
Rackspace accused of patent infringement for hosting Github - BummerCloud
http://www.scribd.com/doc/106190890/PersonalWeb-Technologies-et-al-v-Rackspace-et-al
======
noonespecial
_11\. Venue is proper in the Eastern District of Texas under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1391
and1400(b). PersonalWeb is a limited liability company incorporated in Smith
County, Texaswith its principal place of business in Tyler, Texas. A
substantial part of the events giving riseto the asserted claims occurred in
this judicial district, Defendant transact business in this judicial district,
and the patents were infringed in this judicial district_

I think maybe its time for all technology companies everywhere to boycott a
certain district in East Texas. Don't ship there. Geolock all services so they
aren't useable there. Hell, if Hulu can keep the Canadians out, this should be
easy.

If nothing else, it would send a message to the people living in that area
that their local courts have been hijacked to do some very unfortunate things.
It would send a pretty good message to other jurisdictions as well : "make a
national nuisance of yourself, lose your interwebs."

Want to stay out of patent court? _Don't mess with Texas._

~~~
schmichael
Not a fan of net neutrality I take it?

As much as I hate patent trolling, I'd hate politics and ridiculous laws to
restrict the free flow of information _more_ instead of less.

~~~
carbocation
Noonespecial is talking about private actors, not the state. This is
essentially a call for a boycott, and I can't see this as a reflection on
noonespecial's views on net neutrality one way or the other.

~~~
Miky
The whole point of net neutrality is preventing private actors from
manipulating the flow of information.

~~~
Flenser
Flow is not the same as supply. Noonespecial is talking about blocking things
at source not by an intermediary.

~~~
001sky
_Flow is not the same as supply_

Its like a synthetic variation, not a logically novel form of argument. The
flow is cutoff when the supply is witheld. The supply is withheld when the
flow is cutoff. Etc.

~~~
Flenser
Cutting off flow is not the same as withholding supply.

~~~
001sky
Functional equivalents, and often the Law will see through such transparency.
Are you going to withould supply from [an ethnic group, or a protected class]
for example?

~~~
Flenser
I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing.

I was trying to say that noonespecial's suggestion for "technology companies
everywhere to boycott a certain district in East Texas" isn't about net
neutrality as schmichael objected because net neutrality is about
intermediaries blocking or throttling access to services, whereas as the
boycott noonespecial suggested would be by the providers of the service.

~~~
001sky
No, i do understand; but you are missing the point of the comment that you
replied too -- which is that the purpose (public policy) of net neutrality is
to prevent the collusion of private actors from acting against the common
good. This type of collusion has issues associated with it that are far
broader than what you are thinking of. And there are other laws/policy ideas
beyond net neutrality to consider. This consideration isn't optional or
arbitrary. [And this isn't an adversarial or snarky comment its just how the
world works.]

~~~
Flenser
But those private actors that the policy applies to must be middle men or
acting on middle men in a network. Net neutrality as I understand it is about
placing restrictions on network operators and regulators can do so that they
cannot restrict access to content. So Wikipedia blocking access to it's own
website would not be a network neutrality issue, but an ISP blocking access to
it would.

 _And there are other laws/policy ideas beyond net neutrality to consider._

I was responding to a comment about network neutrality to say that it didn't
apply. I wasn't discounting the possibility there could be other issues,
although if Wikipedia decided to block access in Texas for a day (perhaps only
allowing access to pages about patents, prior art etc.) I think that would be
for the public good.

~~~
001sky
_the collusion of private actors from acting against the common good_

Net neutrality is not, per se the issue. it is one policy x of a set [X]. The
argument/stratgem maybe far too narrow in scope to address the entire set [X],
if for no other reason that its technical reference x not [X]. That was part
of the larger point being made. There are alot of [laws] one may be breaking
at the same time. If you are cute withrule Z an equally-hypertechnical look at
law W might not be good. And if you try to undermine some of them (viz: a
sythetic transaction) they are structured to see through to the end effect
(don't care about the structure). So, if you are cutting off [insert name
here] services to legally protected classes, for example, net neutrality might
be the least of one's worries. And it might not matter the method. etc

Just something to think about. Also, this comment doesn't have anything to do
with texas or whatever. Its just a general precaution. The issue is one of
pre-texted market collusion, which being subject to abuse, is a dangerous
precendent to allow.

~~~
Flenser
Are you saying it doesn't matter if you are targeting legally protected
classes specifically or if you are cutting off access to a wider group that
includes them?

What is a sythetic transaction in this context? I tried googling it but
couldn't find a good definition.

