Legal Archive

A bill to end patent trolling? Dream on

Thom Holwerda 2013-10-24 Legal 34 Comments

So, there's a new patent reform bill in the US that is supposed to put an end to "patent trolls".

The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), has introduced a bill that directly attacks the business model of "patent trolls." The bill has a real chance at passing, with wide backing from leadership in both parties.

Don't believe all the cheers online - this bill is a disaster. What it essentially does is make it very hard for smaller companies to file patent lawsuits. While this does, indeed, make it harder for small patent trolls to operate, it has the side effect of shifting the balance of power even more in favour of the larger companies. Additional costs and legal legwork are a huge hindrance for small companies, but entirely inconsequential for large companies which employ the same patent trolling tactics as actual patent trolls, such as Apple's software and design patent abuse or Microsoft's mafia practices regarding Android.

With this bill, it will become a lot harder for a small, innovative startup with a great idea to protect itself against the big players. I would call that an unintended side effect, were it not that I am a huge cynic and know perfectly fine that this is anything but 'unintended'.

Nokia confirms: its patent attacks may continue

Thom Holwerda 2013-09-04 Legal 36 Comments

Microsoft paid billions for a license to Nokia's patents, but the company has made explicit that Nokia still owns the patents. The genius of this move is that it allows Microsoft to double down on its patent war with Android. Microsoft boasts that the majority of Android phones sold worldwide have already paid for a license to Microsoft patents. By 2011, patent licensing revenue exceeded Microsoft's revenue from Windows Phone.

Now, Nokia can go after Android phone makers for royalties - even ones that have already paid Microsoft.

When pressed on the issue today, a Nokia spokesman confirmed that more patent licensing is indeed part of the plan.

So, without products, Nokia will become a true patent troll. Good to know.

Ranking of companies by number of NPE lawsuits

Thom Holwerda 2013-08-28 Legal 1 Comment

As of August 2013, PatentFreedom has identified and profiled over 710 distinct NPEs (a number which continues to increase). Since 1985, these NPEs have been involved in litigation with over 10,000 different operating companies in nearly 11,000 actions, for a total of over 30,000 events. There are clear indications that NPEs in recent years increasingly seek to enforce their patents against companies of all sizes and in many industries. Despite this trend, as the table below shows, NPEs continue to target many large and high-profile companies quite relentlessly.

Virtually all large technology companies are increasingly being targeted by patent trolls. I shed no tears for any of them, though. Offensive abuse of (software/design) patents is always wrong, whether you produce products or not.

You reap what you sow. These companies actively lobby to keep the patent system as it is, and as such, they deserve exactly what they're getting.

Submitted by peteo 2013-08-28 Legal 8 Comments

New Zealand has finally passed a new Patents Bill that will effectively outlaw software patents after five years of debate, delay and intense lobbying from multinational software vendors.

Aptly-named Commerce Minister Craig Foss welcomed the modernisation of patents law, saying it marked a "significant step towards driving innovation in New Zealand".

"By clarifying the definition of what can be patented, we are giving New Zealand businesses more flexibility to adapt and improve existing inventions, while continuing to protect genuine innovations," Foss said.

It's too bad that - no matter how awesome New Zealand is - they're a very small player, much like my own country. Still, change has to start somewhere, and this is at least something.

Software patents cause of rise in patent suits, says US gov

Thom Holwerda 2013-08-23 Legal 2 Comments

Ars Technica looks at a government report on the rise in patent lawsuits, and concludes that most of it is caused by software patents.

As is clearly visible in the graph above, the data shows that many more companies are getting sued than were a few years ago. That's true even though the number of lawsuits has held relatively steady over the last 5 years. The increase in defendants, the next graph shows, is driven by software patents.

It's right there in the data. The problem is, of course, that software patents are the bread and butter of Microsoft's and Apple's campaign against their competitors, and as such, there is zero chance of the US government stepping in to finally ban these ridiculous patents. As long as the two largest technology companies rely on software patents, nothing will be done about them.

Submitted by l3v1 2013-08-20 Legal 23 Comments

So. There we are. The foundation of Groklaw is over. I can't do Groklaw without your input. I was never exaggerating about that when we won awards. It really was a collaborative effort, and there is now no private way, evidently, to collaborate.

I'm really sorry that it's so. I loved doing Groklaw, and I believe we really made a significant contribution. But even that turns out to be less than we thought, or less than I hoped for, anyway. My hope was always to show you that there is beauty and safety in the rule of law, that civilization actually depends on it. How quaint.

