
IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties - hhs
https://seekingalpha.com/news/3550760-ibm-sues-airbnb-for-patent-infringement
======
abridgett
I remember when I worked at IBM Hursley research labs 20 years ago. The lab
director told us all "patents are very important to IBM". I expected him to
tell us that IBM made billions from licensing them. He didn't say that though.
I don't think he even _mentioned_ that. Instead he stated: "It raises the
entry barrier for the competition".

Patents were (narrowly) created to _encourage_ the spread of knowledge.
Instead of risky "trade secrets" a company would make the knowledge public for
a short monopoly. Most patents these days are not worthy of protection
(certainly not as long as they are granted for). We need different lengths for
different patents - we shouldn't treat how rectangular a phone is the same way
as a life saving drug.

~~~
patentatt
To be fair to IBM, what your director may have been saying is that their use
was primarily defensive, which it is and was for IBM. It’s not wrong for them
to patent as much as they are able to, it serves an important disclosure
function. When I worked at the USPTO, we used several patent databases. The
US, of course, Japan, Europe, and IBM. IBM had their own database because of
how significant their IP was. So while it’s unfortunate that they’ve taken the
offensive in this case, historically IBM has been an important and relatively
benign player in the IP landscape.

~~~
raywu
This is informative. What is a good way to keep track of 1) parents filed by
IBM, 2) lawsuits and parties involved IBM? Is there a service you like that
provide weekly or monthly updates?

~~~
ChuckMcM
Disclaimer, I've contributed a couple of patents to IBM's hoard of patents,
but I no longer work there.

#1 is fairly straight forward, a simple script that uses the USPTO search
function and searches for the Assignee field being IBM and the date range
being the last 30 days gives you the patents issued that month to IBM. You can
do that with a simple cron script, curl, and some script code.

#2 is somewhat more difficult, IBM gets sued a lot because they are big and a
juicy target. If you have access to one of the legal databases (Lexis, Etc)
you can search for cases where IBM is the plaintiff and the complaint contains
phaseology around patents (like "patent", "infringement", Etc.) While
expensive to access, if you live near a College or University with a Law
program _and_ you can get library privileges you use their access. In Santa
Clara county you can join the Santa Clara Law Library
([http://sccll.org/](http://sccll.org/)) which will give you access.
Unfortunately, you need to be there to access the databases so that would
involve a monthly trip to the library (not a bad thing in my opinion :-))

~~~
bubblethink
Tangential question for everyone. I recently had to file a small claims case
by myself (i.e., no attorney). It's still in the pipeline, but the process
made me realise that the legal world is a different universe altogether. From
the tech perspective, everything is stuck in the dark ages. I had to create a
pdf, print it, then go to the court, only to scan it again on a windows 8
computer with silverlight that would keep timing out. Similar experience with
the website (run by a company called tyler technologies). I was not successful
in doing much research on my own about the laws and precedents regarding such
cases. The instructions on the court's website are not precise. Why is
everything so siloed and inefficient that only lawyers can navigate this? Are
any startups working in this space ?

~~~
ska
There are startups in this space, but there are also people who value the
friction (and not all for selfish reasons).

~~~
bubblethink
> (and not all for selfish reasons)

Can you elaborate?

~~~
ska
Having physical interaction and time needed makes it harder to file nuisance
suits, etc.

------
brenden2
The whole US patent system needs to either be scrapped or rebuilt. The purpose
it was originally intended to be used for doesn't make sense in a world where
most new technology is just software, and software is incredibly easy to copy
and duplicate. Getting a software patent is mostly a matter of sneaking past
the people at the USPTO, and making sure you're the first to file. These
patent factories could just write code to generate patents all day (maybe
start using PyTorch?).

~~~
pslam
> The purpose it was originally intended to be used for doesn't make sense in
> a world where most new technology is just software, and software is
> incredibly easy to copy and duplicate.

The very first patent was to duplicate an existing process (the loom) and have
a monopoly to produce it.

I keep hearing this argument from patent proponents, but patents have _never_
in their history been ostensibly for good.

~~~
freejazz
The Constitution requires that Congress setup laws for both copyright and
patent, for the good of the nation. Patents were always intended for the
overall wellbeing of the nation. That's not to say that is what has always
been achieved by the patent system, but it's not some sort of conspiracy. If
anything, in history, they were always OSTENSIBLY for good, but perhaps
ACTUALLY bad. So I find your statement to be A) historically and factually
inaccurate B) literally incorrect given your usage of ostensibly.

