Say what you want about Twitter - pointless, annoying, noise, useless - at least the company has its heart in the right place. Twitter just announced the Innovator's Patent Agreement, a promise not use their or their employees' patents offensively. In a world where yesterday's innovators are today's patent trolls - Apple, Microsoft, Oracle - this is a big deal.
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Member since:2007-02-18
Does it matter how often the intention is, though? Patent troll is hardly a legal term with precise legal definitions. It's more like a meme and those aren't well defined.
I think the more important feature of genuine patent trolls is their core business model. Apple et al's core business model isn't patent litigation. They may be "evil" companies, evil meaning "anticompetitive", but patent troll is a very specific subset of anticompetitive.
Member since:2005-06-29
That's definitely true, but there's no denying that once you use patents JUST to stifle competition (like these companies are doing), the term troll applies just fine.
You wouldn't hear me if Apple was, say, suing makers of the Aeppl yPhone, those 1:1 copies that run some Flash-based OS with the same icons and all that.
Member since:2011-05-12
Still, "often" means often.
You can't claim Apple/Microsoft often don't want to do anything with their patents. When they sue it's always regarding patented stuff already in use. So in their cases it's "never".
We have been over this before. You regard anyone who sues over patents to be a troll, unless they're on your good guys list. You degrade the term offering no differences between for example a real company like Microsoft or a shady one that produces nothing and just buys patents to sue.
How would you qualify those? Mega trolls or trolls++?
Member since:2006-09-02
...
You degrade the term offering no differences between for example a real company like Microsoft or a shady one that produces nothing and just buys patents to sue.
Because the way Microsoft gets royalties after Android phones sold by other companies is completely different from "produces nothing and just buys patents to sue", right?
Member since:2006-12-15
Indeed.
It seems you forgot the key point which make the difference between an actual patent troll and a company such as the one you mentioned:
"with no intention to further develop, manufacture or market the patented invention"
And you miss the key word:
"often with no intention".
It fascinates me how hard some people try not to have to accept reality. Quite entertaining.
I think you missed the key phrase
"who buys and enforces patents"
Most of the companies listed didn't buy the the patents they are enforcing. They were granted/given the patents.They are the original patent holders.
Tolls buy up other people's patents then enforce them.
Edited 2012-04-21 07:47 UTC
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Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
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Member since:
2005-06-29
It seems you forgot the key point which make the difference between an actual patent troll and a company such as the one you mentioned:
"with no intention to further develop, manufacture or market the patented invention"
And you miss the key word:
"often with no intention".
It fascinates me how hard some people try not to have to accept reality. Quite entertaining.
Edited 2012-04-18 08:09 UTC