

Symantec must pay $17M to Intellectual Ventures - paralelogram
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/02/symantec-must-pay-17-million-to-worlds-biggest-patent-troll/

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jobu
_" IV was originally created as a "patent defense fund," getting investment
cash from big Silicon Valley companies like Google, Apple, and Cisco. Soon, IV
moved its focus to patent enforcement, and the firm is generally disliked in
Silicon Valley."_

"Disliked" is certainly an understatement.

It's interesting though, in all of the coverage of Intellectual Ventures
nefarious court adventures I've never heard it reported that they started out
as a patent defense fund. Is that really true?

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azakai
It may have described itself as a "patent defense fund", and that technically
might not have been a lie, with some twisting of the meaning of words.
However, what was going on was that people paid IV, and in return got
protection from being sued over patents. The only way that can work is either

1\. You are paying to avoid being sued by IV, or

2\. You are paying for IV to protect you from being sued.

In the first case, it's nothing more than a license fee, i.e., paying to avoid
enforcement against you. In the second, IV can only protect you by cross-
licensing patents or through assertion of its patents, so it's the same as 1
but with the threat against someone else.

To my knowledge 1 was the only thing done in practice, so IV was just like any
other non practicing patent-holding entity, except for the "innovation" of
aggregating massive amounts of patents all in one place, and claiming to have
no interest in actually suing people - instead expecting everyone to happily
pay them. I doubt many people actually believed that they would never sue
anyone, and indeed, shortly after that claim the lawsuits started.

I don't think there was ever a doubt IV was a patent troll. Just bigger, and
with some attempt at good PR.

~~~
thrillgore
That sounds a lot like racketeering.

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jaguar86
Intellectual Ventures is a patent troll. They shouldn't even exist. Laws must
ban those organizations that merely collect patents and waiting to sue people.
Creativity killing machines!!

~~~
vonklaus
It really isn't that simple. Inventors need a way to protect their ideas. I
think we need to come up with heuristics for lawsuits involving patent
infringement like: Companies can only sue for a percentage of the revenue they
themselves generated from sale of the product related to the patent. There is
no great way to do it. It infringes on an inventors rights to sell their
creation which i beleive deeply. However, these fucking patent trolls need to
be stopped.

~~~
tolmasky
_> Companies can only sue for a percentage of the revenue they themselves
generated from sale of the product related to the patent._

This would nullify one of the original purposes of the patent: to protect "the
little guy" who had his idea stolen. If you come up with a great idea, start
to market it, then immediately get it ripped off by a huge corporation that
then is only ever on the hook for the tiny amount you managed to make before
they stole it, then the "protection" evaporates.

Of course, I don't believe patents should really exist at all (I think there
are much better models of protection that don't involve such a clearly
exploitable mechanism), but just want to show any time you talk about "fixing"
the patent system while still keeping it, most good intentioned solutions
quickly end up being more complex than initially thought.

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asn0
Did Symantec try to challenge the '142 patent during this trial? Has this
patent ever been challenged?

There's so much prior art (procmail, sendmail, cc:Mail, UseNet, routing
tables, and probably plenty more) I don't see how this patent could survive a
challenge.

~~~
josaka
I think it was challenged in this case. Page 6 of the verdict form asks if the
'142 patent claims are valid, so presumably the defendant put on an invalidity
case. (And it would be rare not to.) The prior art would have to pre-date 1997
and practice each element of the asserted claims, which recite some detail in
addition to using "business rules" to distribute email. (Usually, it is this
detail that makes the difference.) If anyone is curious, it would be
instructive to pull briefing from Pacer, and look for any motions for summary
judgement of invalidity for a (relatively) concise summary of that part of the
case.

~~~
josaka
Page 29 of the opinion at the following link addresses one of the theories for
invalidating the '142 patent. The original patent owner sold the patented
product more than a year before filing for a patent, which normally kills your
patent. But in this case, they survived on an interesting technicality in this
rule, which is that the sale must be in the United States. The court deemed
the sale outside the US, and killed the theory.
[http://www.ded.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/opinions/lps...](http://www.ded.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/opinions/lps/2014/march/10-1067.pdf)

The America Invents Act eliminated this technicality back in 2013, but this
patent was grandfathered.

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IvyMike
> While jurors sided with Intellectual Ventures, they awarded the patent
> holder less than six percent of the $299 million its lawyers sought,
> according to a Symantec spokesperson. The verdict form indicates the company
> was also asking for ongoing royalty payments, which the jury rejected.

I'm having trouble reconciling $299 million with these patents, which appear
to be gigantically obvious. The second patent, US6073142 A, appears to
basically be a description of procmail circa 1990. I challenge anyone to
figure out where the $299+ million idea was.

~~~
themartorana
It's all nonsensical, so try not to stress yourself too hard trying to make
sense of it.

This is much like prosecutors filing 68 charges against someone that committed
a single crime. They pick the number from the most absurd form of math, which
sets the bar high. If they had asked for $15m, the might have gotten only 6%
of _that_ , so they start as high as they can, assuming a reduced valuation,
because they know the patent is flimsy at best.

The problem is that they got anything at all, which lends validity to absurdly
obvious patents with decades of prior art.

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Slartibreakfast
I'm so sick of software patents. The solution seems pretty simple - the
approval process for software patents should consist of running the idea past
three people off of the street. If they say "Well, duh..." in response to
being presented with a complex idea like "Method for Storing Phone Number With
a Name" or "Method for Buying Something by Clicking On It" then you don't get
your freaking patent.

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omgitstom
You are giving the american public too much credit...

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Slartibreakfast
Probably. The whole patent system is broken and it is just infuriating to
observe the farce. I have simply lost count of all the examples of patents
which should never have been granted being used in litigation.

~~~
omgitstom
Yea, I feel you. I used to live in DC and had a few friend that worked for the
patent office. Hearing the stories about how things work internally made me
lose all faith in the patent system.

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zetong14
i wonder how many of you still use non-free virus program on your personal
computer

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rajacombinator
This is why I rooted against the Seahawks.

