Bonum Certa Men Certa

The Latest Three Stories Which Show Why the US Supreme Court Must Stop Patent Trolls

How long and how much more will it take for the Supreme Court to realise there is a profound issue in Texas?

Rodney Gilstrap



Summary: The lack of justice in the American patent system, where trolls receive favourable treatment from particular judges and one bogus patent (now invalid) can earn a person over $45 million in 'protection' money, necessitates firm and decisive intervention from the US Supreme Court

Federal Circuit Once Again Overrules Mistakes by the Kangaroo Patent Court of Rodney Gilstrap in the Eastern District of Texas



Kangaroo courts are not monopolised by the EPO and the USPTO hasn't a monopoly on bad patents, either (thankfully, the USPTO is actually improving and lowering the incentive for trolls). The US Supreme Court, together with CAFC below it, already do a fine job, further aided by PTAB (the appeals board) for quicker and cheaper determinations against bad patents.



When Apple celebrates the death of bad patents we too are happy, even if we are far from friends of Apple (we used to call for boycotts). Apple has just defeated Smartflash and there are a lot of articles about this, especially or initially in pro-Apple sites. Headlines include "Apple has $533m verdict against iTunes software patents thrown", "Apple won't have to pay $533 million to an iTunes patent troll", "U.S. appeals court tosses patent verdict against Apple", and "Apple tastes victory against Smartflash at Federal Circuit".

"When Apple celebrates the death of bad patents we too are happy, even if we are far from friends of Apple (we used to call for boycotts).""This ruling isn't surprising," one of the above articles states, "as US District Judge Rodney Gilstrap ordered a damages retrial, saying the jury's view of Apple's infringement might have been confused by his instructions on how properly to calculate royalties."

But the pro-trolls Judge Rodney Gilstrap did not in fact dispute a liability. To him, it was just a matter of how much money would be paid. First to cover the news, as far as we were able to see, was Michael Loney of MIP. He wrote about it as early as yesterday, noting that CAFC had found yet another ruling from the notorious Eastern District of Texas to be bunk. "The Federal Circuit has found invalid three Smartflash patents," he wrote, "reversing the Eastern District of Texas."

Eolas Driven Out of the Eastern District of Texas



There is another important development down in Texas and Joe Mullin probably wrote the best report about it (Mullin is quite the expert in this domain). To quote Mullin:

Eolas Technologies, which has been called a "patent troll," has continued to file against big companies, even after losing a landmark 2012 trial. But following an appeals court order (PDF) last week, Eolas will have to pursue its lawsuits in California—not its preferred patent hotspot of East Texas.

As of Friday, Eolas' lawsuits against Google has been transferred to the Northern District of California. The move could reduce Eolas' chances of winning a settlement or verdict since East Texas courts have been viewed by some as favoring patent holders. Similar lawsuits against Amazon and Wal-Mart remain in East Texas, for now.


Michael Loney wrote about it too, noting that CAFC is potentially moving trolls out of that notorious Eastern District of Texas (even before the Supreme Court rules on TC Heartland LLC v Kraft Foods Group Brands LLC). To quote:



Google’s request for a writ of mandamus to transfer a case brought by Eolas Technologies to the Northern District of California from the Eastern District of Texas has been granted, with the Federal Circuit citing “a clear abuse of discretion”



Eolas was mentioned here as far back as one decade ago and many more times since. It's definitely a patent troll, but Mullin put the word "troll" (in the headline) and "patent troll" (in the body) within scare quotes, perhaps fearing legal action against the publisher (his employer).

Software patents, as in the above case, are bunk, but it's very expensive (usually too expensive) going to court to show it (especially if there are appeals). This means that most defendants will silently fold and pay the Mafia (or troll) 'protection' money. Insistent and persistent aggressors or trolls, some of whom are well-funded, will just file more and more motions until the defendant -- even if repeatedly deemed innocent -- decides that it's simply cheaper to settle. It means that wealth trumps justice and it can be exploited time after time, by simply choosing vulnerable litigation targets which are almost certainly going to buckle.

"Software patents, as in the above case, are bunk, but it's very expensive (usually too expensive) going to court to show it (especially if there are appeals)."Speaking of software patents, this tweet says that "Salesforce tries to patent Records Management......quick take" (in an image).