------
defen
I can't view the link because it's expired, so I'll just post my rant here.

The _entire point_ of patents, as delineated in the U.S. Constitution, is "To
promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times
to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and
Discoveries." So patents are a _means_ , of securing an _end_ , which is "the
progress of science and useful arts". Is anyone actually arguing at this point
that our current patent regime is accomplishing this end? Would the world be a
better place if git and github did not exist, and the only entity that could
use the technologies in these patents were the patent holders?

~~~
snowwrestler
Patents cover areas of technology where developing a solution that can be
commercialized at scale is much, much more expensive than software. Without
patents, how is a pharma company expected to pay the enormous cost of
research, development, and FDA approval of new drugs? Let's not let obvious
flaws in software IP protection condemn the concept of patents in general.

~~~
batista
> _Without patents, how is a pharma company expected to pay the enormous cost
> of research, development, and FDA approval of new drugs?_

How about taxes? Drugs that are useful for millions of people can be
subsidized --internationally even.

It will make the system even less commercialized (i.e prone to go for quick
bucks and BS drugs instead of proper medicine).

Most of the more expensive drugs are of marginal utility anyway. Basic
sanitation, running water, staple vaccination and such have much more to do
with the general health and long living than even much touted breakthroughs
like "heart surgery".

Not to mention that billions have been spent for BS like Viagra and ADD
(non)drugs, while 60% of the world's population doesn't even have basic food
and vaccines.

~~~
snowwrestler
You are essentially arguing for a central planning approach, and we have ample
evidence from the 20th century that this does not produce better outcomes than
a market-based approach.

~~~
batista
> _You are essentially arguing for a central planning approach, and we have
> ample evidence from the 20th century that this does not produce better
> outcomes than a market-based approach._

What "ample evidence"? The USSR? For one, they had a mighty fine space
program.

Second, one example of central planning, that also carried other kinds of
rubbish with it (cutthroat politics at the top level, being enforced on a
backwards, non adequately industrialized country, dogmatic ideology, and
having to fight a foreign superpower) does not "ample evidence" constitute.

Central planning != 20th century communism. We have much better examples of
central planning, successful ones, in the western world.

------
skymt
The patents in question:

<http://www.google.com/patents/US5978791>

<http://www.google.com/patents/US6415280>

<http://www.google.com/patents/US6928442>

<http://www.google.com/patents/US7802310>

<http://www.google.com/patents/US7945539>

<http://www.google.com/patents/US7945544>

<http://www.google.com/patents/US7949662>

<http://www.google.com/patents/US8001096>

<http://www.google.com/patents/US8099420>

~~~
wbond
The titles of the patents:

5978791: Data Processing System Using Substantially Unique Identifiers to
Identify Data Items, Whereby Data Items Have the Same Identifiers.

6415280: Identifying and Requesting Data in Network Using Identifiers Which
Are Based On Contents of Data.

6928442: Enforcement and Policing of Licensed Content Using Content-based
Identifiers.

7802310: Controlling Access to Data in a Data Processing System.

7945539: Distributing and Accessing Data in a Data Processing System.

7945544: Similarity-Based Access Control of Data in a Data Processing System.

7949662: De-duplication of Data in a Data Processing System.

8001096: Computer File System Using Content-Dependent File Identifiers.

8099420: Accessing Data in a Data Processing System.

~~~
api
It would appear, based on many incidents underway at the moment, that the
software patent apocalypse is beginning.

All software infringes something, so it should get interesting. Hopefully the
absurdity will stink so badly that even the U.S. congress will do something.

~~~
saalweachter
I am hopeful about what happens N years _after_ the patentocalypse, when
everything has been broadly patented a million times over and then _all of
those patents expire_ , and it is no longer to patent anything again.

~~~
apotheon
1\. Prior art doesn't stop the patent office from issuing patents, so that's
not going to help.

2\. Patentocalypse is a great way to kill off startups that actually succeed
and open source projects, so big business campaign contributors will keep
congresscritters from doing anything about it.

3\. This won't really hurt the big public corporations _too_ much, once the
dust settles a little, because they'll just reach detente to avoid mutually
assured destruction.

If something changes things for the better, it will almost certainly be the
general public ultimately reaching a point where everyone ignores patent law
altogether, thus making it irrelevant.

------
krrose27
Rackspace isn't the only one being sued by the troll today.