~~~
Zigurd
The Framers were skeptical of enabling government to give out patent and
copyright monopoly grants. Jefferson wrote:

 _Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the
progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive
fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in
exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less
susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the
thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as
long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces
itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess
himself of it._

It is notable that patent and copyright are not natural rights. At no time was
it assumed that people have such rights, nor that government, without explicit
authorization could grant such limited term monopolies. Calling these
monopolies "good" is definitely not uncontested, nor was it ever.

~~~
freejazz
It's true some of the founders were skeptical, I never said otherwise and I
never said it was "uncontested. What I said was that it's inclusion in the
Constitution is for a clear reason, whether or not the reasoning is valid is a
different debate.

As I pointed out, the constitution grants congress the EXPLICIT AUTHORIZATION
you refer to, for the very purpose of promoting the PROGRESS of the arts and
sciences.

I guess you think that the promotion of the progress of arts and sciences is
not inherently a GOOD thing, but I'd disagree and I think the implied
reasoning behind it's inclusion is entirely self-evident.

~~~
mjevans
That seems like an unsubstantiated claim.

Does the current set of systems promote the progress of "science" and "useful
arts" as they would have been known by those signing those laws many lifetimes
ago?

From what I remember of other parts of the constitution and amendments offhand
they generally don't include an explicit directive about why something is
there. It's extremely implicit as an often obvious effect of what the law
expressly allows or forbids.

Thus it is very reasonable to ask: Is the behavior we see from IBM in this
news story promoting the progress of "science" and/or "useful arts"? Is the
behavior of industry overall with respect to these tools doing more good or
more harm?

~~~
btilly
_That seems like an unsubstantiated claim._

It is substantiated by the text of the Constitution itself.

 _From what I remember of other parts of the constitution and amendments
offhand they generally don 't include an explicit directive about why
something is there. It's extremely implicit as an often obvious effect of what
the law expressly allows or forbids._

They generally don't. And therefore the statement of intent for this
particular clause should be given more weight, not less.

~~~
mjevans
You cut out the very next sentence which describes the element that I am
claiming is unsubstantiated.

Though you do understand the further elaboration of why I too feel it is
__extremely__ important that there is a clause about why this power is
reserved to Congress and a described intent / limit within which that power is
to be used.

~~~
btilly
Unfortunately this clause was specifically litigated and we lost.

More specifically, can Congress achieve unlimited terms with regular copyright
extensions to existing copyright?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldred_v._Ashcroft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldred_v._Ashcroft)
ruled that they can. However their next attempt to extend has so far failed.

We will find out in 2024 whether they get it together, or whether Mickey Mouse
enters the public domain after all...like it should have done in 1984. (That
was the maximum that could have been expected when _Steamboat Willie_ was
released.)

~~~
mjevans
I still believe that's wrong, but a re-do now would be pointless. I doubt
anyone within the next few decades will put someone for the people, rather
than for the rich people and corporations, on the supreme court. There's a lot
of corruption (money/influence) everywhere that needs to be cleaned up first.

------
vikramkr
I recall an article a while back about how IBM is so innovative because it had
the most patents filed per year on tech or something. I think we can see now
that their patenting is less about innovation and more about patent trolling.
Quote from the FT article on this below does not seem to show to me that this
is the sort of patent that promotes real innovation - "improved navigation
using bookmarks" does not seem like a breakthrough patent-worthy innovation,
and I wonder how defensible these will be in court.

Quote from
([https://www.ft.com/content/6f02ce76-e1d6-45d8-b27a-0491281c2...](https://www.ft.com/content/6f02ce76-e1d6-45d8-b27a-0491281c2507?ftcamp=traffic/partner/feed_headline/us_yahoo/auddev&yptr=yahoo))

The computing giant has accused Airbnb of “building its business” by using
patents relating to functions such as “presenting advertising in an
interactive service” and “improved navigation using bookmarks”.

~~~
edge17
IBM files a lot of patent because (at least when I was there many years ago),
employees and their management chain have strong economic incentives to file
anything. Even interns were encouraged to file patents, and as a student it's
a great way to beef up your resume. Ironically, even between technology
professionals, the patents one files at IBM are great marketing material on
the resume.

IBM marketing itself as 'the most innovative' does work on the vast majority
of the world that isn't in technology.

