Can we change the link to the EFF press release?

https://www.eff.org/press/releases/patent-owner-cant-use-for...

I prefer the information to be given by a neutral third party.

Ad supported news is not neutral - it is beholden to whatever it thinks will get the most attention (whether that be quality journalism or clickbait - I don't know where the register stands on that). Just the concept of neutrality in any media is inherently false.

But it's hopefully a little bit more neutral than either of the parties embroiled in a lawsuit.

Fair, but they have significantly less of a reason to be biased than one of the parties to the case.

That's an interesting viewpoint; one I can agree with. Thanks for sharing.

Yet if it was subscription supported you can guarantee there would be people complaining about posting paywalled links. We need to get news somehow.

Leave it to the reader to judge any bias or otherwise - but a media source is less likely to have a firm stance either way than one of the parties to the lawsuit.

We almost need a kind of multiplex blogspam posts. A post saying as little as possible to maintain neutrality: 'Patent troll makes case vs EFF, EFF counter sues.' Then list in alphabetical order source material (Patent troll's claim, EFF's claim)

This does have the issue of giving minority positions more exposure. ie climate change denial links may be split 50% despite strong preference in the scientific community. The reader has to recognize which links have substance for themselves

Sounds like you just described Techmeme.

The Register is well known for its snark, which generally involves not being neutral at all.

As neutral third party do not exist in the real world and specifically the register isn't such a thing, maybe you should consider getting your information at the source.

This register.co article isn't exactly the gold standard for neutrality.

> We further demand that you make immediate arrangements for any links to the article to be removed from the world wide web including any and all other websites which references the infringing material. If you do not do this, we will be forced to do so at your expense.

Does that... involve paying Vupen to break into my web server, or what? Because I'd love to see them try to "remove links from the world wide web".

Likely it'll mean paying lawyers to file false dmca requests in the end. Or something similar with cease and desist. I think the intent is they're saying we'll sue everyone and make you pay for it.

Time to renew my annual donation to the EFF. https://supporters.eff.org/donate/button

Why is there not more media coverage on that district in eastern texas that allows all these patent trolls to exist?

John Oliver did a great segment on it a while back:

https://youtu.be/3bxcc3SM_KA

I don't know that it would ever be stated so explicitly, but at the end of the day there's absolutely nothing anybody can do about the EDTX courts without major legislation, so there's no news there.

Actually it's presently before the supreme court: http://www.scotusblog.com/2017/03/argument-analysis-justices... But the argument report doesn't look promising.

In this case the patent troll went to Australia

While this judges ruling is patently inapplicable to the EFFs website (different jurisdiction, different rules), I wonder if it could cause problems personally to any of the staff (more likely: the directors) if they wished to visit Australia in the future, can they be held responsible when entering the jurisdiction?

The SEO on this article is going to be fabulous. The words "patent troll" will be forever tied to this company. Good work.

Does anyone know anything behind the injunction from the Supreme Court of South Australia?

https://regmedia.co.uk/2017/04/14/eff-lawsuit-oz-judge-injun...

It's an interlocutory order, made on the same day its application was heard, with no representation for the defendant appearing.

It's the kind of order that's made before a case is actually decided, to limit some ongoing harm until the case can actually be heard. The plaintiff agrees to compensate the defendant if the final judgement doesn't uphold the interlocutory order.

Modest proposal: put all patent license fees into a 17 year escrow. Fees returned if patent overturned. Publish a list of patent #'s and escrow amounts. Allow for class action suits to represent the licensees. Sever and nullify any clauses in existing agreements that would prevent a licensee from participating in a class action suit. IANAL; merely a defensive patent holder.

Would this drive to more or larger IP holding firms (One of the complaints of Trolls is they don't actually make anything)?

You create something patent-able. Knowing you will not see any money for 17 years you sell your patent to someone for a lump sum. You get your cash for making for thing, they get their payday after a 17 year wait. End result (which jump to my mind) is patents are turned into financial products managed by companies that "don't actually make anything" enforcing their terms as it will increase profits at the end of the investment period.

Just wondering how that would be any different to what we have now apart from the people creating the "inventions" patents are tied to probably getting a worse deal then they are now as there is a 17 year wait for "payday".

