
U.S. top court tightens patent suit rules in blow to ‘patent trolls’ - robteix
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-kraft-heinz-idUSKBN18I1SZ
======
redm
We have been sued by patent trolls at least seven times in the last ten years,
all in Marshall, TX. We also sign onto the amicus brief for the TC Heartland
case. This is a huge victory and what it means, in short, is that we won't get
sued in Marshall, TX anymore. That's important because the venue is full of
nepotism and extremely plaintiff-friendly. The longer version is we won't have
to pay a "toll" to trolls who sue many other companies and us for ridiculous
reasons like using OAuth or providing a link to images we host.

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> That's important because the venue is full of nepotism and extremely
plaintiff-friendly.

Could somebody explain this point in detail? Surely the law is the law
regardless of where in the country a case is heard.

~~~
mullen
Off the top of my head, but I do remember a case in Texas where the son of the
Judge was representing the Plaintiff. The judge refused to excuse himself from
the case.

~~~
rayiner
Source? I highly doubt that's true. There is a (now retired) judge whose son
was a lawyer in EDTX. I'm not aware of any case where the judge refused to
recuse himself from a case where his son represented one of the litigants.

~~~
jen_h
Might be true? This doesn't specify whether they worked on the same cases,
though. Also seeing articles on Vice & Ars Technica, but neither mention.
[http://thepriorart.typepad.com/the_prior_art/2008/03/judge-w...](http://thepriorart.typepad.com/the_prior_art/2008/03/judge-
wards-son.html)

~~~
rayiner
Right, there's a judge whose son is an attorney in the district, but no
mention of him presiding over a case where his son is representing a litigant.
That would be a serious ethical breach. A judge having a child who is a lawyer
in the same district, on the other hand, is perfectly normal.

------
inputcoffee
For those of us who don't understand how these things work, does someone know
the answer to these questions:

1\. So does this mean that almost all patent suits will be filed in Delaware?

1a. If that is correct, does someone know the TL;DR of the rules that make it
a better choice than other places. (I mean, juries are juries).

2\. Will tech companies now incorporate in non-Delaware states because there
are even better rules somewhere else?

Thanks for helping us understand the context.

~~~
rayiner
The patent venue statute, 28 U.S.C. 1400, says: "Any civil action for patent
infringement may be brought in the judicial district where the defendant
resides, _or where the defendant has committed acts of infringement and has a
regular and established place of business_." This case holds that a corporate
defendant "resides" where it is incorporated. But the second clause is still
operative--you can still sue the company where it has a "regular and
established place of business."

As for Delaware, I don't think it's particularly plaintiff friendly so much as
its not defendant friendly. If you sue a tech company in N.D. Cal. you're in
the position of telling locals that a business that generates jobs and tax
revenues for them did something wrong. Delaware, being the hub of all sorts of
business litigation, sees things at a more abstract level. You're less likely
to get a judge or jury in Delaware that comes in with a particular
preconceived notion of X or Y being bad. They're going to look at the facts
and they're going to look at the law and make a decision. That manifests
itself in some practical ways. For example, some Delaware judges are loathe to
permit summary judgment motions (decisions on the case before it goes to a
jury). Many infringement questions are, according to the law, jury questions,
but judges grant summary judgment anyway to save defendants the time and
expense of a jury trial. Delaware judges don't really care about that.

~~~
inputcoffee
Wow, so if they can still be sued in a "regular and established place of
business", does that dissuade startups from moving to, or starting in, Austin?
Is Dell a target now because of the plaintiff-friendly juries. (That is what I
hear, I don't know the details).

Does this mean that startups should actually stay in Delaware to reduce the
footprint of places they can get sued in?

