Nikonn CoolPix had wifi support in 2005. I'd imagine if you could select specific pictures to upload wherever from the device, that's the whole patent claim invalidated by 4 years. Hell, this article even references a device that Nikon offered to wirelessly transmit images as early as 2003. Find one of these, bring it to the law firm defending Gnome and that should invalidate the patent.

https://connectedsocialmedia.com/1163/sharpcast-demo-brings-...

...filter the plurality of photographic images using a transfer criteria wherein the transfer criteria is a subject identification of a respective photographic image within the plurality of photographic images, wherein the subject identification is based on a topic, theme or individual shown in the respective photographic image; and transmit, via the wireless transmitter and to a second mobile device, the filtered plurality of photographic images.

Invaliding prior art has to cover every single thing in the claim. (And my hunch is that it's out there).

A. Classifying images based on a (pre-existing?) identification; B. Filtering images based on classification; C. Wirelessly transmitting images

were all known at the time. Then you could argue that a "person having ordinary skill in the art" would have known to combine A+B+C to solve the problem. Thus the prior art teaches the invention and the patent should be declared invalid.

You are much better off defending again infringement suits with novelty arguments.

filtering the plurality of photographic images using a transfer criteria wherein the transfer criteria is a subject identification of a respective photographic image within the plurality of photographic images,

wherein the subject identification is based on a topic, theme or individual shown in the respective photographic image;

The patent system is so broken. It's as if drug companies, instead of patenting a specific treatment for cancer, were able to patent "treating cancer".

I understand it's not patenting facial recognition in general, just in the specific case of using facial rec or other techniques (which the lawyers called transfer criteria/subject identification) to identify subjects of images before filtering by subject and transferring them wirelessly.

I stand by the meaning of the simile though. There's nothing original enough to be patentable in that claim.

A specific method for doing facial recognition should be patentable. "Use facial rec to identify individuals in images, then filter for specific individuals, then transfer those images" should not. If we allow patents on use cases, every use case will be patented and eventually the trolls will have a collection of patents that together cover the very idea of recognizing faces.

I do agree that the patent is too unclear and broad, and that everything described must have been already known by 2008.

Which would make the patent even more laughable. "Wirelessly transfer all images I've tagged with 'Vacation 2017'" is patentable?

“yes, I would like to patent the sale of a spade when you buy a rake”

This could be accomplished with a legal mechanism that allows the defendant to counter-sue the plaintiff as a patent troll. In this scope they could bring in previous litigative history of the plaintiff (or any related entities, piercing the corporate veil). If the judge rules in the defendant's favor, then all of the plaintiff's patents (and any related entities) are immediately released into public domain.

This would go a long way to preventing patent trolling. And not just because of the direct incentives. Any entity engaging in a patent lawsuit would put their entire portfolio at risk. The larger the portfolio, the higher the risk. The individual or small company with one or a few patents has very little risk. Whereas the large company that hoards thousands and thousands of patents would bear enormous risk on any single lawsuit.

This basically destroys patent trolling, which only works because of the asymmetrical difference in cost between obtaining a patent and defending a patent lawsuit. If the troll prices the patent too low, the person they are suing just buys it, if they charge too much, they have a massive recurring tax bill (and an incentive to settle quickly, not to drag it out in the courts for years).

This is one of several related reasons why I hate the term "intellectual property". Ideas are not property, and shoving them into a property-rights framework and thinking of them as such leads to all sorts of perverse results.

If you can’t make the thing event slightly useful in five years, society doesn’t gain much for you having an exclusive monopoly on the thing. So long as the tax is low percentage wise, the yearly cost to keep it as your own would be well worth it.

It would disable "defensive" patent strategies where companies don't patent their actual technology, but the path to it, which is against the spirit of patents, and disable patent acquisition as an IP strategy.

Meanwhile companies like ARM, which live off IP licensing but wouldn't be punished because they're the original patent authors.

The main criteria in the EU is whether the method embodied in the software is “technical.” (Image recognition as opposed to say a business method.) See: https://mewburn.com/resource/patentability-of-business-metho...

In the US, under Alice, Section 101 has morphed into a very similar analysis.

