
Another Patent Troll Slain. You Are Now Free to Rotate Your Smartphone - VanL
http://www.rackspace.com/blog/another-patent-troll-slain-you-are-now-free-to-rotate-your-smartphone/
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crhulls
Startups can pool together to fight these guys. My company, Life360 got sued
after raising $50m. They thought this meant we had money to write checks from,
but instead we decided to use it to fight.

We're basically being sued for allowing you to click a marker on a map
initiating a phone call.

This obviously should never have been patented, so we are doing all the legal
defense work and sharing it with the startup community.

See www.stopagis.com if you want to see how we really pissed off our troll.

And public shaming also works, the CEO of our troll didn't own his domain, so
we bought it and drive traffic to the site whenever people search for his name
(Malcolm Beyer www.malcolmbeyer.com). They don't like that we "aren't playing
by the rules".

~~~
xster
Wonder if it's possible to sue the patent clerk that admitted the patent
application in the first place. Keep the fight even further from the homeland.

~~~
teachingaway
>>... sue the patent clerk?

No, not really. The patent clerk made a mistake in approving the patent, buy
they didn't intentionally grant a bad patent to cause trouble or make money.
Its really the patent trolls that are at fault for weaponizing the patent
clerk's mistake.

~~~
mullingitover
"I was just negligent, I didn't do it for personal gain" isn't enough to
absolve you of responsibility in a civil suit. It's a shame that there's no
accountability on the government's side when they screw up and cause harm,
especially on this scale.

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r00fus
"Rotatable sued us and immediately asked for $75,000 to go away. We refused.
And we fought. It’s Rackspace policy to not pay off patent trolls, even if it
costs us more to fight. Eventually Rotatable offered to just walk away – but
we refused again. Just as we promised last year, we challenged the patent and
the USPTO invalidated it.

This means that Rackspace will not pay one penny to this troll, nor will
Apple, Netflix, Electronic Arts, Target, Whole Foods or any of the other
companies sued by Rotatable for how they use screen rotation technology in
their apps."

It surprises me why there aren't joint defense funding efforts in place to put
these industry pests to bed... Clearly Apple, Google and Microsoft would have
been next on Rotatable's target list if Rackspace had caved - and like
weeding, rooting them out early will prevent infestations.

Is it because the big corps perhaps view the trolls as worth their pain - what
function could they serve?

~~~
golemotron
> It surprises me why there aren't joint defense funding efforts in place to
> put these industry pests to bed...

Or at least Troll Defense Insurance

~~~
bigiain
Heh - I can see this turning out just like the auto repair insurance rorting
industry. I fully expect if Troll Defense Insurance becomes "a thing", the
first question a patent lawyer will ask you before indicating a price will be
"Insurance job? Or private?"...

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jmedwards
_Rotatable sued us and immediately asked for $75,000 to go away. We refused.
And we fought. It’s Rackspace policy to not pay off patent trolls, even if it
costs us more to fight. Eventually Rotatable offered to just walk away – but
we refused again. Just as we promised last year, we challenged the patent and
the USPTO invalidated it._

This is an excellent strategy and will pay dividends to RackSpace in the long
term: what minor patent trolls will touch them now?

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ps4fanboy
This has really bought rack space a lot of good will in my mind. Everytime I
read an article like this I find myself wanting to do business with them more
and more.

~~~
woodchuck64
Could fighting patent trolls be a solid marketing strategy? It could!

~~~
acgourley
And recruiting - it builds mindshare in the people you employee.

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luxstyle
Why do trolls still try to sue Rackspace? They publicly proclaim their anti-
troll policy. If 88% of these cases kill the troll when they go through the
courts fully, I would stay well away from them if I was a patent troll.

~~~
lstamour
Same with New Egg ... but I guess it's because patent trolls know the patents
aren't worth much unless they try to hit every "big" user who can pay up. And
even if 88% of cases are won if followed through, I bet 88% of the time
they're not followed through, and the payments then keep trolls alive. Reform
is still our best option, for software patents.

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arbuge
>> We are still fighting some of the trolls that have come after us and we
expect to win those cases too. Without changes in the law we believe that the
only way to end the plague of patent trolls is by fighting every troll that
comes at us – and we encourage all others to do the same.

Needless to say, Rackspace can afford this strategy whereas smaller companies,
who have no full-time attorneys on staff and little funds to retain outside
counsel, generally cannot. A change in the law is needed to legislate patent
trolls out of existence is still needed, basically yesterday.