Doesn't sound like it changes much for the large tech companies who are all
over the place anyway.

~~~
tzs
Rayiner has already pointed out that Austin is not in the so-called plaintiff
friendly Eastern District of Texas (EDT).

Also, it's not clear that EDT is actually plaintiff friendly. Defendants win
plenty of cases there, and last time I saw stats it didn't seem particularly
outstanding. There were several that had significantly higher plaintiff win
rates. The numbers can change dramatically from year to year, though, so what
I saw may be outdated.

(Update: 2016 plaintiff won 36% of patent trials in EDT. 2015 was 50%, 2014
was 67%, and 2013 was 33%. These are lower than the overall national plaintiff
patent win rate, I think [1] [2] [3]).

A big reason plaintiffs choose EDT is that it is fast and experienced (the
former partly due to the latter). Patent suits are civil cases heard in
Federal district courts. Federal district courts also deal with criminal
cases, and criminal cases have higher priority.

In some districts where there is a heavy load of criminal cases the civil
cases can end up move very slowly. EDT doesn't have much crime, so there
aren't many criminal cases there. They have plenty of time for civil cases.

Patent cases are among the more technically complicated cases. They will go a
lot smoother if handled by a judge who is experienced with them. Once a judge
gets experience with a few patent cases, that can attract plaintiffs to that
district. Some judges _like_ patent cases, and so whenever one is filed in the
district they serve in, they ask to have it assigned to them. That in turn
makes the them even more attractive to future plaintiffs.

Patent cases are often "big". What I mean by that is that they often involve a
lot of people attending the trial or accompanying those who attend the trial.
Each party will have patent lawyers (often more than one) and trial lawyers
(often more than one) on their team. Those will all have secretaries and
paralegals. They will have witnesses, which on the plaintiff side will at
least include the inventor(s) and probably others who were involved with the
invention, and on the defendant side will include the people who developed the
technology that defendant used that is accused of infringing. There will be
expert witnesses both sides have hired to explain the patent and the
technology, both as used by plaintiff and by the accused infringer. Both sides
will also probably have a damages expert. Both sides will have rented at least
one large conference room at their hotel, and will have brought along an IT
team that will arrange high speed internet in that conference room and have
set it up as a nearly complete office, complete with workstations, printers,
phones, FAX, and so on. There will be a multimedia team that makes graphics
and animations for presentation during the trial.

The trial itself might last a week or two, but most of the above team will be
there for two to four weeks before the trial starts. What that means is that
you might be looking at needing 30ish hotel rooms, plus a big dedicated
meeting room, and probably several smaller dedicated meeting rooms, for four
to six weeks, and you want this reasonably close to the court.

Keep in mind both sides are doing this, so you are looking at 60+ people
staying at good hotels, renting expensive meeting facilities, using the
services of many local businesses (restaurants, car rental, office equipment
rental, cleaners, clothing stores, barbers and stylists) for a month or more.
This can bring in a pretty good amount of money to the local economy.

District judges generally live in the districts in which they serve, and are
aware that these big cases are good for their districts. They sometimes take
steps to encourage such cases to come to their districts, such as adopting
local rules to make handling particular types of cases more efficient. EDT has
done that with patent cases. I recall reading of a few other districts that do
similar, but for specialities other than patents, but cannot recall specifics.

[1]
[http://mcsmith.blogs.com/eastern_district_of_texas/2016/08/2...](http://mcsmith.blogs.com/eastern_district_of_texas/2016/08/2016-edtx-
patent-trials-update-36-win-rate-for-plaintiffs.html)

[2] [https://www.pwc.com/us/en/forensic-
services/publications/ass...](https://www.pwc.com/us/en/forensic-
services/publications/assets/2016-pwc-patent-litigation-study.pdf)

[3] [https://www.thenaplesroundtable.org/wp-
content/uploads/2016/...](https://www.thenaplesroundtable.org/wp-
content/uploads/2016/12/AIPLA-Patent-Stats-2017-Mid-Winter-Paper.pdf)

~~~
AaronFriel
You may be making a mistake in trying to compare the plaintiff win rates
between districts. If patent trolls/non-practicing entities with frivolous
patents are suing in EDT and still winning at proportional rates to other
districts, then the district still favors those plaintiffs disproportionately.

It would take a lot of work to work out variables like that. What I would be
curious about is what proportion of patent suits brought by non-practicing
entities are filed in EDT, and what is their win rate there versus elsewhere,
and an attempt at analysis of how broad the patents are.