~~~
choward
> as a student it's a great way to beef up your resume

Really? I wouldn't view that as a positive unless we're talking about law
students I guess.

~~~
bluedevil2k
That’s just a cynical response meant to devalue the OP. When people see a few
patent #’s on a resume from a kid coming out of college, of course it’s a
positive.

~~~
genocidicbunny
If I see patent #'s on a resume from a college kid, I'm going to actually look
up those patents.

And I'm only going to view them positively if they are genuinely novel. If I
can trivially find prior art or its another of those "with a computer"
software patents, it's going to be a very big red flag.

Of course, this is just my own anecdote, and you may very well be right in the
broader scale.

~~~
JamesBarney
You described putting in more than 100x as much work going through someone's
resume as the typical company.

Also, why would it be a big red flag if you can find prior art? Whether or not
there is prior art probably has very little to do with how capable of a
developer the individual is.

~~~
genocidicbunny
Certainly. It is far more time than what our recruiter would put into it; but
I don't see resumes until they've at least been filtered that way, so I don't
really have to deal with a deluge, just a slow trickle. We're also a
relatively small company, so the number of applicants is a bit reduced by
that.

If I can find prior art that is effectively their patent, it shows to me that
they were engaged in patenting something that shouldn't be patented. I have
strong personal feelings about that, and I do not much want to work with
someone that believes that every idea that _can_ be patented _should_ be
patented.

With that said, there are many other reasons I would reject a candidate before
I would reject them over this. If anything, with the relatively small number
of resumes that I get on a weekly basis, anyone having any patents on their
resume is going to raise a red flag that I am going to poke at more. It also
gives me another topic to engage the candidate on, and on one occasion that
lead to a conversation that made me vote to hire the candidate.

------
ambyra
The patents involved in the case are United States Patent Nos. 7,072,849 (the
‘849 patent), 6,778,193 (the ‘193 patent), 7,631,346 (the ‘346 patent), and
6,966,038 (the ‘038 patent). The ‘849 patent was used in IBM’s development of
Prodigy, a precursor to the World Wide Web, and involved taking advantage of
the computing power of a user’s PC to increase response speed. The ‘193 patent
involved a method to improve search results based on user context. The ‘346
patent involved improvements to single-sign-on technology for first-time
users. The ‘038 patent improved navigation by using bookmarks.

These sound so generic and ubiquitous to how the internet works. The once
great IBM is becoming a patent troll :(

~~~
teddyh
> _The once great IBM is becoming a patent troll :(_

IBM has _always_ been a huge patent troll.

 _" OK,"_ [IBM] _said,_ [to Sun in the 1980s] _" maybe you don't infringe
these seven patents. But we have 10,000 U.S. patents. Do you really want us to
go back to Armonk_ [IBM headquarters in New York] _and find seven patents you
do infringe? Or do you want to make this easy and just pay us $20 million? "_

 _After a modest bit of negotiation, Sun cut IBM a check, and the blue suits
went to the next company on their hit list._

— Patently Absurd, Forbes, 2002:
[https://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/044.html](https://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/044.html)

------
blaincate
famous fat line patent !

[https://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/044.html](https://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/044.html)

>>> The chief blue suit orchestrated the presentation of the seven patents IBM
claimed were infringed, the most prominent of which was IBM's notorious "fat
lines" patent: To turn a thin line on a computer screen into a broad line, you
go up and down an equal distance from the ends of the thin line and then
connect the four points. You probably learned this technique for turning a
line into a rectangle in seventh-grade geometry, and, doubtless, you believe
it was devised by Euclid or some such 3,000-year-old thinker. Not according to
the examiners of the USPTO, who awarded IBM a patent on the process.

Read the whole story and you will see how IBM makes money !