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shittyanalogy
This is fun and all but calling the patent troll slain is a bit optimistic.
Most likely "Rotatable Technologies" was specifically created to sue companies
for this patent so they could simply go out of business if things got too
rough. The larger patent troll, I'm sure, considers this loss a normal part of
doing business and will continue with other patents. This does not get any
better simply because one patent was invalidated.

We need legislative change, not to fight fire with fire. Public perception of
these companies being trolls and detrimental to innovation is important but
this is not a victory. It is simply not a loss and still an enormous waste of
resources. We need patent reform.

~~~
MiddleEndian
Rackspace's post does address this as well:

>We are still fighting some of the trolls that have come after us and we
expect to win those cases too. Without changes in the law we believe that the
only way to end the plague of patent trolls is by fighting every troll that
comes at us – and we encourage all others to do the same.

with a link to [http://www.rackspace.com/blog/a-sad-day-for-patent-
reform-a-...](http://www.rackspace.com/blog/a-sad-day-for-patent-reform-a-bad-
day-for-innovation/)

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dthunt
I am a strong advocate of the following principle:

Defeat your enemies.

Rackspace deserves some big props, here. More should follow their example.

~~~
thaumasiotes

        It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
          To call upon a neighbour and to say: --
        "We invaded you last night--we are quite prepared to fight,
          Unless you pay us cash to go away."
    
        And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
          And the people who ask it explain
        That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld
          And then you'll get rid of the Dane!
    
        It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
          To puff and look important and to say: --
        "Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
          We will therefore pay you cash to go away."
    
        And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
          But we've proved it again and again,
        That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
          You never get rid of the Dane.
    
        It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
          For fear they should succumb and go astray;
        So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
          You will find it better policy to say: --
    
        "We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
          No matter how trifling the cost;
        For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
          And the nation that plays it is lost!"
    

Obviously, the sentiment has broad appeal. But in practice it almost always
goes the other way -- caravans prefer paying bandits off to fighting them;
shops prefer paying protection money to defying the mob; villagers prefer
paying taxes to declaring rebellion; and, as called out in the poem, empires
prefer paying foreign aid to sending their expensive armies off into the
middle of nowhere. Paying the Dane-geld is forever, but even when you do
defeat the barbarians it's not like they stay defeated. You just get different
barbarians later.

Interestingly, the Roman empire liked to make sure that negotiations with
border tribes went its way by waging terrifying scorched-earth campaigns
against those border tribes shortly beforehand. It worked. But the negotiated
settlements would include subsidies paid annually from Rome to the new
barbarian leaders -- Rome liked this system because the subsidies (a) made
sure the new leaders were pro-Rome, and (b) really helped stabilize the pro-
Rome guy against local challengers.

~~~
willchang
In the same vein, the most bravado-laden thing an American president ever said
was Madison announcing his intent to fight the Ottoman states that were
sponsoring raids on American ships:

The United States while they wish for war with no nation, will buy peace with
none, it being a principle incorporated into the settled policy of America,
that as peace is better than war, so war is better than tribute.

~~~
thaumasiotes
But the extended Dane-geld concept is quite rarely referred to as tribute. It
was a feature of Chinese foreign policy during the pre-modern period that all
diplomatic relationships involved the other country explicitly acknowledging
the superiority of China. Other countries paid tribute to China, and China
responded with the magnanimous grace (return gifts) appropriate to its exalted
station.

Despite finicky wording, a lot of money and silk somehow got sent up north.

Cities all over the world and across history have found it preferable to hand
out welfare to the local poor rather than suffer through riots. The Romans
conceived of a goddess of welfare (yep) to whom it was proper for the poor to
give thanks when they got their free bread. Modern Americans like to speak in
terms of prserving the essential dignity of being human. But it's not so easy
to see a difference in the policy, or the strategy, other than the rhetoric
that accompanies it. I suspect that if the rhetoric were switched to "let's
pacify the poor so we don't get murdered in our beds", support would drop
despite the policy staying the same.

Similarly, you can "buy peace" with another nation just by overpaying for some
minor consideration they end up giving you in the peace negotiations -
basically the same concept as accounting goodwill. Everyone involved knows
what's going on, but the process is near-totally opaque to the outsiders who
cry "war is better than tribute".

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tempodox
Nice going, and a service to the community. Thanks!