Finally, I wonder if your win rate includes settlements? My understanding is
that the combination of the win rate of plaintiffs, the speed of the court,
and the higher cost of defending a patent suit in a remote district, most
cases are settled. Is that true?

~~~
dhimes
To your point, I'm actually more interested in districts where troll suits are
thrown out and never make it to trial. That was my understanding of the
downside of the EDT: ridiculous suits could be heard, and the act of suing is
being used as extortion.

------
monochromatic
Here's the actual opinion:
[https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/16-341_8n59.pdf](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/16-341_8n59.pdf)

~~~
mayoff
HTML version here:
[https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/16-341](https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/16-341)

The page starts with the syllabus (a summary by the Reporter of Decisions),
but in this case the opinion is not much longer than the syllabus.

------
guelo
There has been this weird insurrection by the Federal Circuit defying Supreme
Court precedents to push for overly-strong intellectual property laws.
Hopefully this is the beginning of the end of that insurrection. Personally I
would like to see the Federal Circuit disbanded; the idea of a court with
technically-specialized judges seems like a good idea but in practice we have
ended up with a court filled with a bunch of biased patent-enforcing corporate
litigators.

~~~
PatentTroll
First of all, the Fed. Cir. doesn't only do patent cases! They also handle
appeals from the court of federal claims (read: suing the government) and
veterans matters among other stuff. But consider the reason why appellate
jurisdiction was concentrated in the Fed Cir in the first place, imagine a
court of appeals that went off the rails as much as the EDTX! The Fed Cir is a
good thing, and I'd even advocate for a unified court of first instance for
all patent infringement matters to avoid another EDTX happening in the future.

------
josaka
According to last year's stats, the tradeoff between Delaware and EDTX is that
the patentee has a slightly lower chance of winning in Delaware (40%) than
EDTX (54%), but when they do win, they get almost twice as much in damages
($17m vs. $9.4m). See [https://www.pwc.com/us/en/forensic-
services/publications/ass...](https://www.pwc.com/us/en/forensic-
services/publications/assets/2016-pwc-patent-litigation-study.pdf)

~~~
blazespin
Likely there is a lot of bias in those stats that aren't skewed by the courts
themselves but rather the cases brought to bare.

------
tqkxzugoaupvwqr
> The decision overturned a 2016 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
> Federal Circuit, a Washington-based patent court, that said patent suits are
> fair game anywhere a defendant company's products are sold.

Why didn't companies stop selling in patent troll friendly districts to avoid
lawsuits? If you sell on the Internet, couldn't you just put a list of
territorial exclusions in your terms and conditions?

~~~
PatentTroll
1) the practical implications and difficulties in doing so, and 2) the "stream
of commerce" theory which blurs the lines significantly. Even if a web site
managed to exclude certain districts, it would be pretty easy to make the
argument that they have a large enough economic impact that they also affect
those in that district.

------
ytNumbers
Going forward, I can't see any tech companies making the mistake of
incorporating in the state of Texas. Better safe than sorry.

~~~
Splendor
Reading this story made me curious as to why software companies haven't made
an effort to exclude sales in that area. It seems like that would at least get
you out of that jurisdiction.

~~~
omginternets
Because, to a certain extent, it's cutting off your nose to spite your face.

When you're an early-stage, cash-strapped business entity, doing business in
TX probably seems like an acceptable risk.

------
DannyBee
For those curious, because jurisdiction is a fundamental limitation on court
power (IE courts can't make rulings about things/people/etc they have no
jurisdiction over), this will likely result in the immediate transfer or
dismissal of ~400 cases pending in EDTX. Maybe more. (some defendants will
have waived it by not objecting)

