Bonum Certa Men Certa

Rotten Patent System Not Just a Bad Apple, CCIA Seeks Change

Systemic problem



Summary: Lawsuits that discredit the system, including Apple's only recent 'win' in court (trial misconduct alleged)

Some recent news about a patent troll got the attention of this famed FUD buster who writes:

Ars Technica has the story on yet another patent troll -- though this one seems a bit special. TQP Development -- a typical patent troll in so many ways -- has apparently gone on something of a rampage over the last four years (and increased in the last year) suing hundreds of companies. The list is impressive. Its most recent lawsuit is against Intel and Wind River, but it's sued pretty much everyone you can think of. Apple, Google, Twitter and eBay? All sued. Target, Hertz and Mattel? Yup. The list goes on and on... and the company is able to get a bunch of companies to settle just to get rid of the lawsuit. Apparently not a single lawsuit has actually gone to trial.


There is also this in the news today:

Chicago options market goes nuclear, files $525 million patent suit



There was a time, not long ago, when the titans of the US financial world ran away from patents. During the Bilski case, big banks filed an amicus brief (PDF) on the same side as Google, asking the Supreme Court to disallow so-called "business method" patents to no avail.

However, a few key financial institutions have embraced patents enthusiastically. This week, the Chicago Board Options Exchange has taken finance-patent wars to a new level. CBOE filed a lawsuit against a competing options exchange, International Securities Exchange (ISE), demanding $525 million for the infringement of three patents: US Patent Nos. 7,356,498, 7,980,457 and 8,266,044. The board asked for the first patent in 1999, at the height of the patent-everything craze, and the patents were issued between 2008 and 2011.


This will be a good case for abolishing the patent system and the legal framework around it. It is not so far-fetched a concept. We already saw misconduct helping Apple in court [1, 2], but Samsung fights back against it:

Samsung Replies to Apple's Defense of Jury Foreman's "Deliberate Dishonesty" ~pj



[...]

It's serious. And it happened, according to his own bragging to the media. I'm not surprised there will be a hearing.


Here is more:

Did Jury Foreman Hogan Influence The Apple vs Samsung Verdict?



Samsung has been on the winning side against Apple's legal attacks around the globe - including the UK, Germany and The Netherlands. It's only the US, Apple's home turf, where it is facing some challenges. The biggest and the most infamous billion dollar verdict might have had a different outcome if Velvin Hogan was not part of that jury, believes Samsung and many others due to his perceived bias against Samsung.

Both Samsung and Apple have been arguing about when the opposing party learned about Hogan's Seagate court case. Samsung seeks a new trial due to Hogan's failure to disclose about other court cases, his 'presumed' bias against Samsung the way he ignored the court's instructions and influenced the jury using his own technical expertise.

While Apple wanted Samsung to disclose when they learned bout jury foreman Hogan's other court cases (and Samsung disclosed), Apple itself refused to entertain Samsung's similar request.


Samsung wouldn't settle. Why would it? It has a lot to gain now that it is leading. It is Apple that might want to retreat and prevent further retribution from Samsung. Here is what Samsung is doing:

Samsung Raises Prices To Apple: I Wonder Why?



Now this is an interesting little tale: Samsung has raised the price it charges Apple for the main applications processors in the iPhone and iPad. The interesting question is why have they done this? I have a suspicion that I know the answer why: no proof, just a suspicion.

[...]

So, what might encourage Samsung to go for the short term greed rather than the long term type? My suspicion is that Samsung is realising that there’s no long term relationship available with Apple any more. There is of course the multi-continental fight going on over Android and the design of phones and tablets. But more than that, Apple has been disengaging from Samsung as a flash memory supplier, even as a screens supplier. To the point that there are rumours that Apple has been bailing out a Sharp plant in order to ensure that supply from some, any other than Samsung, company.

