Patent troll claiming playlists and podcasts scores license with SanDisk

arstechnica.com

25 points·shawndumas··5 comments

This American Life did a show earlier this year about this specific troll.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/496/w...

This is sadly yet another example of why I'm happy to stay in the EU and don't want to open up shop in the US any longer. I may not be the size of SanDisk but patent trolls chase after smaller companies too. The risk of BS from one of these "non-trading entities" just isn't worth the upsides.

Dang it. Any big company that settles with these crooks instead of fighting deserves to be the target of every troll under every bridge in the world.

Thanks to CBS, NBC, HowStuffWorks, EFF, and TogiNet for continuing to fight against the insanity. Respect at least to Apple for fighting this at the district level (though they lost and settled before appeals). Shame to the courts that make it so hard to challenge validity of obviously fraudulent patents before a jury.

The article points out that SanDisk's Sansa MP3 player accounted for < 2% of the company's bottom line in 2010. If Apple, for whom music players account for much more revenue, could lose a lawsuit against Personal Audio LLC, then it would be financially silly for SanDisk to go to court over its relatively small product.

While I'd like the diminished of the patent-legislation business model, it's hardly fair to blame companies for folding to these tactics. They're victims, much like the consumers who end up paying higher prices as a result.

The Chinese, bless their hard-working hearts, know exactly how to handle patent trolls: by taking away their power.

Unfortunately the US patent system involves so much lobbying money that the chances of it being reformed is exactly zero.

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