~~~
dragonwriter
This ruling is about _venue_ , not _jurisdiction_. Venue is less fundamental,
and waivable; jurisdiction is fundamental, as you discuss.

~~~
DannyBee
First: Yes, i misspoke, because i forgot this was TC heartland, which was the
venue case. My brain appears to have melted this morning. Oh well.

Second:

Personal jurisdiction is also waivable Subject matter jurisdiction is not. In
any case, the number i gave is actually the number where venue arguments have
not been waived. There are about 400 where they have probably waived the venue
argument, but have no real jurisdiction argument.

Third, yes, the statute in question is the patent venue statute. However, you
can't disconnect it that easily from personal jurisdiction, since the entire
case was about the meaning of "“shall be deemed to reside, if a defendant, in
any judicial district in which such defendant is subject to the court’s
personal jurisdiction with respect to the civil action in question"

It just turns out they already decided the jurisdiction part of that in
previous holdings, and decided this venue statute did not really modify the
general venue statute, which did not modify the definition of personal
jurisdiction they decided before that, ..

As for the transfers/dismissals, that part is also correct. See
[https://patentlyo.com/lawjournal/2017/03/imminent-
outpouring...](https://patentlyo.com/lawjournal/2017/03/imminent-outpouring-
district.html)

So yes, less fundamental, but in these cases, venue and jurisdiction will now
mostly be the same again (IE minimum contacts, etc)

------
rodionos
It's actually a big deal. We've been sued once and settled. It was Eastern
Texas of course. There was no merit to the case, our patent application just
matched one the keywords monitored by the NPE.

------
cmurf
FTA:"patent infringement suits can be filed only in courts located in the
jurisdiction where the targeted company is incorporated"

Hello patent lawsuits in Delaware instead of east Texas!

------
sathackr
I wonder if this opposite of this is going to happen now?

\-- A court district emerges that often rules against patent holders(and
trolls) that suddenly becomes a haven for corporations to incorporate in that
district to take advantage of the favorable court system?

Not entirely unlike the popularity of Deleware corporations.

~~~
PatentTroll
Some would argue that NDCAL is that venue (Silicon Valley and all)

------
drzaiusapelord
>The justices sided 8-0 with beverage flavoring company TC Heartland LLC in
its legal battle with food and beverage company Kraft Heinz Co, ruling that
patent infringement suits can be filed only in courts located in the
jurisdiction where the targeted company is incorporated.

This no-name company probably just saved the tech industry from its own greed
and short-sightedness. I imagine most lawsuits will happen in Delaware where
it might be harder to find a radicalized pro-IP jury like they have in that
East Texas district which has bizarrely turned itself into something of a
cottage industry based on fees and fines patent abusers pay. Scratch my back
and I'll scratch yours it seems.

Perhaps regular verdicts of hundred(s) of millions of dollar settlements over
trivial patents are behind us. Some sanity in patents would be a welcome
change.

~~~
yeukhon
All companies are vulnerable to patent lawsuits and many are really just
lawsuits created by this multi-million dollar industrial parasite called
"patent troll". So this is not just a battle for the big coproations but also
a battle many small businesses are fighting to win.

I suggest you do an Interent to get a list of patent troll cases. The gist is
someone can sue you for a workflow like authentication. Yeah that's pretty
ridiculous right?

Often patent trolls just want a settlement. Many businesses don't qant to deal
with patent trolls they go for a settlement.

US patent is easy to file in case you aren't aware.

------
faragon
Patent trolls should be prosecuted by the FBI, before they can even start
harassing anyone, in my opinion.

~~~
gph
Gotta love these kinds of comments. Meaningless pandering to the pitchforks.

Seriously, what are you even suggesting? That the FBI sniff out anyone
planning to be a patent troll, then arrest them before they can even commit
their crime?

Drunk drivers should be prosecuted by the FBI before they can even get behind
the wheel, in my opinion.

~~~
faragon
Let's make patent trolling a crime, so an organization/company doing/preparing
that crime could be stopped.

~~~
johncolanduoni
And how would you define that crime, in a way that isn't so vague it just
becomes a tool for either the government to arbitrarily prosecute people or
for companies with solid IP lawyers to shield themselves from taking anyone
else's IP seriously?

~~~
faragon
In the same way as you define the mafia: a business based on making profit
from extortion.

~~~
johncolanduoni
If you include threatening to bring court cases as extortion, what's the point
in having any laws that let you sue for damages? Or enforceable contracts?

If my landlord starts neglecting my lease, do I now have to choose between
just letting them get away with it and criminal charges? I wasn't expecting
you to come up with a particularly great condition, but this one is
_particularly_ silly pitchfork-pandering.

~~~
faragon
The one concluding that would be a judge, of course.

------
myrandomcomment
Yes! Finally. 8-0 even. Yes! All I wanted to say. Common sense finally.

------
odbol_
So, they're moving all patent trials from Texas to Delaware (since 99% of tech
companies are incorporated in Delaware). Doesn't seem like that big of an
improvement.

------
MichaelBurge
> ruling that patent infringement suits can be filed only in courts located in
> the jurisdiction where the targeted company is incorporated.

That should immediately put an end to the one district in Texas that has a
cottage industry of patent lawyer tourism, right?

I suppose it opens up the reverse problem: Find a court that never upholds
patents, incorporate in the local town, and infringe everyone's patents with
relative safety. Somehow that seems like a better problem to have, though.