~~~
ALurchyBeast
Here is the 'fat lines' patent you mentioned:
[https://patents.google.com/patent/US6930686](https://patents.google.com/patent/US6930686).
It's more about efficiency of drawing a line than connecting four dots.

~~~
unlinked_dll
What the patent says it's about and what your lawyers say it's about are two
different things

~~~
ska
That's not true. If a patent doesn't say what it's about in a fairly
prescribed way, it is easily defeated.

------
anigbrowl
AirBNB is already facing a severe shock from pandemic and economic disruptions
to travel. I can't say I'm going to be sad if the short-term rental market
collapses after what they've done to the housing situation in so many cities.

------
tyingq
Apparently, it includes patent 7,072,849, which they also sued Groupon for.

 _" Method for presenting advertising in an interactive service"_

[https://patents.google.com/patent/US7072849B1/en](https://patents.google.com/patent/US7072849B1/en)

------
johnward
IBM has so many generic patents. I wonder why they don't sue more companies? I
guess maybe they settle under the radar.

~~~
snarf21
Yeah, they would rather license. 2018 was $1.2B+ in revenue just for the
patents they already have. Our patent system really needs fixed.

~~~
mattrp
If someone invests resources inventing something, why shouldn't that entity be
entitled to participate in the on-going monetization of that invention? If we
presume the prior statement is simply a straw man, do you agree partially with
this statement and it simply needs reform or would you propose to throw it out
altogether? If the former, how would you propose to reform it?

~~~
urthen
The problem is so many software patents just cover "do a thing on a computer,"
which becomes so broad nobody else can ever do that thing without infringing
on the patent. Even if I have an objectively different, even better, way of
doing it, software patents are used far too broadly because they tend to
protect the act of doing a thing as opposed to specifically how to do the
thing.

This is in contrast to something like a hardware patent, where if you patent a
tool, and I build a better tool that does the same thing, the mere fact it
does the same thing is not infringing unless I copy specific aspects of your
patented physical design.

The reform is that an ideal implementation of software patents is largely the
same as an ideal implementation of software copyright. I can't just copy what
you did, but if I figure out a different way to do it, that's perfectly fine.
That's why so many people say scrap software patents altogether and work on
improving software copyright instead.

~~~
freejazz
The software patents you described are consistently knocked-out on §101
eligibility grounds for being an "abstract concept".

IMO people who advocate scrapping software patents are disingenuous - look at
what Google is trying to do software copyright at the same time. Essentially,
if you take Google up on software patents and copyright, there will be no
protection left for software.

~~~
retSava
Patents are granted, then if challenged, can be invalidated in court. It
should be the other way around, they shouldn't be granted in the first case.

Not all can handle being taken to court for a claimed patent infringement of a
crappy patent. It's expensive, time-consuming, and difficult. Did I mention
wasteful?

~~~
mattrp
I’m not trying to be argumentative and someone who is a lawyer can correct me
here but generally speaking a company like ibm is only going to seek licensing
from a party where the commercial impact is sufficient to merit the use of
their resources to secure a licensing deal. Even in the case of Airbnb, it’s
clear in the article ibm is suing only after attempting to exhaust other
remedies. Again, I don’t think it’s necessarily bullet proof legal policy to
advise companies to fly under the radar but de facto I don’t think ibm is
spending a lot of time chasing companies who can’t afford a legal defense.

------
gran_colombia
It seems like patent laws are a barrier to grow your business up to a certain
size in the US. Would it be more sensible to incorporate in a jurisdiction -
say, Canada - which does not allow such broad patents?

~~~
DethNinja
I’m not 100% sure but they should be able to sue you for sales gained at USA.

Unfortunately entire system is built around protecting monopolies / giant
corporations.

------
Cyclone_
As a host I've always hated Airbnb,a guest overstayed and they didn't allow me
to charge the guest extra even though the guest admitted to overstaying in the
chat with me. Can't say I feel much pity for them, they've always had the grow
at all costs mentality and have been pretty ruthless about it.

------
yourapostasy
Can someone with patent law domain expertise please describe the "novel"
patent criteria to laypeople here for software patents?

To my simple lay mind, I apply a "not-novel" test criteria to patents. If I
can describe a software patent in non-software terms, and apply a "...then a
light-speed fast homunculus does this all...", then I'm already skeptical of
the novelty of the software patent. In this specific instance, change
"interactive service" to "newspaper, fetched from a vast library...by a very,
very fast homunculus", and "advertisement" to "advertisement cut out and
replaced by another advertisement fetched from a vast library...by a very,
very fast homunculus".

So obviously my lay understanding is way off, and I'm seeking to rectify that
flawed understanding.

