Comment by jpark | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jpark | Hacker News Reader

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Sorry, but IBM is one of the largest patent trolls in the world. You just don't hear about it because they target corporations who don't have an extensive IP portfolio to fight back with and cross license.

Here's what's happened at the company I used to work at and what happens at many other companies:

1) IBM comes and says hey you're violating these 10 patents. Pay up.

2) Targeted company goes, hey we're not. Company spends X amount of money and tons of time to prove that they're not violating the patents.

3) IBM goes, oh ok, yeah you're right. So you're not violating those 10 patents. Well, here's another 10 we think you're violating. Now...we can do this forever or you can just pay us $1M/year and have us go away.

4) Targeted company does cost-benefit analysis of legal fees to continue to fight IBM indefinitely or they can pay this "license" fee. Company decides pays $1M to "license" IBM patents

oh and postscript, Targeted company wises up and decides to build up its own IP portfolio as a defensive measure and fills the patent system with even more useless patents.

Big companies win most of the time when there are lawsuits involved. But obviously we can't make enforcing a patent harder as a function of the size of the inventing company.

It's a tricky question to ensure "fair" treatment of patent settlements.

Clearly patent trolls with silly patents such as the automatic trim()-on-insert should be banished. In fact, I can't think of ever reading about any CS patent that would have actually been useful and truly an idea worth the grant.

On the other hand, were there more burden of proof placed on the inventor's side, this would discriminate small inventors in traditional patentable fields (like mechanical or engineering constructions). Big companies could just "steal" their ideas and count on them being unable to enforce the patent.

I think the way of the future would be just to give up on the illusion of "intellectual 'property'". Patents don't seem to be incentive when it comes to inventing; instead they seem to incentivise commercialisation. However, all smart people I know would invent new things regardless of any monetary reward or lack thereof.

I wonder if the targeted company did do this forever, how long would it be before IBM runs out of patents? Anyone done the math?

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