~~~
colanderman
Not quite the reverse. As another commenter noted, a large part of the problem
is that that particular east Texas district didn't force plaintiff to pay
defendants' costs when they (the plaintiff) lost. When you let the defendant
choose the (presumably friendly) court, the cost of failed litigation shifts
from the defendant to the plaintiff, who, unlike the defendant, has the option
to appeal failed litigation. (But IANAL and I'm sure there are exceptions to
this.)

~~~
MichaelBurge
Do you mean plaintiff instead of prosecutor?

~~~
colanderman
Yes, fixed, thanks.

------
EGreg
Woohoo. This supreme court decision instantly kneecaps many patent trolls, not
just in software. No more patent-friendly 9th circuit Texas district.

~~~
dragonwriter
EDTX is in the 5th Circuit, not the 9th Circuit.

------
ww520
The IPXL vs Amazon case probably has a bigger impact than this case. That case
invalidated a large number of system plus method claim patents.

~~~
swsieber
Long term, maybe. Short term, I think this has a bigger impact since even if
method parents were invalidated, people could still scare tactic sue you with
an invalid patent.

~~~
ww520
It's just a matter of educating people. That case was only dated to 2005. Most
people probably don't know the implication. Once the simple test of
system+method detection is applied, a large swap of BS patents can be thrown
out at the first sight.

~~~
rhino369
Most patents use "operable to" or "configured to" to get around mixed
apparatus/method claim prohibition.

------
Radle
This isn't really a solution. The court in the defenders courtyard will soon
turn to be more likely to defend their neighbours.

------
24gttghh
> Justice Neil Gorsuch did not participate in the decision.

It does not appear that Gorsuch has yet added opinions on any cases this year
as a Supreme Court Justice. Has he been participating in new cases?

~~~
foota
Is it typical for a judge to wait to make decisions when new to a court?

~~~
dragonwriter
It's typical for a judge not to take part in decisions relating to cases which
were heard before he was on the court, even though the final decision was
rendered after they joined.

------
10165
Fact: Certain federal judges were getting a disproportionate amount of patent
cases.

Consider: Over time, it is possible judges in other jurisdictions did not like
this. (Why?)

Question: Can anyone assume that these other judges not in, e.g., ED Tx, will
not also be "plaintiff-friendly"?

Consider: Being "plaintiff-friendly" can have the effect of more patent cases
being filed in the judge's jurisdiction. Further consider that some judges may
_want_ more patent cases filed in their jurisdiction.

As such, the headline may be prematurely drawing conclusions. Or not. Will
patent litigation continue to rise, will it remain steady, or will it begin to
fall?

~~~
bkmartin
Call it coincidence, or nepotism, or maybe something worse... both of the
judges that hear most of the patent cases in ED Tx have son's that represent
most of the trolls in court.

I would love to see the Justice Department or FBI investigate the financial
relationships between the Judges and their sons. Are they jointly invested in
anything that could be used to launder funds and provide kickbacks? Or are
these just two fathers that are proud to see their kids get rich?

~~~
rudyfink
To my knowledge, the statement "both of the judges that hear most of the
patent cases in ED Tx have son's that represent most of the trolls in court"
is incorrect as written. The comment may be thinking of former judges, who
retired in 2015 and 2011, but even for those judges I am skeptical of the
"most of the" portion of the assertion. To be clear, the former judges had
sons who practiced in ED Tex (and still do), but I would be surprised if they
ever represented the most plaintiffs in a given year (either individually or
in combination), though I admit I have not pulled the numbers to check.

For the current judges in the district, I am only aware of one who has a child
that is an attorney, and to my knowledge that child does not practice in ED
Tex (and does not practice in patent cases at all).

------
Brotkrumen
I guess it's become normalcy that the location where you are sued decides your
fate, but it's so absurd.

