Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

I don't know if it's fair to call VirnetX a "patent troll." They're an NPE, but there's no indication that they're abusing the process or trying to get a low-ball settlement just to avoid actually going to court. Furthermore, the patents aren't just something they churned out. The technology in question was developed by SAIC for the CIA. SAIC is a major defense contractor and R&D company: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/contr....

Also, the inventor listed on the patents, Dr. Robert Short, who previously worked at SAIC, is CTO at VirnetX: http://virnetx.com/company/executive-management ("Dr. Short has been the Chief Scientist for VirnetX since May 2007 . . . . From February 2000 to April 2007, Dr. Short was Assistant Vice President and Division Manager at Science Applications International Corporation, or SAIC. . . . Dr. Short is named as a co-inventor on substantially all of the patents in the VirnetX patent portfolio.")

I haven't studied the patents in question and am not commenting on whether they're any good or not. But considering how much of the core internet technologies were developed by private defense contractors working for the government, it's not far-fetched that some of them would hold key patents.

> VirnetX is a company some call a "patent troll" because its only business is now patent enforcement.

I believe this viewpoint is shared by a number of people. Specifically, that a litigious NPE is, by colloquial definition, a "patent troll." There is a conversation to be had as to whether the practice is good or bad, or if they are acting more appropriately than their peer group, but I think the term fits in this case.

The fact that a viewpoint is shared by a number of people is hardly an argument for its validity.

We need to understand what we're fighting. Defining a patent troll as any NPE who files an infringement suit is clearly too broad, because the only way to prevent trolling under that definition is to shut down the patent system. As long as patents are issued, and can be bought and sold, it will be possible for NPEs to own them. Furthermore, independent inventors, of whom I believe there are still a few left, and whom I think we all believe the patent system should protect if it protects anyone, are generally NPEs.

> The fact that a viewpoint is shared by a number of people is hardly an argument for its validity.

This is actually _exactly_ how language works, and that's precisely what's under discussion here: whether the term patent troll is accurate.

There's a different discussion to be had (which rayiner is also alluding to in his comment) about whether this definition has negative side-effects (like being too broad), but being clear on the terms being used in a discussion is important.

I don't disagree it's a common viewpoint, I'm just saying it's not very useful to call every NPE a patent troll. It lumps universities together with companies that seek nuisance settlements using the cost of litigation as leverage.

In general, the law allows you to sell your cause of action to someone else. For example, many investors who had suits against big banks over mortgage-backed securities sold their causes of action to funds that could bring them efficiently in one go. That's just property rights in action. At least in theory, it's more efficient to allow rights of action to be sold like property.

Now, maybe you think that these sorts of suits shouldn't be brought at all. There's arguments to be made for that. But in that case, I think you need to lump companies like Apple in with companies like these.

> I just think it's not very useful to call every NPE a troll.

Simple explanation: if they make their money from suing people, it's a troll.

Debating the finer points of what constitutes a troll really isn't helpful. It takes the focus off of the real debate -- improving the patent system.

Meta-comments[1] explaining that the conversation above isn't useful aren't useful. They take the focus off of the real debate -- that which people choose to talk about in the comment thread. Ignoring comments is easy.

proceeds to take own advice

[1]: such as this one, but this wouldn't be necessary if folks didn't find it necessary to waste space dictating what's worth talking about.

No, not really. If they developed they technology and are trying to license it, and suing people that don't license it... That is not a troll. That is someone who is doing exactly what patents were meant to do... Patents we're meant to encourage people to invent.

You are confusing patents with copyright. Patents were meant to encourage people to disclose. It was taken for granted that people will invent things regardless of patent protection - they will just keep their inventions trade secrets.

Depends on the industry; there are plenty of places where trade secrets aren't viable (e.g. medicinal chemistry, where it's trivial to reverse engineer a drug).

Maybe so, but nevertheless patents were not "meant to encourage people to invest".

A patent troll only uses patents to sue people and return money to it's investors.

So, I think there is a reasonable argument that if your actively doing research your not really a NPE. AMD and University's both make money from both obvious and non obvious patents but they have positive contributions where companies that only buy existing patents and sue don't contribute anything as the patents already exist.

If universities can't manage to exist in the US off the 70 billion the feds spend on tuition support, or by snagging a share of the 150 billion the US government spend on research, let them die.

> I don't know if it's fair to call VirnetX a "patent troll."

Filing in East Texas pretty much defines you as a patent troll. If you have a real case, you don't have to go to East Texas to litigate it.

Is that actually true? Did you research it? A good data set to back this claim up would be a list of non-trollish patent suits that weren't filed in EDTX. As it stands, the properties that make EDTX attractive for trolls could logically make EDTX a better venue for all kinds of patent cases.

If it was developed for the CIA, why aren't the resulting patents owned by the government?

They were probably acquired by VirnetX, like so many NPEs' portfolios are built.

Because if Big Government owned those patents then Job Producers wouldn't be able to make so many jobs for Hard-Working Americans.

(speculation)

It's not clear if this particular "invention" was developed for CIA, but there are also different types of government contracts, some of which assign IP to the government, some of which do not.

[IANAL]

My understanding is that the US Federal government cannot be sued for patent infringement. If correct, there would be no value for it to acquire patent rights and if the technology was to be controlled, classifying the design would be better than filing patents.

1) yes, you can sue the government or contractors fir patent infringement.

2) the government can issue secret patents

IANAL, but I was a government contractor for many years.

Secret patents that can be accessed by anyone with a high-enough classification?

It seems to defeat the original purpose of patents, which was to promote openness of inventions rather than secrecy.

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