Rackspace[1] Nexsan[2] Yahoo[3]

It also appears that this is the second round. (From 2011)

Caringo[4] NEC Corportation[5] Google[6] EMC/Vmware[7]

[1][http://www.scribd.com/doc/106190890/PersonalWeb-
Technologies...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/106190890/PersonalWeb-Technologies-
et-al-v-Rackspace-et-al) [2][http://www.scribd.com/doc/106190872/PersonalWeb-
Technologies...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/106190872/PersonalWeb-Technologies-
et-al-v-Nexsan-Technologies)
[3][http://www.scribd.com/doc/106190829/PersonalWeb-
Technologies...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/106190829/PersonalWeb-Technologies-
et-al-v-Yahoo) [4][http://www.scribd.com/doc/75152879/PersonalWeb-
Technologies-...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/75152879/PersonalWeb-Technologies-
v-Caringo) [5][http://www.scribd.com/doc/75137853/PersonalWeb-
Technologies-...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/75137853/PersonalWeb-Technologies-
v-NEC-Corporation-of-America)
[6][http://www.scribd.com/doc/75142772/PersonalWeb-
Technologies-...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/75142772/PersonalWeb-Technologies-
v-Google-et-al) [7][http://www.scribd.com/doc/75152912/PersonalWeb-
Technologies-...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/75152912/PersonalWeb-Technologies-
v-EMC-et-al)

~~~
Tuna-Fish
My google-fu is failing me, how did the round 1 end?

~~~
krrose27
Using PACER it appears all of the 2011 cases are still active and are in
discovery. They are all set for trial in November of 2014.

------
AmazingBytecode
I'm pretty fed up with this kind of stuff so I decided to join the EFF today.

------
WestCoastJustin
The patents were issued and the law must be enforced. You might not like it --
so change it! Reminds me of when Teddy Roosevelt vigorously enforced
prohibition to the point that is really pissed people off. The point that I
gleaned from this was that he wanted people to stand up and change the law.

I hope that patent trolls raise a stink and enforce their rights because it
will _hopefully_ lead to change.

UPDATE: see comments below.. I was incorrect in that he enforced prohibition.
It was liquor sales on Sunday that he was enforcing as police commissioner in
new york.

~~~
tzs
Wrong Roosevelt. Teddy was President from 1901 to 1909, and died in January
19. The Prohibition amendment was ratified 10 days after he died, and took
effect one year later.

The Presidents who were in office during Prohibition where Woodrow Wilson,
Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Franklin Roosevelt assumed office on March 4, 1933, when the effort to repeal
it was already well under way. On March 22, weak bears and wines were
legalized, and in December of that year Prohibition was repealed. I don't
think there was ever any vigorous enforcement under Roosevelt. You must be
thinking of someone else.

~~~
jackalope
Pragmatism prevailed once it was discovered how much wine it actually takes to
weaken a bear.

~~~
ktizo
My bear history is a bit shaky. I thought that weak bears were against the US
constitution, as bears have a right to be armed as a defence against
presidents who want to turn them into stuffed toys. Have I got that right?

------
mrcharles
How many of these ridiculous lawsuits will it take before lawmakers realize
how bad software patents are?

This will waste a lot of time and money for something that shouldn't even
exist.

~~~
genwin
The more lawsuits the better for the lawmakers, who get campaign cash from
both sides of the issue. Frivolous patents is somewhat a campaign finance
problem.

------
mikey_p
Some of these seem really questionable at first glance (note that I haven't
read the entire patents yet)

> United States Patent No. 6,415,280 "Identifying and Requesting Data in
> Network Using Identifiers Which Are Based On Contents of Data."

This sounds alot like hashing the contents of a file to get and identifier for
it. If anything it sounds like maybe Git itself violates this, but I thought
that Git hashed the difference between all the changes of a commit to get the
hash. Some of the others sounds equally obvious at first glance.

I don't really understand why they are suing Rackspace for the Github service
other than the fact that it is hosted by Rackspace and it seems they are an
easy target since they are based in Texas along with the plantiff putting them
in the same jurisdiction.

It seems like some of the more generic patents related to "Controlling Access
to Data in a Data Processing System," "Distributing and Accessing Data in a
Data Processing System," and "Accessing Data in a Data Processing System"
could apply to lots of other services and cloud providers anyway. Why not go
after Amazon or someone else that does Git hosting?

~~~
icebraining
Git doesn't violate this in any way. Read the claims. They're talking about
distributing data throughout a network of servers, using an hash as a key to
know from which servers to request the data. It's more similar to database
sharding.

~~~
rbanffy
> They're talking about distributing data throughout a network of servers

Hmm... We used that to shard the MySQL databases for our WordPress setup
too...