There have also been stories around that Apple is looking to either bring inhouse the chip fabrication itself, or to look for another fab house to bake them. Apple already does the detailed design of the chips with ARM providing the basics of the core. In the medium term, over the next generation or two of chips, it wouldn’t be all that difficult for Apple to farm it out to someone else, the physical construction of the chips.


Apple has failed in its litigation against Samsung. Apple likes to accuse Samsung of 'stealing' like it accuses -- in vain -- China of 'piracy'. All in all, we are dealing with a broken system that even Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) is trying to tackle:

The U.S. patent system is supposed to foster innovation and reward inventors. But in recent years it has devolved into an epidemic of licensed blackmail with shell companies using flimsy patents to shake down productive companies — especially in the tech sector.

Today, technology firms launched a new website called Patent Progress to call attention to the patent problem, and to share solutions from legal and policy experts. The site is run by the Computer & Communications Industry Association, an advocacy group that counts Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook among its members. Its contributors include leading intellectual property and antitrust lawyers and scholars.


They sometimes lobby for Microsoft. CCIA helps corporations, not people, so Patent Progress is probably not the best way to go. Still, it's a sign that even corporations are getting fed up.

Ed Black from CCIA writes today that "RPX estimates that there are 250,000 active U.S. patents applicable to the smartphone. Assuming an average of 20 claims each, that is 5,000,000 restrictions on smartphone innovation.

"CCIA’s DisCo project did some further calculations and found smart phone patents account for 16 percent of active patents in the U.S, using RPX estimates.

"As for software patents, researchers say it would take roughly 2,000,000 patent attorneys working full-time to compare every software-producing firm’s products with every software patent issued in a given year. Moreover, any such search would be incomplete, because it cannot reveal applications that are not yet published (18 months from filing in most cases), let alone those that have not yet been filed."

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Jamie Zawinski Complained About Wayland, Then Decided to Give It a Go, Now Complains Again About Wayland
Ask IBM (Red Hat) why it's worth throwing so much away just for Wayland fanaticism
Russia Set to Ban Facebook?
If WhatsApp is made to "leave", that means Facebook or "Meta".
Taking Stock of a Good and Productive Week
We shall now be taking a break, unpacking the new hard drive (8 TB), and making backups of everything
Ageism in Tech
Your protocol is "old"...
 
