
Patent troll tales: Lee Cheng, Newegg - izqui
https://blog.unpatent.co/patent-troll-tales-1-lee-cheng-newegg-5188505a5f2f
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tnt128
Wonder if it's possible to have a 'NATO like' alliance among the smaller
companies that pools the resource together to fight patent trolls, and
basically make it clear that these are the companies that will never settle
with you, and will utilize pooled resource to fight against the patent trolls
to the end.

~~~
oconnor663
We all hate patent trolls so much because there's no way to know whose patents
we're violating before we get sued. But there are also cases where, whether or
not we _approve_ of the patent, everyone at least knows it exists. Like Apple
patenting magnetic laptop chargers. Everyone knows that if you start selling a
MagSafe competitor, Apple is going to sue you.

So one of the problems you have to solve if you create a NATO-like network of
companies, is that one of your members might decide they want to go up against
Apple. Now your organization has to decide what counts as a "troll" case and
what counts as "you should've known". And since some industries are at a
higher risk of trolling than others, those more expensive members will
inevitably drive out the safer members who foot the bills but don't benefit
very much.

So in the end you have problems somewhere in between an insurance company
and...NATO :p

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slimsag
But, I mean, NATO must also make very similar decisions, right?

If a NATO nation gets 'attacked' by somewhat provoking a war, NATO must
ultimately make some sort of decision about whether or not to jointly act (and
foot the bill).

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di4na
Yes but the treaty itself is pretty precise. You can look at it, but basically
: if it is not a direct attack on the North Atlantic country sovereign soil,
NATO do not have to do anything.

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ikeboy
> It is not just in this century, execution has always been king, in fact many
> kings have been executed by future kings.

He certainly has a way with words, this made me laugh.

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seibelj
What software is even patentable anymore? Some light reading of articles and
wikipedia[0] makes it appear that post-Alice Supreme Court ruling anything
mathematical, or anything that is an abstract idea implemented by a computer,
is not patentable. I'm struggling to think of what is left. Cryptography is
pure math, as is data compression. Is a specific type of UI patentable?

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_under_United_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_under_United_States_patent_law#What_software_patents_will_survive_Alice_analysis.3F)

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rayiner
Alice/Mayo are more complicated than that. Those cases lay out a two-step
process:

(1) Is the patent directed at an abstract idea or law of nature? If not, it is
subject-matter eligible.

(2) If the patent is directed at an abstract idea, does the patent add any
"inventive concept" so that the patent isn't just an attempt to monopolize the
abstract idea itself? For purposes of this second step, simply performing the
abstract idea on a computer is insufficient. If the patent adds something
extra, it's subject-matter eligible.

"Abstract idea" almost certainly means something narrower to the courts than
it does to many programmers. The Supreme Court declined the opportunity in
_Alice_ to rule that all algorithms are abstract ideas that are patent
ineligible.

Say I come up with a circuit that controls engine timing to minimize
emissions. If I use an electronic circuit, that's definitely patentable. Under
broad definitions of "abstract idea," if I replace the circuit with a general
purpose processor, then suddenly that's not patentable. The Supreme Court has
tried very hard to avoid that result. Something isn't patent eligible just
because you run it on a computer, but something also isn't patent-
_ineligible_ just because it runs on a computer.

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seibelj
Thanks for your detailed response. I'm still confused unfortunately. So my
algorithm needs something more that is subject-matter specific. As a contrived
example, let's say I take the quicksort algorithm. If I add something extra,
like quicksort applied to data objects tagged in a very specific way that I
design, that could then be a patent?

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rayiner
To be fair, the Supreme Court's standard is pretty confusing!

As to your example, I suspect he answer is still "no." It's not enough to just
"add something" to the abstract idea--the thing you add has to have an
"inventive concept." Field of use limitations ("quicksort to sort birthdays")
or post-solution activity ("quicksort then you do something else") do not make
the abstract idea patentable. Routine activity--and arguably, adapting
algorithms to different data formats is routine in programming--aren't
sufficient either.

One thing that's left unsaid in the cases but that matters in practice is that
the patent has to "seem like a real invention" that produces a useful result.
Courts deny that they do this, but post- _Alice_ there has been a tendency to
inject elements of obviousness and novelty into the issue of patentability. If
your algorithm doesn't seem like it was hard to come up with, or it just
produces numbers that are not directly useful to the end user, it's going to
get labeled "abstract idea."

E.g. consider an algorithm for distributed reference counting. That'll get
dinged as an abstract idea. However, if you come up with a way to manage
image/video resources in a distributed cache that happens to use a distributed
reference counting algorithm, that might pass muster.

Finally, the law has changed _a lot_ in the last 6-7 years. But there are
still lots of patents out there from back when the law was laxer that are
getting litigated (and often invalidated in light of _Alice_ ).

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izqui
We had the pleasure to interview our advisor Lee Cheng on his experience
fighting trolls.

If you have any questions or comments let us know and we will put them his
way!