~~~
freejazz
You might be surprised that it is fairly complicated and there is not a clear
standard on what "novel" means for every single instance of possible novelty

------
unlinked_dll
AirBNB is like the Michael Jordan of getting sued

------
PaulDavisThe1st
I was a fact witness for Groupon in the IBM/groupon suit (which IBM won).

Airbnb is going to need a lot of luck with a jury to win this. Morally they
ought to win it, but ...

~~~
paulgb
> Airbnb is going to need a lot of luck with a jury to win this.

As an aside, the fact that these things are decided by juries is nuts to me.
Why should the average Joe who needs help installing a printer be compelled to
miss work to decide multibillion dollar lawsuits that are deeply technical? I
understand the right to a jury if you are accused of murder, but for patent
cases it just seems asinine.

~~~
slim
because justice must not depend on any preexisting hierarchy

~~~
paulgb
This makes sense to me in the context of humans committing natural crimes, but
not in the context of multinational corporations squabbling over IP. The very
concept of ideas as defensible property depends on a pre-existing hierarchy.

------
blairanderson
Can someone find the relevant suit and allegations? What eCommerce patents
does IBM own?

~~~
adrianmonk
This is from 2007, but it sounds right, and it includes some patent numbers:

[https://www.computerworld.com/article/2545023/ibm--amazon-
co...](https://www.computerworld.com/article/2545023/ibm--amazon-com-settle-
patent-fight.html)

~~~
_bxg1
> IBM sued Amazon in October last year, alleging that the company was
> infringing on a number of its U.S. patents, including those relating to
> storing data in an interactive network (Patent No. 5,442,771), adjusting
> hypertext links with weighted user goals and activities (5,446,891) and
> ordering items using an electronic catalogue (5,319,542)

Hahahahahaha

------
exabrial
One would think after years of getting trolled by SCO IBM would be over this.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I seem to recall that there was a patent claim in SCO v IBM, but it got
knocked out very early. The suit was actually about copyrights and contracts.

------
api
If IBM is patent trolling now it means they're on death watch... this is a top
indicator of a failing company.

------
WalterBright
The US industrial revolution started from ignoring British patents.

Much as I admire the engineering prowess of the Wrights, their attempts to
extract value via patents crippled the US aviation industry for a decade,
ceding aviation dominance to Europe who ignored those patents.

Similarly, Hollywood grew out of people evading Edison's patents on motion
pictures.

The notion that patents encourage innovation and progress doesn't seem to have
much historical supporting evidence.

~~~
WalterBright
Edison also spent much of his career in court being sued, suing, and being
hired as an expert witness in patent suits. Much of his contracts were from
companies trying to get around patents.

To be fair, much of his income came from exploiting patents.

------
indigo62018
Just skimmed some patents being mentioned. I'm surprised that such a
engineering company is trying to make money using such a non-technical
patents. Very disappointed on IBM.

------
bobbydreamer
Oracle copied IBMs SQL amd its mostly built from IBMs white paper. IBM allowed
it. Oracle bought JAVA to sue Google and get some billions out of it.

------
dang
Url changed from [https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/ibm-sues-airbnb-for-
pat...](https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/ibm-sues-airbnb-for-patent-
royalties-on-e-commerce-technologies) to one that isn't hardwalled, even
though all it does is summarize this one. Is there a URL to another, fuller
article?

~~~
lode
[https://www.ft.com/content/6f02ce76-e1d6-45d8-b27a-0491281c2...](https://www.ft.com/content/6f02ce76-e1d6-45d8-b27a-0491281c2507)

~~~
dubcanada
That's paywalled.