In Defence of "Spinning Rust"
Just because something is "old" (or older) doesn't mean it ought to become extinct
Using Free Software to Prepare Legal Documents
LibreOffice is openly complaining about OOXML as an obstacle
Tech and Technology Are Not the Same Anymore
"Are you into tech, Sir?"
Our Articles About SLAPPs Receive Recognition and Interest
This week we shall continue writing about the 3 lawsuits we filed
Are You Served?
For many people, advocacy of Free software and GPL enforcement are assumed to be happening
Conspiracy or grooming? Alex Jurado, Voice of Reason compared to Outreachy
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 20/07/2025: Security Breaches and Former 'Open' 'AI' Engineer on Hype and Culture Issues
Links for the day
Links 20/07/2025: Fending Off BRICS and US Government Attacks Its Own Media (Like China and Russia)
Links for the day
Framed by social control media: Alex Belfield, Voice of Reason
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 20/07/2025: Summertime and OCC25 Wrap-up
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Planet Ubuntu, LinuxSecurity, and More
former "Linux" blogs which basically became slopfarms
Links 20/07/2025: More GAFAM Lawsuits, Layoffs, and SLAPPs
Links for the day
Nice Recovery (From Actual Fire) by PCLinuxOS, New Version of PCLinuxOS Released, Now Top of DistoWatch
PCLinuxOS is a community-driven distro
More Microsoft Shutdowns That Mostly Slipped Under the Radar
Remember what happened to books 'sold' by Microsoft?
Microsoft Lunduke Still Fighting Cancel Culture With... Cancel Culture
There will be no "winners" in such 'debates'
The History of Daily Links and Politics
"I support Wayland, but I also support abortion..."
Microsoft is at 0% "Market Share" in Most Areas
Depending on the taxonomy chosen, there may be dozens of categories other than desktops and laptops
"The moment MSFT stock fails to start tumbling, that’s the beginning of another corporate giant going under."
There are far more layoffs at Microsoft than at Intel, but you would not get this impression based on Wall Street media
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 19, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 19, 2025
Gemini Links 19/07/2025: Git For Authors and Filtered Antenna
Links for the day
UEFI 'Secure' Boot Abuses by Microsoft to be Brought Up in the UK High Court in 3 Months
we'll seek compensation
Next Year It'll Be Half a Decade Since the Fall of Freenode (and IRC is Still Doing OK)
Our IRC network is still accessible using the exact same software that ran in Windows 3.x
Lupa Will Soon Know of 3,100+ Active Gemini Capsules
And some people in the "Small Web" try to tell us that Gemini is dying?
The Slopfarms Are Taking Real News Articles and Replacing Them With Lies Generated by Machines
Bluntly speaking, Fagioli is nothing short of an online scammer
Links 19/07/2025: Techtarget to Cull 10% of Staff, New Threats to Free Press in the US (Home of Dangerous and Violent Stranglers From Microsoft)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 19/07/2025: "Climate Justice” and Forking Programs
Links for the day
What Wayland and Microsoft/IBM systemd Have in Common
focus on what IBM (Red Hat) is pushing while running over critics.
Linux Already Has About 60% of the "Market"
"When mentioning the client side," opines an associate, "it is essential to recite the list of other markets where Microsoft is negligible or a no-show. It is repetitive to do so, but it needs saying -- often."
In Norway, Android/Linux Has Just Hit All-Time High (First Time Since 2020), GNU/Linux Already Very Prevalent
Despite its small population size, Norway gave us Qt and many other things
Finland (and NATO) Must Move to GNU/Linux and Dump Microsoft Even Faster
"Microsoft is not a technology problem, it is a staffing problem."
Microsoft's Mass Layoffs Very Wide-Ranging, Media Focused on Gaming Though Microsoft Mass-Firing Lawyers and "AI" Staff (Contradicting Its Supposed "Investment" in "AI")
Microsoft plans to fire almost half a thousand people in legal roles
2012 Article About the Free Software Foundation Blasting Canonical/Ubuntu Over Adoption of "Secure" Boot (Microsoft's Remote Control Over GNU/Linux Since PCs' Power-on)
By Katherine Noyes (article has since then became 404, not found)
The Microsofters We Sued Helped Microsoft Make GNU/Linux 'Expire' This Year
"Linux and Secure Boot certificate expiration"
linuxconfig.org Joins linuxtechlab.com and Others, Becomes a Slopfarm With Fake Linux 'Articles' (LLM Slop)
They contain "linux" in their domain names, but they are just slopfarms
Links 19/07/2025: Microsoft Cuts in China and Wall Street Journal Sued for Reporting on Jeffrey Epstein
Links for the day
Debian Can Dump Blind Users Because I am Not Blind
the sort of mentality we're up against
Fascistic Policies Got 'Normalised' in 'Public Office'. Let's Not Let the Same Happen in 'Tech'.
Political discourse typically guides what's "normal" and what "good citizens" should believe/feel
The European Patent Office Cannot Attract Proficient Patent Examiners Who Master Their Domain
They are enablers and facilitators of corruption
Yes, Your Mastodon Instance Will Also Shut Down
Few people run a one-person instance in the Fediverse
The Demise of GAFAM Necessitates Greater and Broader Awareness
Morale at Microsoft is really bad
Free Software Foundation Reaches 75% of Funding Goal
Not bad for this "Fosschild"
Slopwatch: 7 New Examples of Fake 'Linux' Slop Pieces (Plagiarism With Misinformation)
Serial Sloppers need to be shunned
Links 19/07/2025: Kapo-berg Settles, Software Patents Challenged
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 18, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 18, 2025