of tech companies coming together to enforce those changes. Either Congress is not listening or there are some companies that are fine with the current system. The companies I'm referring to are not Patent Trolls because they do not have the money to go toe to toe with a big company like Apple, Samsung, Microsoft or Google when it comes to hiring lobbyist, court fees, legals fee and PR. They're the companies we're speaking of now, that secretly like the current structure. Congress seems to be interested as they have a patent reform bill on the Senate right now.

Consumers should take more of a note on issues of the companies and products they buy but I believe in this case it's irrelevant to them. I too choose CostCo over Sam's Club and Meijers over Wal-Mart because of the same thing you brought up. However, our choices are based on how they treat people and not patents on which a company clearly infringed upon. The basis on why they infringed or if it's wrong or not is not for us to decide but for the courts.

I don't like the current system either but it is the current system.

How is it irrelevant? Consumers should not support companies which engage in crooked anticompetitive behavior. Our choices should be based on something more than how they treat consumers.

It's like "blood diamonds". They might be all nice and sparkling, but really stained in blood. Do you think it's enough to look just at the external value? It's not enough. It's good to vote with your wallet, boycotting companies which engage in unethical business practices.

Using Blood Diamonds as an example is offensive. The two are no where close to related nor should be reference when speaking about each other. All companies engage in crooked anti-competitive behavior. Samsung is not excluded from the list and one of the reasons that this thread exist. Our choices should always be about how companies treat people, not just consumers of their products.

It's offensive enough to show disrespect towards unethical business practices in which Apple engages (such as abusing patent law for anticompetitive purposes).

> Our choices should always be about how companies treat people

That's correct. That's why companies which promote lock in, stifle innovation with software patents abuse, and etc. cause damage to society. I.e. they treat people badly, for the sake of their profit.

> Samsung is not excluded from the list and one of the reasons that this thread exist.

I'm not following every single example, but when did Samsung exactly act as patent aggressor? Most cases that come to mind were in defense to others aggressive patent threats (namely Apple's). Apple doesn't hesitate to act as patent aggressor on the other hand. There is a difference between defensive attack, and outright aggression.

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