Does anyone have a non paywalled URL?

~~~
Strom
You can get past the FT paywall by having a google referer. Usually as simple
as googling for the headline.

------
verdverm
It would be great if more companies handled patents like Tesla. They obtain
patents and then let others use them royalty free

~~~
jascii
Does their royalty free license have any guarantees that the license stays
royalty free? If not, it could be an potential trap..

~~~
Keverw
Not a lawyer but I'd imagine depends on the way they wrote the license. Like
with software if someone open sourced something and then wanted to make it
closed source, if they own the copyright 100% and you didn't violate the
license you could keep using the current version but their new private changes
you wouldn't get.

So I'd imagine something similar unless the license expires after X time but
that doesn't make sense in open source as haven't seen that other than in
commercial closed source programs, and even then some programs still work but
you won't get updates unless you pay to upgrade or a yearly maintenance fee.

However you might want to document these things, heard once some copyright
troll put images out under a free license and then changed their mind so went
after websites using it.

------
peter_d_sherman
Related:

(This is with respect to IBM vs. Groupon, an earlier case)

 _" What patents are IBM claiming Groupon infringed upon?":_

[https://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/19726/what-
paten...](https://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/19726/what-patents-are-
ibm-claiming-groupon-infringed-upon)

------
jariel
IBM is a patent troll. They'll come in and threaten to sue on a patent, and
then indicate they have a zillion patents, that they'll 'find some
infringement' and then exhort. They have a cadre of lawyers incented to do
this.

It's fair that people can defend their IP, but it goes too far in many cases.

------
jlokier
I wonder how the Red Hat people, committed to open source and now IBM
employees, feel about this.

~~~
pyb
Thanks to the Red Hat acquisition, IBM became a member of the anti-patent
troll group, LOT Network : [https://newsroom.ibm.com/2020-01-14-IBM-Joins-LOT-
Network-in...](https://newsroom.ibm.com/2020-01-14-IBM-Joins-LOT-Network-in-
Major-Step-to-Promote-and-Protect-Open-Innovation)

The fox is in the henhouse

------
st_vincent33
According to the article, IBM did this same thing to Twitter (suing for
ridiculous patent claims immediately prior to an IPO, in order to pressure
some sort of settlement).

I don't know much about the stock market, but this doesn't make a ton of sense
to me. If the claim really is meritless (which, it certainly seems to be), it
shouldn't effect the fundamental value of Airbnb's business. If the underlying
business is unaffected, won't whatever PR-related impact the lawsuit has on
stock prices be erased rather quickly? Or would investors still price in some
risk as long as the lawsuit was pending, even if they felt confident it would
be thrown out?

------
yazr
Is there some sort of group-defense, where several sue-ees group together to
contest a ridiculous patent ?

I guess the main difficulty is not the legal framework, but the business
framing

~~~
freejazz
Yup, you can seek a declaratory judgment of non-infringement, or institute an
IPR at the PTAB to get a patent knocked-out. As a patent litigator, I believe
most people don't understand patents, the patent system, nor what it tries to
achieve.

~~~
therealx
What else do you think people don't know? I'd love to hear from someone
knowledgeable.

~~~
freejazz
I think people misunderstand the patent system. It's not perfect, but to
expect it to be so is entirely absurd. People do not realize it is a set of
laws that is supposed to categorize and provide structure... to the unknown.
If people realized this is the starting point from which all patent laws must
be developed, it would create the context to understand why everything else
happens. It's kind of absurd, even amongst the quite intelligent folks here,
that this goes without notice. To say software patents shouldn't exist
outright is to say that no one could invent anything in software that is novel
and beneficial to society. I'm not sure how people come to that conclusion!

I think people also fundamentally misunderstand that the "patent troll" is
kinda like the "jaywalker" a term made up by an industry attacking the very
concept. The car companies made up jaywalking once they got cities to switch
off streetcars and to free the roads up for individual's motor vehicles.
Similarly, patent troll is something used by large corporations owning vast
troves of IP that get attacked by a smaller company that owns less IP. Is
every patent litigation great? No! But our legal system already prefers to let
a guilty man free rather than put an innocent man in jail... yet there is some
absurd belief that the patent system should be more perfect than this. And
lets be fair, it's a lot easier to say "killing people is wrong and deserves
XYZ punishment" than it is to determine every unknown thing in the world.
Patent trolls aren't really trolls, they are the inventors. Most of the time,
if you invent a patent, you still can't find the funds to take on a big
corporation infringing your patent. At least if "trolls" exist, the founder
can sell his patent right to an entity that specializes in enforcing it. This
is the market working.

------
neonate
FT article: [http://archive.md/ESune](http://archive.md/ESune)

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Shivetya
Does anyone have details of how much IBM is trying to extract from Airbnb? I
see the settlement with Groupon but surely they cannot be aiming that high?
(of course I could be too optimistic here)

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gscott
IBM made a large investment in Prodigy the bbs/internet service of the 90's
and came out of it with a lot of patents.