------
ceejayoz
Interesting that Level3 - yes, that Level3 - is a 50% owner of the patents.

~~~
russell
It would seem that Level3 has a chance to be a hero by licensing these patents
to whomever for a nominal fee.

Edit: replying to the comments. Licensing for a nominal fee isnt pure, but it
is practical. It would certainly discourage the trolls. I dont think you can
put something in the public domain if you are only a partial owner.

~~~
tisme
They could be a hero by placing them in the public domain. Licensing them for
even a nominal fee would be extortion. $1 for something that should be $0 is
an infinity too large, besides it would still require you to get that license.

If someone were to charge me 'right of way' tomorrow to leave my house and the
cost would only be $1 I wouldn't pay up, I'd shove them out of the way. There
is not 'right' price for extortion.

------
shock3naw
They're not even trying to hide the fact that they're patent trolls:

"We are located in East Texas, and we are developing innovative technologies
and products. We have a team who is responsible for some of the web’s most
popular software and applications, and we own some really amazing patents."

------
alimoeeny
"Access denied", what is going on? S3 is messed up or they pulled the page?

~~~
rrmm
[http://www.scribd.com/doc/106190890/PersonalWeb-
Technologies...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/106190890/PersonalWeb-Technologies-
et-al-v-Rackspace-et-al)

~~~
Niten
Wait, Level3 is a patent troll now?

------
gary4gar
Access is denied. any mirrors?

------
lifeisstillgood
Luckily I own the patent on the business model of suing for infringing overly
broad software patents.

I want 10 billion from the folks suing Rackspace for patent infringement, for
infringing my patent, of suing for patent infringement.

~~~
andybak
Old Slashdot joke. Sorry.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
Damn. Prior art.

------
kenster07
If only it didn't cost 10's of thousands to have patents re-examined by the
Patent Office -- we could put a lot of trolls out of business and destroy a
lot of nonsense patents.

------
jeffreybaird
In an interesting addition it looks like Personal Web Technologies was
recently involved in an acquisition that resulted in these patents changing
hands.

[http://www.personalweb.com/media/20110928_PressRelease_Perso...](http://www.personalweb.com/media/20110928_PressRelease_PersonalWeb.pdf)

~~~
jeffreybaird
Part I found most interesting:

"PersonalWeb has been working closely with the University of Texas at Tyler
and other community participants to develop products in the search, social
network and content filtering technologies.

BDE CEO Kevin Bermeister said, “We are excited by this next phase in the
business and are looking forward to working with PersonalWeb to pursue
development, licensing and participation in businesses that use our patents
for content addressable storage, cloud computing, search, social networking
and other important developing technologies in the rapidly growing distributed
computing category.”

------
iambot
Could anyone translate the legalese into plain English for us lay-men.

~~~
daenney
The gist (ha) is that Github and Rackspace themselves use some techniques that
are described in those patents. Because of that they're now being sued for
patent infringement.

It's an 'obvious' patent troll, I doubt these patents would even hold up in
court but 'till then...

~~~
jpkeisala
How is it really possible that there are companies that just holds patents and
are allowed to sue others who does things. No shame. What a world we are
living at... This seems to be company who is suing Github and Rackspace.
[http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/sn...](http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=25360579)

~~~
debacle
I think it's perfectly legitimate for a company to just hold patents and sue
others based on those patents (or, more likely, license them). That's a core
aspect of the patent system.

The problem here isn't patent protections. It's bad patents. We're still going
to see submarine patents for the next ~16 years, and I'm sure patent trolls
will exist beyond that (unless there is reform), but the patent system isn't
the problem here. It's just that so many bad patents get through.

~~~
saraid216
> I think it's perfectly legitimate for a company to just hold patents and sue
> others based on those patents (or, more likely, license them). That's a core
> aspect of the patent system.

I could understand "inevitable consequence", but I can't see where you get
"core aspect". Explain?

~~~
kd0amg
The patent system is meant to reward inventors, including inventors who don't
have the capital for commercial manufacture of their invention (i.e. by
licensing it to someone who does).

------
grimey27
Rackspace just issued a response:

<http://www.rackspace.com/blog/patent-trolls-make-them-pay/>

------
campnic
For a moment, based on the backtrack (amazonaws.com), I thought Amazon was
suing Rackspace. It'd be nice to get that fixed.

------
Monotoko
One question, how much would it cost to buy EVERY software patent? Millions,
billions?

------
davewicket
Not a link.

------
deelowe
sigh...