Erich Spangenberg Turns Out to be a Patent 'Fraud'



In the above cases we see deep-pocketed companies like Google and Apple fighting back, again and again, simply because they can afford it. So can smaller (but still very large companies) such as Newegg, which already spent millions of dollars on very few patent cases -- and that's just in legal fees!

According to Mullin's other new report, mega-troll Erich Spangenberg went after Newegg and finally (belatedly) lost. That's another software patent dead and we can expect more to come; it's expensive to prove the invalidity. The USPTO should clean up this (its own) mess. PTAB helps towards that. Mullin wrote:

Patent-holding company TQP Development made millions claiming that it owned a breakthrough in Web encryption, even though most encryption experts had never heard of the company until it started a massive campaign of lawsuits. Yesterday, the company's litigation campaign was brought to an end when a panel of appeals judges refused (PDF) to give TQP a second chance to collect on a jury verdict against Newegg.

The TQP patent was invented by Michael Jones, whose company Telequip briefly sold a kind of encrypted modem. The company sold about 30 models before the modem business went bust. Famed patent enforcer Erich Spangenberg bought the TQP patent in 2008 and began filing lawsuits, saying that the Jones patent actually entitled him to royalties on a basic form of SSL Internet encryption. Spangenberg and Jones ultimately made more than $45 million from the patent.


Will Spangenberg now refund the extortion money (more than $45 million), plus legal expenses? Or will this be another case of an invalid patent costing a fortune to countless companies, even though they were innocent all along because this patent was bogus?

We certainly hope that the Supreme Court is watching all these cases and will take them into account later this year when TC Heartland can become the new "patent killer" (precedent).

Recent Techrights' Posts

Against Outsourcing of Sites and E-mail
Software Freedom is great, but it is not enough if you let someone else do it 'for you'
Drew DeVault: People Talking About My Attack Site (Against the Founder of GNU/Linux) is "Spam"
"Spam on sr.ht mailing lists"
"Oppose the Fascist"
what the founder of GNU/Linux said
Halloween, All Saints Day & Swiss citizenship
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Saving the Planet With Honesty, Transparency, and Sharing (Not Only of Computer Code)
GAFAM is destroying the only habitat humans and other animals have and it'll only get worse
Shout-out to Christine From FOSSForce
Who noticed our short story
Apple's MacOS Shows Us the Vision of Computing That GAFAM Has for Us (Digital Prisons)
Freedom means "we the people" should be in control, not people being controlled by corporations (contemporary slaveowners)
 