~~~
Veen
Wouldn’t those patents have expired? The 90s is now more than 20 years ago.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
There's this ugly thing called a continuation. You file a patent in the 90s,
the patent office says "I don't think so", you modify the patent, the PTO
still says no, you modify it again, and so on. If I understand correctly, you
can wind up with a patent with a priority date of when you first filed, but an
expiration date of 20 years from when it was finally granted. (The "priority
date" means that you need prior art from before that date to invalidate the
patent.)

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cody3222
This is not a good year for AirBnB. First the virus, then this, all while they
were planning to IPO.

~~~
dehrmann
This should be noise. COVID-19 will be a big hit, though.

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_bxg1
It's pretty uncommon these days to see a major tech company (read: one that
has a reputation to maintain) actually litigate over a software patent in
court, especially over something as established and basic as "ecommerce". I'm
curious what the exact patent is for.

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say_it_as_it_is
Does anyone know what specific patents IBM is defending?

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NoblePublius
Why doesnt this link to the actual story on Bloomberg?

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rawoke083600
Ag nee jislaaik ouens !

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sequoia
What are the patents?

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xmkcof0
Shocking: some people believe they should rule the world forever.

What a novel play by entitled aristocrats.

~~~
freejazz
Forever? Patents typically last 13 years

~~~
xmkcof0
Software patents are a joke that the tech industry has relied upon to give it
relevance.

Why should “using commonly known syntax patterns to enable mechanized
organization and display of text and images in any number arbitrary
configurations”, which is a reasonable enough description of what we’re doing
from a user perspective, be protected?

That’s ALL software work is. “Feeling” ephemeral things are real is not a good
enough justification for shackling us all with such laws.

That’s ripe for abuse. No less than being told we have to make laws this way
because people “felt” God was telling them that’s ok.

But money makes laws change so they can collect on our innate agency and
curiosity for these things.

They own the land and the ideas.

Sorry, mate, read a bit more than contemporary politics & economics books.

A philosophy that undoes all this captured emotional energy to prop up
correctness of winning favor with stern old people who don’t literally
contribute except via condescending approval is right there.

Society will instead kowtow to daddy despite all the now dead philosophers
writing that we should avoid just that, lest they reign over us with their
feelings of what is appropriate and emotional wanky tales of grandiose pipe
dreams they want to achieve for themselves via our effort. More real gains for
them, inequality gains for those of us that prop up their emotional castles.

Adam Smith was right: the extreme division of labor has created a society of
ignorant humans whose agency has been boxed in by the state apparatus.

I’m not talking about anti-science and well argued positions. Politically the
people are not existing in one. They’re existing as scared children too afraid
of the ruler their fifth grade teacher who died years ago, keeps in her
drawer.

Childish paranoias literally etched in these brains forever. Thanks
neuroscience for showing us the long life of our childhood anxieties and
paranoias.

~~~
freejazz
I'm not sure why you are resorting to ad-hominem attacks and I'm not sure
where you get your facts from as software patents have routinely and generally
been knocked out for ineligibility since the Supreme Court's Alice decision
years ago.

It's clear you have no idea what is involved in getting a patent, it's also
clear that you have no idea what a patent gets you. Without litigation,
generally nothing. Software companies are well aware of how flimsy most
software patents that have passed actually are, and routinely knock them out
in IPR proceedings or §101 claims.

And your quote is silly as it describes something that should not be patented.
In fact, patent law specifically prohibits the patenting of anything "commonly
known" or simply a computer-operated process that is something a human
otherwise previously did. This is a very difficult area of the law, to
prescribe what-yet-unthought-of-things are patentable and which aren't. That's
why having a patent doesn't mean that a court will find it valid once you
attempt to litigate over it. You seem to not understand this! The patent
system isn't perfect, and it doesn't purport itself to be. We struggle to get
criminal law right and that involves people's actual lives. So I'm not sure
where you get the gall to call other people emotional when it's clearly just a
projection of your own situation.

