

Oracle Sues Lodsys - dminor
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120604161143147

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Shenglong
Mirror mirror on the wall, what's the most hated company of them all?

~~~
pluies_public
Intellectual Ventures!

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SoftwareMaven
Isn't there speculation that Lodesys is a derivative of IV?

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uxp
It's still speculation. Lodsys has come out to flat out deny any partnership
or involvement in any way[1], but the #078 patent was originally assigned to
Ferrera Etherial LLC in 2004, and then Webvention LLC in 2009, and then
finally to Lodsys in 2010. A 2009 Law.com article [2] cites Ferrara Ethereal
LLC as a shell company of IV. There is no knowledge of who or what Webvention
is, except that it holds a ghost office in the same area as many other known
or speculated shell companies IV operates.

Useful trivia: #7,222,078 [3] also happens to be the main patent behind Lodsys
v. (independent iOS and Android developers), with #7,620,565 [4] backing it
up. Lodsys only holds 4 patents, all four are cited as

[1] [http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/441/w...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack)

[2]
[http://www.law.com/jsp/lawtechnologynews/PubArticleLTN.jsp?i...](http://www.law.com/jsp/lawtechnologynews/PubArticleLTN.jsp?id=1202436141846&slreturn=1)

[3] <http://www.google.com/patents?vid=7222078>

[4] <http://www.google.com/patents?vid=7620565>

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eck
I'm reminded of Henry Kissinger's quip on the Iran-Iraq war:

"It's too bad they both can't lose."

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Danieru
Is it just me or does that sentence mean that both can only win?

Are you sure it is not: "It's too bad they can't both lose."

~~~
ars
You are correct, but English is not as strict as math. You can read it as
"It's too bad"->"It's not possible" "they both"->"for both of them" "can't
lose."->"to loose".

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einhverfr
Fascinating suit. I am wondering about the impact of cases like Bilski v.
Kappos (cannot patent hedge fund algorithms), Prometheus v. Mayo (you can
patent a method of testing, but not now to interpret the results), and Caraco
v. Novo Nordisk (not really on scope of patent act but another indicator of
hostility against abuse of our patent system, essentially using another act to
strike down method of use patents as a method to keep exclusive access to a
drug market in the US) on this one.

Basically it seems to me that in the last few years, the Supreme Court has
tightened up criteria on what can be patented and how those patents can be
used, so as to prevent abuses aimed at overly broad patents.

Anyway, it's strange to be rooting for Oracle here. BRB while I grab the
popcorn.

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caf
Heel Face Turn? <http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HeelFaceTurn>

~~~
rwallace
If we are looking for fictional analogies, the one that strikes me is "It was
evil against evil in the ruins of Shadar Logoth ... foul fighting vile."
<http://www.dragonmount.com/forums/topic/56250-mordeth/>

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st3fan
Great PR move from Oracle. Playing bad cop, good cop. I think this is purely
about getting some love from the crowd that critized them for the Google suit.

~~~
cwp
Nah. They don't care what that crowd thinks. I think PJ got it right in the
article. Lodsys is probably threatening Oracle customers with patents that
cover Oracle software. If that's true, Oracle is suing to take away the threat
from Lodsys. They also get to signal to customers and trolls that they won't
put up with this sort of thing. Makes a lot of sense.

[edit for grammar]

~~~
lflux
See Bryan Cantrill's talk from LISA:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&feature=player_detailpage#t=2136s)
, where he has a good comparison of not anthromorpizing Larry Ellison and
Oracle. Paraphrased, "Think of him of as a lawnmower. The lawnmower doesn't
care about opensourcing Solaris. The lawnmower _can't_ care about it, it's a
lawnmower".

Oracle cares about making money and protecting their revenue stream. Getting
Lodsys of the backs of their customers is one way of doing that.

~~~
cwp
Yeah, I saw that - some great stuff in there, particularly on the history of
Solaris. It's great context for understanding what's going on in the Illumos
world.

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teeray
Has Oracle pivoted to become a law firm?

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protomyth
This is pretty much business as usual for the enterprise space. Threatening a
company's customers tends to illicit a response.

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derleth
> illicit

Or elicit, if it's legal.

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protomyth
I swear I typed the e - autocorrect is not my friend (heck, most times I type
"the" it keeps changing to "he").

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ajross
There's no content in the article about which four patents are at issue or
what their significance is. Anyone recognize these?

    
    
       5,999,908 “Customer-Based Product Design Module”
       7,133,834 “Product Value Information Interchange Server”
       7,222,078 “Methods and System for Gathering Information from Units of a Commodity"
       7,620,565 “Customer-Based Product Design Module”

~~~
rudyfink
The patents share a common inventor (Daniel H. Abelow).

The patents all descend from the '998 patent ( <http://imgur.com/dJT7o> ): the
'834 patent is a continuation of the '908, the '565 is a continuation of the
'834, and the '078 is a continuation of a different continuation of the '908.

The patents have been in ~15 to 25 suits, depending on the patent and
including declaratory judgment actions, since 2011.

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jklp
I get the impression that Oracle's antics the last couple of months could have
been moves done on behalf of Apple.

It's no secret that Larry and Steve were good friends, and purchasing Sun,
just so Oracle could sue Google seems like something that could plausibly
happen.

Similarly, Oracle suing a patent troll that was previously hounding Apple and
their developers sounds just as likely.

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kingkilr
For others who are slow: He means Larry Ellison, not Larry Page.

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jrockway
If Apple wanted to buy Sun's patents to sue Google, why didn't Apple just do
it themselves? Jobs already declared "thermonuclear war" on Android, after
all.

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regularfry
Oracle wanted Java more than Apple wanted Sun's patents, at a guess, and
Java+Patents in a friendly Oracle's hands doesn't do Apple any harm.

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josephcooney
It would have been nice if apple could have done this months ago when Lodsys
started going after mobile app developers. Nice move by Oracle.

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SoftwareMaven
Apple _did_ step in...

[http://gamepolitics.com/2012/04/13/apple-wins-motion-
lodsys-...](http://gamepolitics.com/2012/04/13/apple-wins-motion-lodsys-
patent-fight)

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c0mpute
And just like that, from being disrespected and the world wanting them to
lose, they will now be immensely popular with the world cheering for them!

On a serious note, I think if Oracle wins this, maybe there can be a system
that can be setup that is cost effective to invalidate most patents.