[Meme] How NOT to Vote
Another form of (mostly-unspoken-of) election interference
An LLM Inside a 'Search' Engine Means That Companies Tell You What They Want, Not What Web Pages to Visit
The future of 'googling' things might be as unreliable as using Social Control Media as a source of information
Google's Debt Has Increased and 'Cash on Hand' Fell by 22.27% This Past Year
These are the numbers that the corporate media intentionally leaves out
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, November 04, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, November 04, 2024
There's a Reason Why Techrights is Turning 18 and Tux Machines Will Turn 20.5 Next Month
I started advocating GNU/Linux when I was a teenager
Techrights Has a Long History of Fighting to Expose 'Team Mono' or Microsofters Inside GNOME
Never downplay the malice of Microsoft and its operatives
Gemini Links 05/11/2024: Halloween Over, Intention and Implementation, Bookmark Syncing
Links for the day
Microsoft Lost Nearly Half of Its 'Cash Reserves' This Past Year
Is Microsoft (MSFT) the next Intel (INTC)?
The Year Isn't Over Yet, There Will be More Waves of Microsoft Layoffs
Nowadays Microsoft just tries to conflate/equate its energy waste with "value"
The Corporate Media Blasted Bitcoin for Destroying the Planet and Must Do the Same to Incite the Public Against the 'Great Rigging of Wall Street' (Under the Guise of "AI", the Latest Gold Rush)
"AI" is the next "metaverse" (trailing by a few months)
[Video] Richard Stallman is Back to Halo and Gown (in Peru) With 2+ Hours of a Public Talk
The globetrotting Richard Stallman gave many talks at the end of last month
Going Strong Against the Wind
the abuse serves to emphasise or affirm the importance of what we do
Links 04/11/2024: Squashing More Software Patents and Taiwan at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/11/2024: Typing vs Writing and a Smol (Net) Pub
Links for the day
Links 04/11/2024: LibreOffice Had Adopted PeerTube, "Hey Hi" Hype is a Threat to the Energy Grids (Worse Than Fake-Coins)
Links for the day
[Meme] Social Control Telescreens With Microphone
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Not Boycotting Apple (Yet)?
"Apple Forces The Signing Of Applications In MacOS Sequoia 15.1"
statCounter This Month: Android Has Nearly Become Twice as Big as Windows
If it happened, it would be an unprecedented milestone
Why Technical Sites Need Not Make Political Recommendations or Endorsements
Except perhaps when it's for some purely technical role, e.g. FCC chief
[Meme] Apple Freedom
Freedom is... the ability to purchase as many 'i' things as you want
"Active" as in One URL, One Emoji, and 4 Words in One Week
Diversity community in Fedora
Apple Vision Pro Has Failed, Just Like "Metaverse"
Vision Pro lacks software
Things That Can Improve Election Integrity
the first two relate to "tech"
Rigging Elections is Difficult, Cheating a Little is Not
Avoid social control media, it is the biggest rigger of all
"People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones"
On throwing stones in a glass house
Our Stance on Electronic (or Digital) Voting Machines
The simple activity of voting and counting ballots does not require thousands of complex machines with hundreds of millions of transistors and hundreds of millions of lines of code
Microsoft and "Retrospective Re-writing of History..."
in YouTube anyone can make stuff up (as one goes along)
This Coming Week
Go exercise your right to vote
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, November 03, 2024
IRC logs for Sunday, November 03, 2024
Reddit is (Still) Lying and Faking
Don't fall for this phony idea that the above sites are grassroots or edgy; they're not
GNU/Linux Users Are Not Cheaters
The bottom line is, most cheaters use Windows
Links 04/11/2024: FCC, Broadband Industry Spar Over Net Neutrality; Software Patent Squashed
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/11/2024: Official MyGemini.Space Announcement
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/11/2024: Election Thoughts, Plagiarism, and LLM Slop
Links for the day
Links 03/11/2024: Deere 'Right to Repair' (RoR) and "Threads Bans Anyone For Mentioning Hitler"
Links for the day
[Video] "El Movimiento del Software Libre y el Sistema Operativo GNU" by Richard M. Stallman
The footage is a bit jittery (taken with a phone apparently, and there's no tripod available), but the sound is OK and the words (in Spanish) are comprehensible
Android at New Highs (47%), Windows at New Lows (24%), Suggests Latest Data From statCounter
So the market share of Android is about double that of Windows
[Video] Richard Stallman's Talk in Spanish (in Peru Last Week)
Alternative URLs too
The Media Focuses on the Wrong Scandal
The real scandal at MIT was Gates
Gemini Links 03/11/2024: Fantasy Life Day and Worship
Links for the day
[Meme] Write Us Drivers and GTFO!
When you realise sanctioning BRICS devs goes against the community
Decommissioning Copper Lines Makes Us Less Safe
We've essentially degraded the robustness or reliability of critical systems
Life of an Addicted Lolicon Who Can Also Code
Personal blog as an open diary
[Meme] Reporting Crime is Not a Crime
Obviously!
Manchester Party for Techrights
If you choose to come, of course we'll cover the cost of the food and treats (but not travel)
Privacy is Not a Crime (in Places Where It is a Crime the Regime is Typically Very Rogue)
Also, criminals lack "privacy rights" to hide their crimes from the public
GNU/Linux "Market Share" in Lebanon More Than Doubled in a Few Months
Maybe it's a reaction to something? Assassination in Haret Hreik was in July.
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, November 02, 2024
IRC logs for Saturday, November 02, 2024
Nearly 40 Years Without Security Incidents
People who use Windows have come to sort of "accept" that security incidents are part of life or "normal"
[Meme] The Streisand Effect
Simon says, don't bother trying to suppress facts
Streisand Effect at IBM?
Trying to silence your workers isn't the best approach. It only makes colleagues even more curious.
Microsoft is a Gift That Keeps Giving (Future Stories to Techrights)
Microsoft has been trying to silence me using dirty tricks for nearly 20 years
Elon Musk Has Trashed Twitter for Ideological Reasons (and Propping Up Trump in Exchange for Financial and Political Favours Once in Public Office)
In case you didn't leave Twitter already, consider the fact that Twitter's (or "X"... whatever!) future is uncertain
Wall Street Has Demoted Intel, Seeing There May be No Future to Intel
Intel's loss isn't a loss to us
Free Software Licence Compliance is About Security Too
Linux as de facto proprietary off-the-shelf platform