------
blondie9x
Finally, a bit of justice.

~~~
deckar01
The federal judge(s?) in East Texas should still be investigated. This was a
federally sponsored extortion racket. How can a judge be allowed to interpret
patent law so much differently than the rest of the US for so long?

~~~
bmelton
Because, until there's precedent from the Supreme Court, any ambiguities in
the law can be interpreted to practically any viable way of interpretation.
Further, because of precedent, a single "weird" decision in a given district
that comes early becomes effectively binding upon future decisions in that
same circuit and lower circuits under its purview.

So as to avoid politics, if the law says "Go to the nearby grocery store to
buy some bread. Also, if they have eggs, buy 6," there are two logically valid
interpretations (though there may be only one that parses correctly.) A
programmer may go to the store, see the eggs, and buy 6 loaves of bread, or he
may buy a loaf of bread and 6 eggs.

If the 4th and 6th circuits decide differently, then those precedents are
binding within those circuits and in lower circuits, so other cases using
similar logic are also binding.

Because it usually takes two circuit courts to disagree (a circuit split)
before the Supreme Court will be inclined to hear a case like this, then it
means at least two people need to be sued for getting the wrong thing, appeal,
and appeal again. Court cases take years, and finding the exact right cases
with the exact right plaintiffs takes even longer. Because of that, Circuit A
can interpret a statute completely differently than Circuit B for a very long
time indeed, and so long as there's some sound, logical underpinning, be
completely okay in doing so (though the necessity for soundness is debatable.)

~~~
Kliment
But because the federal circuit has a monopoly on patent cases, there can
never be a circuit split, and so they can get away with murder in most cases
since the supreme court doesn't have the capacity to review every one of their
decisions (the ones they do review, they generally disagree with the federal
circuit decisions).

------
xenadu02
SCOTUS continues its extreme smack-down of the Court of Appeals for the
Federal Circuit.

Couldn't happen to a nicer hive of scum and villainy.

~~~
devoply
Courts uphold decisions. The Court of Appeals was upholding a previous SCOTUS
decision which it has now changed. Nothing smack down about it. They changed
their mind. Which is good because now that judge in Texas and his sons can go
diddle themselves.

~~~
yohui
That's not what I got from the article. It says the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the Federal Circuit based its decision in this case on the precedent set by
one of its own previous decisions in 1990, which apparently ran contrary to
the last Supreme Court decision on the matter back in 1957. The Supreme Court
has now confirmed that the 1957 ruling still stands and the Court of Appeals
was wrong.

> _The Federal Circuit denied the transfer by relying on one of its precedents
> from 1990, which loosened the geographic limits on patent cases. Heartland
> urged the Supreme Court to overturn that decision, arguing that the high
> court 's own precedent from 1957 held that patent suits are governed by a
> specific law allowing suits only where defendants are incorporated._

> _On Monday, the Supreme Court agreed with Heartland. Writing the opinion for
> the court, Justice Clarence Thomas said that, contrary to the Federal
> Circuit 's rationale, the U.S. Congress did not change the rules over where
> patent suits may be filed since the 1957 decision._

------
dangerlibrary
For anyone looking for an ~20 minute intro to why this is a big deal and the
impact it has on small tech companies:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG9UMMq2dz4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG9UMMq2dz4)

tl;dw: There are some over-broad patents on usage of very common technologies
( _using_ wifi or _selling on_ the google play store are two egregious
examples) that are being used as a bludgeon against small and medium sized
firms that can't afford to defend themselves. It costs about $3 million to
defend against such a suit, and the Eastern district is known for refusing to
force plaintiffs to pay defendant's attorney's fees even if the suit is
ultimately dropped.

~~~
lightedman
Sue the Eastern District for unequal application of the law. It's easily
provable with the current track record.

~~~
clamprecht
Can you even sue a court? Seems too good to be true.

~~~
kevindkeogh
Not in this case. You would need to have standing and a relevant claim to sue
any person or firm. I would think it would pretty difficult to show sort of
generalized claim about the injustices of the patent system. That is a
political question, not a legal question.

~~~
justinclift
Class action by victims of patent trolls?

------
bitmapbrother
The enormity of this ruling cannot be overstated. East Texas is a patent troll
haven and its economy is very reliant on that business. Short of abolishing
software patents this is the next best thing.