~~~
zodiac
What makes going to court on patent cases so expensive?

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talmand
Hourly billing.

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jobu
_They will tell you, “you know the cost of litigation is this number”. Which I
unfortunately know the cost of litigation is like that. “All we are asking for
is a percentage of that cost and then the risk of punitive damages will go
away”_

It still amazes me that extortion via lawsuit is legal.

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steveeq1
I know lawyers who do this on a regular basis and they, amazingly, think of
themselves as good people. They even go to church, amazingly enough.

I guess my point is never underestimate "incentive-caused bias"

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sqeaky
What does a group spewing incorrect non-sense about reality have to do with
morality?

Many times these groups takes immortal stances because of their detachment
from reality. For example there is a huge correlation in people who don't care
about the suffering global warming causes and religion. Its not really hard to
understand either, many modern day american think Jesus will come in their
lifetime, so why bother caring about 100 years from now.

It even works for things directly against rules in the book. Churchgoers are
more likely to be for the death penalty even "thou shall not kill" is most of
those religious books.

I am not saying all religious people are bad, just that religion does not
filter out bad people or bad behavior effectively.

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reitanqild
> Churchgoers are more likely to be for the death penalty even "thou shall not
> kill" is most of those religious books.

...and the ones who are against death penalty for criminals often support
abortion. So much for the idea that life is "hallowed".

(FTR: I am personally against both.)

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forty
Given that you made a link between killing and abortion, it was pretty obvious
that you were against abortion. Pro abortion people do not believe abortion is
killing anyone.

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reitanqild
If you read up on the way it is practiced there is a fat chance you will see
the link as well. (Hint, they aren't always dead when they come out. Recently
(2 years ago IIRC) even nurses who work with this day in and day out started
objecting to the practice because as they said; it is completely crazy that on
one room they are fighting to save the life of a premature child and on the
next they are throwing a towel over an equally old babys face so their mom
won't hear it crying before they finally bleed out/and or suffocate.)

Also : we are way off topic and I don't want to continue this thread.

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lolc
These episodes could only happen in late-stage abortions which are very rare.
You can call it murder but that doesn't inform the debate about abortion in
general.

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Chris2048
Yes it does, you focus on the harm. If late stage abortion is wrong, it needs
to be outlawed, and hence that would be the focus of the debate.

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lolc
The way I read it the parent comment portrayed all abortions to be of this
type. ("If you read up on the way it is practiced there is a fat chance you
will see the link as well.") To me there is a big difference between the
original "abortion is murder" and your "this rare form of abortion is murder."

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Chris2048
Looking at this site:
[http://www.abort73.com/abortion_facts/us_abortion_statistics...](http://www.abort73.com/abortion_facts/us_abortion_statistics/)

there are ~1m abortions a year, 3.2% after 18 weeks; Which is about 32,000.

In absolute terms, this is dwarfed by pre-18wk abortions, more than half
happen before week 8.

Hence it may be relatively rare, but:

a) The law allows late-stage, hence 100% of abortions are _allowed_ to be late
stage.

b) those figures might change, but in absolute and % terms. Early abortions
are the more common now, no guarantees how that may change.

I think the many pro-lifers see the distinction as a slippery slope.

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reitanqild
>> The way I read it the parent comment portrayed all abortions to be of this
type.

Clarification since there is a misunderstanding about my understanding: No, I
know most of them are not this type. I also think there is a difference
between late and early although I _personally_ would advice against both. I am
not a lawmaker though.

A little background: yes, I grew up in a pro life family and while I was
always personally against I didn't really start bothering until that piece of
news struck me from one of the major newspapers that day. Knowing this kind of
cruelty actually happens on a more or less regular basis (well known by nurses
even in the small country I live in) and on the scale of 88/day * botch_factor
it is now hard not to care.

That said, yes, from a pragmatic perspective just getting rid of _most_ of
those 32000 late ones would be mighty good. I would believe a number of you
could agree with that.

There is now and has been for some time a somewhat healthy debate around death
penalty. Unfortunately IMO it seems that the right to kill innocent children
before (or, if necessary because procedure failed, after ) birth is somehow
sacred and cannot be discussed publicly.

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2bluesc
All the more reason to shop more at NewEgg.

