

Texas Jury Strikes Down Patent Trolls’ Claim To Own the Interactive Web - capocani
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/02/interactive-web-patent/

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JoshTriplett
You _know_ a patent claim has no merit when even an East Texas court won't
accept it.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_District_Court_f...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_District_Court_for_the_Eastern_District_of_Texas#Patent_litigation)

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rudyfink
Honestly, I think being a juror in a patent trial is a hard proposition
anywhere. Why do I say that:

-The subject matter is likely to be mostly to totally outside of a person's technical depth and factual experience. (Here I try and think if someone asked me to decide some question related to something like advanced particle physics, chemistry, or the tax code).

-There is not that much time to figure out what is going on (these trials tend to last less than a week of 7 hour days).

-There are many different complex topics being addressed in that time span: the patents, what is being accused, etc.

-What is said is being said by competing groups of apparently competent people.

-Those people are saying widely different things about the aforementioned complex subject matter.

-Everything is being said in an extremely serious environment (Federal Court) which lends substantial gravity to each side.

-Jurors are not to consult information beyond what is presented to them in court.

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JoshTriplett
> -The subject matter is likely to be mostly to totally outside of a person's
> technical depth and factual experience. (Here I try and think if someone
> asked me to decide some question related to something like advanced particle
> physics, chemistry, or the tax code).

Not just "likely"; anyone who had such experience would get kicked off the
jury.

Nobody on Hacker News will ever get to serve as a juror on a patent trial.
(That cuts both ways, though: nobody biased towards patents will ever sit on a
patent trial either.)

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rudyfink
I think it's worth noting that as a nation we have chosen to be "biased" in
favor of patents. A patent is presumptively valid. To find a patent invalid a
jury's standard is "clear and convincing evidence." By contrast the standard
for infringement is "a preponderance of the evidence."

~~~
Symmetry
Its worth noting that those standards evolved when patents were subject to
much more intense review by the patent office, and it was (procedurally)
easier for the patent office to just reject an application.

One of the easiest potential fixes to the US patent system would just remove
the no longer warranted presumption of validity from patents.

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pavel_lishin
> The dueling teams of lawyers have spent millions creating elaborate
> presentations

Did the lawyers spend millions, or did they bill millions?

~~~
ww520
Probably spent millions in getting expert testimonials. Those aren't cheap. Of
course they turned around to bill the clients for the work with cost plus.

~~~
Helianthus
All in a day's work.

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erichocean
> Apple, Argosy Publishing, Blockbuster, Citigroup, eBay, Frito-Lay, JP Morgan
> Chase, New Frontier Media, Office Depot, Perot Systems, Playboy Enterprises
> International, Rent-A-Center, Sun Microsystems (bought by Oracle while this
> litigation was underway), and Texas Instruments.

^^ The list of companies who settled with Eloas before the patent was ruled
invalid.

A part of me wishes companies had a legal obligation to fight patent claims
they believed to be invalid. Settling hurts us all.

~~~
ars
Can the companies that settled ask for their money back?

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yardie
Most likely not. They buy the licence to indemnify themselves, like insurance.
But when you don't use your insurance you don't get the money back.

