

Kickstarter threatened by business-method patent owner? - dctoedt
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/kickstarter-patent-fan-funded-artistshare-243632

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alexqgb
Turns out that the cooler, evidence-based heads are in no danger of
prevailing.

For now, we're stuck with the mindless fundamentalists who view the number of
patents issued each year as a clear measure of progress. In a earlier age,
these would be the guys congratulating themselves for burning the most witches
ever.

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mmastrac
There's got to be a tipping point where everyone has eventually seen a company
they've followed get threatened by patent trolls with questionable patents
like this and gets behind the movement to ban software, business model, and
other the other patent forms that are causing more harm than good. I just hope
that this happens before we see too much damage to companies like Kickstarter
that are doing good work.

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danmaz74
I just wished that somebody patented the patent trolling business method, and
used that against all the patent trolls...

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BrandonM
You mean like this? [http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Se...](http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220080270152%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20080270152&RS=DN/20080270152)

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joshkaufman
A guy from Halliburton patented patent trolling? Seriously?

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veyron
Kickstarter needs to crowd-source the legal defense :P

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danvideo
$5,000 for signed transcripts of the trial... $100,000 for the courtroom
sketch?

~~~
avdempsey
Cute, but with something like a legal defense or a ballot initiative, where a
warchest of a given size could swing an outcome, hitting the fundraising goal
could be incentive enough to kick in.

Here's the classic college example: in California it costs 1-2 million dollars
to pay for the signature-gathering to get an initiative on the ballot. Would
100k college students pay $20 to get, say, 'hot issue' on the ballot? You only
pay $20 if the full amount is collected. For 100 million you might have a
'sure thing' campaign, could you get 1 million people effected by 'hot issue'
to pay $100?

How much does it cost to get a patent invalidated, assuming a patent reeking
of frivolousness should thereby have grounds for invalidation?

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JVerstry
What is key in patents are claims. I don't see that this patent passes the new
pencil and paper test for process patentatibility.

(see [http://www.ims-expertservices.com/blog/2011/the-new-
pencil-a...](http://www.ims-expertservices.com/blog/2011/the-new-pencil-and-
paper-test-for-process-patentability/)).

I think they are just trying to scare people away with basically nothing.

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mtgentry
Let Brian Camelio, the CEO of ArtistShare know how you feel:

Brian@artistshare.com

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zecho
Let's not resort to mob mentality, please.

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ScottBurson
I think it would be perfectly valid to write something along these lines:

"Hi! I just found out about ArtistShare.com. Looks like a great site!
Unfortunately, the way I heard about it was that I learned of the patent suit
by its founder, or a licensee, against Kickstarter.com. In protest, I will not
be participating on ArtistShare. Just thought I would let you know. Have a
great day!!!"

~~~
pavel_lishin
That's the sort of thing that only hold weight if you ever intended to use
ArtistShare.com.

It's like me threatening to boycott Time Warner, McDonald's or Barney's - I'm
not their customer, and I never will be, so what do they care?

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ScottBurson
I'm only one customer, but I'm clearly in the target market, as I've
contributed to three projects on Kickstarter.

You're right, it would have been useful to point this out.

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andrewljohnson
This just makes me sick.

Brian Camelio, congratulations - you're a scumbag.

There are no two sides to this story.

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Geekette
This patent madness calls for some kind of localized troll-defense. Maybe a
fee pool? I.e. startups (especially the underfunded) in cityX share potential
legal costs by contributing to a fund which will be used to hire lawyers to
defend any member sued by a patent troll. Maybe get local govt to chip in too
(support startups as future employers and economic growth contributors). ...A
local startup guild? Union? Or should insurance firms develop anti-troll
coverage packages?

It's just crazy that aside from 100 other challenges of being an early stage
company, you now have to contend with the increasing possibility of being hit
by a troll. Any change in legislation will be a long time coming and in the
meantime, trolls should be pushed back in some way.

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seeingfurther
Kickstarter actually has 2 of its own very specific patents. So this article
is a bit mis-leading. Kickstarter is in a much better position than this
article or the behavior of ArtistShare would seem to indicate. Bottom line
ArtistShare. Stop wasting everyone's time and get back to building a great
business.

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daemin
Given that the KickStarter is a method of finding crowd based funding for arts
and other small projects/inventions. Could there be room for a startup that
does more "classical" artist/inventor funding by patronage? Using the Internet
to connect funky arts/inention people with patrons that want to support them.

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gojomo
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_pledge_system>

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dctoedt
This may be a good lead on prior art. Unfortunately, the Wikipedia article
itself doesn't qualify: Its earliest version dates back only to 2003; the
original provisional patent application was filed in 2002.

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mmastrac
The Street Performer Protocol definitely predates the patent, although I don't
know if it directly addresses the claims of the patent:

<http://www.schneier.com/paper-street-performer.html>

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angersock
I've been working on a project in this same general area (crowdfunding) and
this scares the everliving bejeezus out of me.

Perhaps the only real revolution we can do to improve the system of capitalism
is to increase the ability of creative minds to gather funding and address the
needs of the masses. If everyone is a capitalist--if everyone is able to
easily seek funding to address public needs--then things can get better for
everyone.

This is the sort of thing that prevents that. :(