EDIT: Also Who would manage the escrow accounts? Would there be fee's to pay? Any interest earned? If so who pays / receives those? Will they be payable at/receivable at the end of the term or throughout. What if if the patent is dismissed? Do the interest/fee's get passed back to those who paid the licensing fees? What about appeals? And what about inflation?

First thought it sounds like a nice idea, refund everyone if a bad patent gets though, but I can see it just hurting the inventors more then patent trolls.

> Would this drive to more or larger IP holding firms (One of the complaints of Trolls is they don't actually make anything)?

Perhaps a variation on "Petition to Make Special" ?? We used this to expedite a patent application. The premise is that you need a patent in order to secure financing to build the product. And it was factored into our Series A and B. Downside, is that if you don't use it, you lose it. Am lucky that none of my patents have been used by Trolls.

> people creating the "inventions" patents are tied to probably getting a worse deal then they are now as there is a 17 year wait for "payday".

I wonder how many pure inventors there are versus makers? We made a product. I was a co-founder that assigned my inventions to the company.

When I first got into this, I read that the Government incentive behind patents is to increase US commerce. So, the question is: do Trolls increase or decrease US commerce? (Or any other nation state, for that matter).

Unfortunately, litigation is a part of US commerce. Plus, laws are made by lawyers. So, the modest proposal was somewhat cynical. Restated: how to offer up an opportunity for lawyers to sue trolls? Hopefully, while making it easier for small startups to make stuff.

Downside: an individual who made an important discovery and patented her invention and licensed her technology to large companies would not be able to access her money for 17 years.

Presumably you'd be able to get a loan secured against the escrowed revenue. If this actually happened you'd no doubt see specific tailored financial solutions for this.

Like you can get a loan or advance against annuities and settlements now?

Where the _best_ of these will take fifty per cent as a fee?

Sounds a great deal.

If half of all patents are known to be bogus then yeah, that'd be a fine deal.

So as an escrow company I should also fund the creation of bogus patents to increase the rates of my business model

This makes no sense, because the only reason a higher proportion of bogus patents would increase the interest rate charged is because it would increase the risk that the patent returns very little in revenue (the higher interest rates aren't increasing profit, they're covering higher risk).

I think what'd you'd actually see is specialist patent funding actuaries and patent evaluators making an interest rate bid dependent on the actual patent and inventor in question, much the way insurance industry works. The direct competition would be business loans, and maybe that'd be essentially what they were - secured business loans.

A friend sold a company to a Dot Com for stock at its peak. S/he factored the strike price. During the waiting period, the stock tanked. So, s/he got significantly more than what the stock was worth.

I wonder if a variation of cut-and-choose would work? Choose your own timeframe. 5 years, 17 year, whatever makes sense to release the escrow.

Lets say the USPTO uses Deep Learning to discover prior art and/or result disputes. A shorter time frame may be less risky for the inventor. After the escrow is released, there is no recourse for the licensee.

Another proposal: Give patent examiners X% of all revenue from the patents they approve. However, if any of their approved patents is ever found to be invalid, they lose all future revenues and their job. This would be strong incentive to reject all but the most promising applications.

The original EFF blog post: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/06/stupid-patent-month-st...

On the surface of seems that the stupid patent, filed in 1999 has plenty of prior art... How did the patent not get overturned?

Unfortunately this story is the start of the process for how patents get overturned...

This is one of the reasons I support the EFF.

Do they not know of the Streisand effect? Well, maybe this company will become known as the Australian version of it.

They don't have any reason to actually care. How does bad publicity hurt them?

I suppose they could just make a new company under a new name, sell the patents portfolio to the new company and can this one. There's not much to lose in this for a patent troll.

Yes, but they're a shell company that doesn't lose anything if they're bankrupted.

I suppose it could hurt them (and no amount of shell companies would make a difference) if the individuals behind this were to be exposed.

I didn't want to pay the $40 to pull the company record, but all their info is super public on linkedin anyway: https://imgur.com/a/SVVYK

So they either don't care or they're idiots.

Looks like it is a family business of sorts (at least according to the names of the various C-something titles)

> [the troll] asked for [EFF's] "Stupid Patent of the Month" post to be taken down. Remarkably, an Australian judge agreed

Does anyone know why the judge agreed? I'm all for taking down trolls, but if a judge agreed, maybe there's more to the story than meets the eye.

I think it was a default ruling. People are speculating that the EFF didn't bother with defending on this one, since it was in Australian courts.