Doesn't sound like they accidentally stepped on a vague patent to me.

https://www.usitc.gov/system/files?file=secretary/fed_reg_no...

Sorry, nothing was forcibly publicly disclosed here. These guys got patent protection, the public got nothing.

I don't particularly think so. Patents are meant for a person of "ordinary skill" in the art. I don't make these devices. I'm not a person equipped to offer an opinion on whether the patent discloses sufficient information.

>Sorry, nothing was forcibly publicly disclosed here. These guys got patent protection, the public got nothing.

The way the invention works is what is disclosed. Patents aren't blueprints. It's even more ridiculous that you are making this comment when Apple seems to have infringed.

(I don't think patents need to be entirely eliminated, but they need drastic reform. The patent system should be an incentive to small inventors, not a pay-to-play shield for big corporations. Obviously eliminating software/algorithm patents, eliminating "thing but with a computer" patents, shortening the entitlement period, mandating FRAND with full transparency around licensing fees, possibly even capping lifetime license fee revenue at $100m or so.)

Perhaps I don't know the basic dynamics of patent litigation. You're an expert, could you enlighten me?

Yeah, FRAND is pro-big business. It removes the upper limit on damages, i.e. minimizes the risk a business faces by infringing, which therefore minimizes any incentive to license a patent. It also reduces the incentive for a patentee to enforce their patent, as it takes ~$2-3m to litigate against a company like Apple through trial (not even appeals). Because of the upfront costs to enforcement, any small-time inventor is going to need a financier to back their case.

>Your line of argumentation seems specious.

My argument seems specious? You keep saying compliance... compliance with what? you haven't even made an argument, you just associate a few buzzwords and say "thing bad". You haven't explained anyway how FRAND and "compliance" are pro-small time inventor.

And yeah, I’m using the word compliance in the straightforward, obvious way. If that’s a problem for you, I don’t think this discussion is ever going to be useful.

Think about it. If legislation can make FRAND mandatory, it can also make the penalties sufficiently unfavourable to large corporations. Perhaps, and I’m just spitballing here, back pay for non-compliance could have a defined multiplier. Then there could be an additional multiplier for non-compliance after the date a complaint is made by the patent holder. And a further additional multiplier for non-compliance if the corporation has revenues over $100 million annually.

That’s literally the first idea that came to my dumbass ignorant head and I’m sure there’s a dozen much better ones out there. The key point is that the system can be built in such a way that a patent holder doesn’t need a team of lawyers with clever tricks to be entitled to favourable outcomes. Standardise it all and you reduce the dynamic range of advantage between parties of different size.

I'm a patent litigator - nobody uses the word compliance in this field. It's not me that is making this conversation difficult. It's your apparent ignorance and obtuseness.

> Think about it. If legislation can make FRAND mandatory, it can also make the penalties sufficiently unfavourable to large corporations

Do you even know what FRAND stands for? Is this a joke?

>Perhaps, and I’m just spitballing here, back pay for non-compliance could have a defined multiplier. Then there could be an additional multiplier for non-compliance after the date a complaint is made by the patent holder. And a further additional multiplier for non-compliance if the corporation has revenues over $100 million annually.

Compliance WITH WHAT???

>The key point is that the system can be built in such a way that a patent holder doesn’t need a team of lawyers with clever tricks to be entitled to favourable outcomes.

Patentees don't need clever tricks, they just need to prove infringement. That's the only hard part. You skip past that entirely. I think that's what you mean by compliance, but you don't seem to have any idea how any of this actually works. Which is bizarre considering you are offering recommendations on how to improve something that you do not understand.

With the licensing of patents? Duh?

> I'm a patent litigator

Ah. I'm reminded of the famous quote — "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." Community discussions are wher you talk with other people, not to win on a technicality in a courtroom.

> nobody uses the word compliance in this field

I'm sorry that the word compliance isn't sufficiently in-group for you. Perhaps tell people that you want to gate-keep rather than discuss, as it'll save other people a lot of time.

Licensing isn't a compliance matter. There's no enforcement entity. It's all just civil litigation and party's deciding things on their own.

>Ah. I'm reminded of the famous quote — "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." Community discussions are wher you talk with other people, not to win on a technicality in a courtroom.

I'm not trying to win on a technicality here, all I did was explain to you that your understanding of patent incentives was wrong and based on incorrect facts.

>I'm sorry that the word compliance isn't sufficiently in-group for you. Perhaps tell people that you want to gate-keep rather than discuss, as it'll save other people a lot of time.