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ben0x539
It's closer to a protection racket than insurance in this case, isn't it?

~~~
yardie
Yup, that basically sums up how patent trolling works. Threaten with a
government backed court order for unknown millions. Offer a special deal worth
hundreds of thousands to take away that threat.

Public corporations tend to go with option 2 even though they know 75% of it
is bullshit. They have to list any outstanding lawsuits as liabilities every
quarter. Investors ask lots of questions about these liabilities. Expenses are
cheaper than liabilities so it's better to turn those liabilities into
relatively, small expenses than potentially large liabilities.

Small private companies also go for option 2. Cheaper to pay them off than be
billed $200/hour for a lawyer and the court fees.

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droithomme
I have to wonder when I keep hearing about these cases: if you have say a 50%
chance of a favorable ruling on some absurd patent, and the upside is billions
of dollars in shakedown payments, backed by the authority of the judicial
system, how much would a disreputable company be willing to spend on the
chance of getting such a ruling? How many other companies, seeing such
rulings, would try to get their own? How many cases would they bring on the
chance of getting the ruling? I ask somewhat rhetorically, but of course I'm
suggesting by asking the answer is "a lot" and also suspecting that there do
exist people that will prop up shell companies that bring case after case
after case until they get rulings that enable them to legally blackmail
others.

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seagreen
Here's a list of at least some of the companies that fought the patent:

Google, Amazon, Adobe, CDW Corp, JCPenney, Staples and Yahoo. [1]

Well done guys. Long live the fighters!

[1] [http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-02-09/google-amazon-
co...](http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-02-09/google-amazon-com-win-
trial-over-interactive-web-patents.html)

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zippo
This is important because this Texas court is not just any court but THE court
where most patent law is deliberated. The fact that this was struck down here
is a victory. Most of these trolls are shell corps setup by a group of lawyers
with no technical council strictly to manipulate the legal system to extort
money from tech companies willing to settle than battle it out in court. I
hope this starts to slow the onslaught of frivolous lawsuits by wanna be
lawyers. We spent Millions last year out of our R&D budget to defend ourselves
from this nonsense. They target companies with potential and growth and use
models to determine optimal circumstances for settlement. Maybe this will slow
the destruction of innovation and American jobs driven by these greedy people.
Lawyers wonder why they have a bad rap but yet they don't seem to police their
own. Sadness:(

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pilif
Personally, I think it's crazy that some court in Texas even gets a chance at
deciding a case with a reach like this.

Heck, they were talking about basically shutting down the web or turning it
into yet another "you have to pay big bucks to participate" medium of which we
definitely have enough already.

~~~
Symmetry
Every case has to start somewhere. If the obscure court screwed up somehow,
they can always appeal it up the chain.

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rsmiller510
Can't believe they settled in just two hours. The claim must have been as
specious as it appeared, but like most trolls, they might have lost the
battle, but they'll crawl back to wherever they come from and regroup for the
next battle.

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dhimes
Thank God. I didn't realize UCal had a stake in this. WTF? Don't they know
better?

~~~
koenigdavidmj
That would strike me as worthy of a black mark by the industry---a statement
that we will not hire your students if you back this stuff.

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redthrowaway
That would be an overreach, and unfairly punish some eminently-qualified grads
from Berkeley and the like. I would, however, like to see some of the big boys
boycott a career fair, or simply set up a stand with no attendant and a poster
reading, "UC Berkeley tried to blackmail us and hold the web hostage. In
response, we will not be attending this career fair." Then let the _students_
put pressure on the administration to perform a cranio-anal extraction.

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arjn
Well I'm glad to see the end of that. Its quite possible some courts
(judges/juries) would not have grasped the true ramifications of this claim
and may have opened a can of worms.

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rurounijones
While I agree with you that I am glad this has basically died because I too
was worried about what would happen:

It is not in the jury's remit to "grasp the true ramifications of this claim".
They have to judge it based solely on the merits of the case and the law being
applied.

If Eolas had a valid case then they should be paid, even if it means problems
with companies that are "too big to fail" and the rest of us.

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bandarman
I'm glad to learn the jury made the right decision. Sometimes it seems too
much to expect even that much. Something really needs to be done to fix this
nature of trolling.

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sukuriant
Maybe they're seeing so many patents they're starting to realize how many of
those patents are just ... stupid?

When you're exposed to a field more (lots of cases kinda do that), you start
to think more like a person in that field and suddenly previously non-obvious
things are obvious!

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monochromatic
Who, the jurors? It's unlikely any juror on this case has been a juror before
in a patent case.

~~~
wisty
1) Predict that a new piece of technology will be used to solve a common
problem (i.e. using a Facebook page as a resume).

2) Patent it.

3) ...

4) Sue EVERYONE.

5) Now any juror on a case will have an opinion on IP law.

~~~
politician
3) Wait till the patent has almost expired.