~~~
staticautomatic
You might want to see the definition of "enormity"

~~~
lh7777
Interesting -- I didn't know that enormity originally meant something very
large _and_ bad or morally wrong -- but the GP's meaning is generally accepted
today.

~~~
pklausler
And millions of illiterates think that "literally" means something other than
"literally", too, but that doesn't make it correct, clear, or acceptable.

Words mean things.

~~~
grzm
_Words mean things._

Yes, they do. And language changes, as your parent points out. One of my pet
peeves is those who use "steep learning curve" to mean something difficult to
learn as opposed to its original meaning of something that's easily learned
based on a skill vs time chart.[0] If I were to continually point it out when
it's misused, people would get annoyed with me and the amount of change I
would accomplish approaches zero. The language moves on.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_curve](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_curve)

Edited to fix typo.

~~~
pklausler

      its == possessive form of pronoun "it"
      it's == contraction of "it is" or (rarely) "it has"

~~~
grzm
Indeed. Thanks for the correction!

As an aside, using indentation as you did makes the text difficult to read,
particularly on mobile, due to the side-scrolling it necessitates.

------
grzm
Perhaps off-topic (but that's kind of the point I'm getting at): The image and
caption displayed alongside the article doesn't appear to have anything
directly to do with the article, does it? Here's the caption:

> _The application icons of Facebook, Twitter, and Google are displayed on an
> iPhone next to an earphone set in this illustration photo taken in Berlin,
> June 17, 2013._ *

I've read the article twice. I can tangentially see the use of a general tech
photo as the article talks about tech companies being targeted by patent
trolls. If that were the case, however, I would expect the caption to tie the
two together, something like "Patent trolls often file suit against tech
companies such as Apple, Google, Twitter, and Facebook in sympathetic
jurisdictions." Including the earphone set just makes it even more weird.

* Another meta tidbit: The caption is part of the image in the mobile version. The web version ([http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-kraft-heinz-idUS...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-kraft-heinz-idUSKBN18I1SZ)) has the caption as text.

------
mtgx
If the lawsuits have to be started in the appropriate jurisdiction, then why
has the Supreme Court recently allowed the FBI to _hack anyone_ in the country
by modifying Rule 41? Why couldn't it follow the same jurisdiction-based
logic?

------
glitcher
It will be interesting to see if the patent trolls have now been incentivized
into relocating to East Texas. This is definitely a step in the right
direction, just curious to see what new unintended consequences might arise.

EDIT: Ah I read it wrong, it's the defendant's incorporation location that
takes priority. Thanks for the clarifications.

~~~
inputcoffee
I thought you have to sue where the defendant is incorporated. Otherwise, why
would the tech company get excited by the rule?

See from the article: "The justices sided 8-0 with beverage flavoring company
TC Heartland LLC in its legal battle with food and beverage company Kraft
Heinz Co, ruling that patent infringement suits can be filed only in courts
located in the jurisdiction _where the targeted company is incorporated._ "
[emphasis added]

------
Animats
Most of the trouble in the Eastern District of Texas was from one law firm,
and one lawyer.

A problem with weakening patents is that now, everybody wants to keep their
technology secret. That leads to messy problems, such as the Waymo/Google
lawsuit, when secrets leak. It also encourages overreaching employee non-
compete agreements. With patents, what's proprietary technology is out there
for everyone to see. With trade secrets, nobody knows what's going on.

~~~
wahern

      > With patents, what's proprietary technology is out there
      > for everyone to see.
    

No, not in the modern era, and not for anything that relies on software.
Disclosures in software patents are worse than useless.

In the software realm the only thing that gets patented are obvious
improvements on the state of the art that anybody familiar with the academic
literature would stumble upon were they facing the same business problem. The
real secret sauce is always in the implementation, which much of the time
can't even be _divorced_ from the implementation because software is so
complex. No company in their right mind would voluntarily disclose their
implementing software. Even when it does leak it's usually difficult to
repurpose and integrate anyhow.

Reliance on trade secrets is going to become increasingly common because of
the nature of the technology, regardless of patent policy.