It's not that it isn't sufficiently in group, it's that it is without meaning in this context.

> Perhaps tell people that you want to gate-keep rather than discuss, as it'll save other people a lot of time.

I've been engaging in discourse with you. You refuse to come to the table and recognize what's actually going on, just repeating yourself and your misunderstandings.

>Ah. I'm reminded of the famous quote — "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

You have no idea what you are talking about. I'm plaintiff side. Anything pro small-inventor would be for my own benefit. Getting my client a license is preferable to trial. The thing is, the big companies never want to license because they can just force me to have to take them to trial, where we risk losing, or losing on appeal. You'd behove yourself to actually attempt to grok at least one of my posts instead of just typing "but compliance"

It literally is. I'm sorry that you can't English. I'm out.

What is this? Are they some form of slaves? If company doesn't want its employees "poached" they should pay them enough money so they don't think of "switching sides".

This notion that corporations can own people and their brains should stop.

If we going that route, we might be bringing back slavery by the backdoor.

The Masimo case should have been thrown out.

Just imagine you are an engineer with amazing and unique skillset but you were unfortunate enough to pick wrong employer. You get a new offer from someone who sees your potential and could give you tools you need to help you do what you love.

With this kind of precedent, companies won't touch you with a barge pole even if you ticked all the boxes and you really don't want to work where you are.

It's bad for workers and for progress in general.

Hiring a team and rebuilding something that is not patented, or that skirts the edge of a patent, that's just fine. Hiring the team and building the patented thing is bad, not because of hiring the team, but because of building the patented thing. That it's the same team is just evidence that it infringes on the patent.

Generally speaking, the patents should describe the invention in such a way that anyone competent in the field could recreate it. So I don't see how the fact the Apple has hired that team has any relevance to this.

Maybe the patents should have been invalidated too.

It's fairly specific about an arrangement of sensors with specific capabilities.

Perhaps a page with business logic is needed. What you expect from the patent, what a license will cost, what roi they expect per unit sold. If the intend is to either exploit the patent themselves, have others do it or some combination of the two. (rule out patents intended to hinder development) A description of the effort and expertise it took to develop the application.

Perhaps one should submit a product for review and have the patent office list relevant patents along with the bill and/or contract. Like a modular system with a single check out. Add a 10-20% fee in case the patent office makes a mistake so that patent holders can still be paid. That would make sure the patent office would make an effort towards realistic fees.

Just some dumb ideas I came up with just now, I'm sure others have much better ideas for improvements.

if they finally stop extending it...

Strict enforcement of patent laws ensures that capital will be invested in innovation.

If capital was allocated democratically rather than at the whim of companies (that end up chasing taxpayer subsidies anyways... SpaceX, Tesla, etc.) you wouldn't need to strictly enforce patent law. The risk is already being assumed mostly by the government for truly bleeding edge research. What we have in practice is a system where the cost is socialized and the benefit is privatized.

Considering most of my issues with patents is around trivial software patents and the abhorrent practice of slightly modifying a formula (coupled with paying generic manufacturers to not produce) to effectively extend the usable lifetime of a drug patent, if anything, it's the West that needs to change to make patents be actually good for innovation and not just a means to throttle competition.

I mean would fucking North Korea be a heaven of innovation if only they more strictly policed IP law??

Would you be willing to invest your own savings into tech-centric startups if they wouldn't be able to legally defend the tech they invented?

Capitalism is a few centuries old. Statistically speaking it's most likely not the economic system we end up with forever. Optimizing for innovation under that constraint only seems premature. To channel Le Guin:

"We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable – but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words."

Taxation is, of course, theft, and any of it's use unethical — but I don't think this has anything to do with my question, which you haven't really answered. I wasn't asking about subsidising or donating either, my question was specifically about investment: act that assumes you expect the returns.

It is working exactly as designed.

Sure, but Apple has made an entire business out of making lowball offers to companies that produce tech they want. Then offering to pay more if they can just get more data on the tech, before ultimately pulling out of negotiations entirely and just copying that tech whether through internal resources, or hiring resources from the company in question.

They've decided it's cheaper to steal and then fight in court than to pay a fair market rate. Honestly given this has happened at least 10 times that I can recall off the top of my head, the Justice Department should be dropping a 50lbs sledgehammer of justice on them. At this point it's intentional and not just illegal but morally reprehensible.

Correct way would be to force Apple to split into separate independent entities. This should apply to all other businesses too big to fail.