Quaint indeed.

Groklaw is shutting down. A huge loss, as the site's contributions to various ridiculous lawsuits, like the SCO one about Linux, or the even crazier one from Oracle about Java, were invaluable. The reasons are sound, though - without secure, private communications, the collaborative effort that is Groklaw cannot function.

A sad day.

UK abuses terrorism law to intimidate journalist’s partner

Thom Holwerda 2013-08-19 Legal 44 Comments

The partner of the Guardian journalist who has written a series of stories revealing mass surveillance programmes by the US National Security Agency was held for almost nine hours on Sunday by UK authorities as he passed through London's Heathrow airport on his way home to Rio de Janeiro.

David Miranda, who lives with Glenn Greenwald, was returning from a trip to Berlin when he was stopped by officers at 8.05am and informed that he was to be questioned under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. The controversial law, which applies only at airports, ports and border areas, allows officers to stop, search, question and detain individuals.

Miranda also had all his equipment confiscated. He has done nothing wrong - there's no charges, no criminal suspicion, nothing at all. His only crime is being the partner of a famous journalist who, among other things, is one of the driving forces behind shining a light on the NSA's mass surveillance.

There is no war on terror, because the terrorists have already won.

Submitted by torb 2013-08-10 Legal 8 Comments

Some older Samsung Electronics Co. mobile devices face a sales and import ban in the United States after a U.S. trade panel ruled for Apple Inc. in a high-profile patent infringement case.

The U.S. International Trade Commission on Friday ruled that South Korea's Samsung infringes on portions of two Apple Inc patents on digital mobile devices, covering the detection of headphone jacks and operation of touchscreens.

If Obama does not step in, two tiny patents like this can get devices banned, but refusal to accept FRAND terms, refusal to negotiate, all the while using the patent in question anyway does not.

Sure, this is not about protectionism. How cute.

CCIA response to veto of ITC ban on Apple products

Thom Holwerda 2013-08-10 Legal 19 Comments

Ed Black, President & CEO of the Computer & Communications Industry Association:

The Administration’s unprecedented decision to veto an ITC "Section 337" import ban against Apple for infringing Samsung's intellectual property is a disruptive and potentially dangerous development that calls into question the fairness of our trading regime and could undermine the way US companies are treated globally.

Adjudication by USTR fiat, however, is unacceptable and invites other countries to do the same. While Ambassador Froman's letter cites policy issues, it offers little helpful analysis or guidance. And it ignores the ITC's determination that Apple failed to prove either that Samsung's patent was a standard-essential patent or that Samsung breached its obligation to a standards-setting organization.

Well said.

This is the core of the problem with Obama's veto. Not only did he completely and utterly contradict the findings of an expert panel of judges who investigated all the materials in great detail, he also sent out a very strong message: if you're a foreign company doing business in the US, you will be treated as a second class citizen. Combined with the endless stream of negative press concerning surveillance and which hunts for whistleblowers, the US just got a whole lot less enticing for technology companies.

Tech executives meet with Obama to talk surveillance

Thom Holwerda 2013-08-09 Legal 28 Comments

President Barack Obama hosted Apple CEO Tim Cook, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, Google computer scientist Vint Cerf and other tech executives and civil liberties leaders on Thursday for a closed-door meeting about government surveillance, sources tell POLITICO.

Five hundred years ago, our ancestors started the fight to separate church and state. Now it's time we separate corporation and state.

VP8 does not infringe on Nokia patent

Thom Holwerda 2013-08-06 Legal 18 Comments

Good news:

Today a court in Mannheim, Germany, ruled that VP8 does not infringe a patent owned and asserted by Nokia. This decision is an important and positive step towards the WebM Project's ultimate goal: ensuring the web community has an open, high-quality, freely licensed video codec. Google's intervention in the underlying lawsuit (Nokia v. HTC) was a strong show of support for open standards like VP8.

I guess they'll have to dig out another patent somewhere to try and undermine Android, since Nokia isn't having much luck competing with Android by, you know, actually selling stuff. How the mighty have fallen, huh?

Obama slaps ITC in the face, vetos exclusion order

Thom Holwerda 2013-08-03 Legal 123 Comments

The Obama administration:

After extensive consultations with the agencies of the Trade Policy Staff Committee and the Trade Policy Review Group, as well as other interested agencies and persons, I have decided to disapprove the USITC's determination to issue an exclusion order and cease and desist order in this investigation.