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Bartweiss
Their prices are usually quite close to Amazon, and for me it's worth just
sticking to NewEgg to reward their customer service and anti-troll work.

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ansible
I'm shopping on Newegg because most other websites have awful category and
filtering capabilities.

Edit: But yes, their anti-patent troll activities are something I appreciate.

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Bartweiss
One of the beauties of a niche site like Newegg is that they actually
understand which products are interchangeable or related.

If I search for USB splitter by price on Amazon, I'm going to get flash drive
cases, then USB cables, then flash drives, _then_ I'll get into splitters.
Newegg knows I didn't mean that, and that "products like this" shouldn't
include everything with a USB connector on one end.

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degenerate
That's a great point, I never thought of searching for accessories on
Newegg... even if I end up buying elsewhere, their accessory/peripheral search
has always been _one of the best_ on the internet for a long time.

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Bartweiss
I only noticed it when I tried Amazon and got slammed with a hundred pages of
"it has a similar name!" matches. You can buy a laptop there fine, but
peripherals and internals just aren't arranged in any coherent way.

I'm not sure what Newegg is doing (apart from specializing), but it works damn
well.

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fapjacks
This is why I buy exclusively from Newegg. You can get things marginally
cheaper on Amazon, but you are feeding the patent troll fighting machine when
you buy from Newegg. And the costs aren't hugely more than other places. It's
a few bucks here and there, and I think probably the _most_ important few
bucks people like us could spend when buying new hardware.

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fosco
Thanks for sharing this!!

I like --> "Execution is the most critical element to success."

time and time again in high stress environments I see that there are people
able to continuously execute and implement and those who tend to freeze or
request help.

I think thriving under pressure is critical as well.

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ultramancool
Isn't the whole point of Musk opening Tesla's IP to be able to sell more
batteries? It's not charity, it's a business strategy.

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PakG1
But it's still true that Musk believes he would out-execute anyone who takes
his IP to try to copy and out-execute him, his cars, AND his batteries.

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HillaryBriss
> You look in contrast everybody who is basically going “mine, mine, mine”.
> Look at those companies, they are laying people off all the time. They are
> on the down slope of their corporate cycle. Some of them are huge multi-
> billion dollar companies but innovation is not coming out of them.

A lot of smaller startups seem to fit this description. I wonder which large
companies he has in mind though. He named Alcatel as one, I guess. Maybe AT&T
as well? IBM? Oracle? I don't know. Oracle is making a ton of cash.

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ke4qqq
Good video of a presentation from Lee Cheng earlier this year here:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-yUZW-v0io](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-yUZW-v0io)

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justaman
If there was ever a time for federal intervention, this is it.

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drzaiusapelord
To do what exactly? The federal government created this problem with its
asinine patent policies over the past few decades. Do you think all three
branches of government will suddenly overhaul this because its upsetting some
people in technology? Think of all the lobbying that makes sure this doesn't
happen. I also think companies like Google, Apple, and MS play up the "evil
patent" narrative but privately like the power their own patent portfolios
have over competitors. Either as a defensive tactic or, sometimes, as an
offensive one. These companies have also written the "Litigation will cost
this much" letter against others many, many times. They're not against the
patent system because it works in their favor almost exclusively. The
exception are these patent trolls, which usually get shot down in court or get
settled for a fee that's very affordable to big players. In fact, I'd go as so
far to say that a lot of the press and "grassroots" anger towards patent
trolls come via these companies' PR departments. They hate patent trolls but
they do not want to give up on their own patent abuses and want to
indoctrinate you into that belief system (Google/MS/Apple patents good,
everyone else bad).

I can't see any realistic reform here. Its not even an issue in this or the
past few elections. I suspect this is going to be the status quo for a very
long time. The system as-is serves big companies and the government.

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izqui
I agree change is not coming in the political front. Lobbying power defending
the patent status quo is enormous, and reviewing Patent Law isn't in any
political agendas.

Big tech companies take advantage of the system. Microsoft has made billions
of dollars out of licensing Android related patents, Apple applied for a paper
bag patent recently and Google has "patent parties" when (as I have been told
by Google friends) they encourage engineers to work with attorneys in filing
patents on anything they worked on that could be patentable.

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chenster
Perhaps companies like Google should really consider to move up reforming the
patent system to encourage innovation on their dont-be-evil list.

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chenster
Downvote for what? Anonymous coward please stand up.

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pbhjpbhj
Perhaps because Google ditched the "don't be evil" maxim when they floated and
started being "evil" if it pays better?

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Zhenya
Lee Cheng:Patent Trolls::United States:Barbary Pirates

