
Newegg on trial: Mystery company TQP rewrites the history of encryption - joeyespo
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/11/newegg-on-trial-mystery-company-tqp-re-writes-the-history-of-encryption/2/
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cromwellian
A guy admits he invents nothing, brazenly sues people before even attempting
to sell a license, is challenged by the inventors of the cryptosystems in
question, is shown evidence of prior art by the inventor of RC4, and wins the
case.

Can it get any more disgusting? I don't want to blame all lawyers, since I may
one day need one fighting for me, but this guy is a real douchebag. Sugar coat
it all you want "playing the game within the rules of the system". One can
play honorably, or one can play dirty, and this guy is a dirt bag.

~~~
Natsu
The more I read about patents, the more I think we should have "I thought of
that first" rights, whereby people who thought about patenting something
before the person who patented it could get their fair share of any licensing
revenue derived from the patent. This would protect the small inventors from
the big lawyers who dominate the patent scene

I know some might deride that idea as rewarding people who contributed very
little, but let's not forget: thinking it up is the _hard_ part. After all
someone who doesn't know as much about gaming theory as this guy wouldn't know
what to do with a pseudo-random if they had one. And actually making things is
mere grunt work, hardly befitting someone as important as an inventor. ~

~~~
simonw
"I thought of that first" in XKCD:
[http://xkcd.com/827/](http://xkcd.com/827/)

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shmageggy
This article was written a week and a half ago, before last week's decision.
Here's the latest:

[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/11/jury-newegg-
infri...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/11/jury-newegg-infringes-
spangenberg-patent-must-pay-2-3-million/)

edit: Link to discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6799381](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6799381)

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arbuge
The part below is pretty terrible. So all these big guys with the resources to
fight back like Newegg did instead keeled over and paid up...

"Target had a website; Target got sued by TQP. It got out of the case by
paying $40,000.

Some paid less than that—but most paid more.

Dodge & Cox, a mutual fund, paid a bit more than $25,000. Pentagon Credit
Union paid $65,000. QVC paid $75,000. MLB Advanced Media paid $85,000.
PetSmart paid $150,000. PMC paid $400,000. Cigna paid $425,000. Bank of
America paid $450,000. First National paid $450,000. Visa paid $500,000.
Amazon, Newegg's much larger competitor, paid $500,000. UPS paid $525,000.

IBM paid $750,000. Allianz Insurance paid $950,000. Microsoft paid
$1,000,000."

~~~
judk
To be clear, the payoffs from those companies financed the battle against
newegg.

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desireco42
We need all to stand behind Newegg here, if we let these people entangle us in
their schemes, we will never be free.

Newegg is fighting a good fight here and we need to make this more public.

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dec0dedab0de
FYI this links to page 2

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2bluesc
Ain't nobody got time for page 1.

~~~
Pxtl
Wadsworth constant in print form.