Seriously, want to solve all white collar crime ever? Put some jail time on the table and watch everyone straighten right out.

Plus if you toss lawyer in jail and disbar them you will run out of lawyers to sac pretty quickly.

There's also a difference between sitting on a handful of dumb patents v. most or all of your patent litigation cases being over dumb patents.

Though that doesn't help against NPE.

Or maybe not, maybe they’ll be laughing all the way to the bank. But you know, it’s not like it would take so much time or effort that it would be much of a shame if it did nothing at all.

These sorts of trolls tend to operate with a minimal amount of staffing since they're usually subsidiary spin off companies (so nothing but bare bones is allocated in terms of payroll) and since patent trolling is such a gamble (if you're trolling 200 patents with the expectation of getting one or two hits then you should try and minimize costs)

I'm sure his phone or internet access don't at any point rely on such software.

> An image-capturing mobile device, comprising Shotwell is not an image-capturing device.

Any more info about this? Never heard of it admittedly.

Lee furthermore pursued a strategy of trying to win by invalidating the patent. Newegg got enough of a reputation for this that patent trolls would mass-file a lawsuit, realize that they had included Newegg in the lawsuit, and withdraw the suit. So then Newegg started a strategy of chasing down any patent troll dumb enough to file a suit against Newegg, and aggressively sue them in retaliation -- again, seeking to invalidate the patent (https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/01/newegg-sues-pate...).

Cheng and Newegg eventually went their separate ways, and I haven't heard much from either one since. But, for a while, Newegg was in the tech news every few months for doing real damage to another patent extortion outfit, and it was glorious.

How do you propose paying for that? It is fantastically expensive.

I'd be happy if someone held me to that.

Nonetheless I'm throwing some money into the pot, hopefully it is used to fight this troll case, which thankfully may be so facially ridiculous that it is thrown out.

[0]: https://www.gnome.org/support-gnome/donate/

I'd happily donate to a legal fund to fight this lawsuit though.

GNOME Foundation could probably just use GitLab.com, it wouldn't take a full time staff if their focus was infrastructure. It seems like the GNOME Foundation is predisposed with gaining institutional power over the symbols of GNOME, to egoistically control the community.

We have to start getting more aggressive in these scenarios. If the patent isn't killed, they're just going to turn around and sue someone else with it. So if we want a world where small players can compete with the likes of Microsoft or Facebook, we need to retaliate against trolls who go after small players.

Honestly I wish more countries would take New Zealand's approach and just outright ban all software patents. There is no reason any software patent should exist.

And the owners both bankrupted and jailed, or they'll just do it again.

But if every one of their threats resulted in someone dragging them into an expensive fight over whether or not that patent was valid, maybe eventually they'd just go bankrupt from the legal fees.

Essentially, use their own strategy against them. Whenever they sue someone, they have two choices: roll over and let the patent get invalidated, or fight an expensive lawsuit against a party that refuses to settle.

* The lawyers got paid so much money there is no more money left to pay the receptionist and the power company and the copier rental.

* The troll is protected from paying any damages to the legal team that defeated them.

So the lawyers/executives suck up all the money and move on, leaving a wake of destruction behind them. In many cases, that should be considered criminal.

oh, that American health insurance website.

Put me down for $20 if it comes up.

Wow, that's all? That's actually really encouraging, if true. I would have assumed it was millions.

I could already see this story making headlines in pretty much every tech news outlet there is. They'd get a few thousand individual donations for sure.

Or will some of the money be recovered if the case is won? Thinking about it, wouldn't it be fair if you were more than compensated in case you won a lawsuit filed against you?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_rule_(attorney%27s_fee...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_rule_(attorney's_fees...

Patent trolls obviously act in bad faith.

I would personally donate hundreds each year if such organization existed, patent trolls are my worst software nightmare.

Revenue (2014) - $667,370

Donations are not necessarily consistent over years. You'll also have expanses.

Is there a precedent?

Are they after the usual troll thing, a quick settlement less than lawyer fees to fight it?

Does nonprofit status of the victim become relevant?

(I just donated $50 - good luck guys)