Lots of talk about SEPs and FRAND in Obama's decree, which means that the Obama administration contradicts everything the ITC has said. To freshen your memory, the ITC ruled that not only was the patent in question not a standard essential patent, but Samsung's offer was actually proper FRAND:

Additionally, the Commission found that there were still disputed issues concerning the patent at issue was even actually essential to the standard (and therefore whether a FRAND or disclosure obligation applied at all).

The Commission analyzed the history of negotiations between Apple and Samsung (this portion is heavily redacted) to see if Apple showed that Samsung failed to negotiate â€œin good faith,â€ and found that Apple failed to do so. Notably, the Commission dismissed Apple’s arguments that (1) Samsung’s initial offer was so high as to show bad faith, and (2) Samsung’s attempts to get a cross-license to Apple’s non-SEPs violated its FRAND commitments.

In other words, the Obama administration threw out virtually everything the ITC has said in order to protect Apple. This effectively means that American companies can infringe on non-American companies' (standard essential) patents all they want, because the president will simply step in if they try to fight back.

So, I was wrong. I expected the Obama administration to be impartial and not give such a huge slap in the face of the ITC - as cynical as I usually am, I can still be naive. Protectionism is more important to the POTUS.

Regarding the ITC’s exclusion order against Apple

Thom Holwerda 2013-08-01 Legal 49 Comments

Recently, the ITC ruled in favour of Samsung, issuing an exclusion order against certain Apple products, barring them from being sold in the US. Several people have called upon president Obama to step in and overrule the decision (e.g. this guy) - however, not only would this set a very bad precedent for non-US companies, it would also simply be incredibly unfair if you actually look at the ITC ruling itself. Because of this, it is quite unlikely that Obama will step in.

Huawei controls web censorship system praised by British PM

Thom Holwerda 2013-07-26 Legal 22 Comments

"The pornography filtering system praised by David Cameron is controlled by the controversial Chinese company Huawei, the BBC has learned. UK-based employees at the firm are able to decide which sites TalkTalk's net filtering service blocks." The irony. It hurts.

Feds put heat on Web firms for master encryption keys

Thom Holwerda 2013-07-25 Legal 32 Comments

"The U.S. government has attempted to obtain the master encryption keys that Internet companies use to shield millions of users' private Web communications from eavesdropping. These demands for master encryption keys, which have not been disclosed previously, represent a technological escalation in the clandestine methods that the FBI and the National Security Agency employ when conducting electronic surveillance against Internet users." Well. "And where once you had the freedom to object, think, and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillence coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission." When quoting a work of fiction befits the state of reality better than reality itself, shit has officially hit the fan.

Victory Lap for ‘Ask Patents’

Thom Holwerda 2013-07-22 Legal 15 Comments

Joel Spolsky killed a Microsoft patent application in just a few minutes - he found prior art and submitted it, and the USPTO examiner rejected the patent because of it. "Micah showed me a document from the USPTO confirming that they had rejected the patent application, and the rejection relied very heavily on the document I found. This was, in fact, the first 'confirmed kill' of Ask Patents, and it was really surprisingly easy. I didn't have to do the hard work of studying everything in the patent application and carefully proving that it was all prior art: the examiner did that for me." This is all under the umbrella of 'Ask Patents'.

Alan Turing to be given posthumous pardon

Thom Holwerda 2013-07-20 Legal 36 Comments

"Alan Turing, the Enigma codebreaker who took his own life after being convicted of gross indecency under anti-homosexuality legislation, is to be given a posthumous pardon. The government signalled on Friday that it is prepared to support a backbench bill that would pardon Turing, who died from cyanide poisoning at the age of 41 in 1954 after he was subjected to 'chemical castration'." Justice.

EFF sues NSA over ‘illegal’ telephone surveillance

Thom Holwerda 2013-07-16 Legal 21 Comments

"A diverse coalition of 19 groups announced today a lawsuit against the United States government for 'an illegal and unconstitutional program of dragnet electronic surveillance', known as the Associational Tracking Program, which collects all telephone records handled by Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint in the US. The group, represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, aims to compel the government to inventory and disclose the records in its possession, to destroy them, and to immediately end the surveillance program."

Judge says Apple conspired to raise prices on e-books

Thom Holwerda 2013-07-10 Legal 12 Comments

"In a decision that could reshape how books are sold on the Internet, a federal judge ruled that Apple conspired to raise the retail prices of e-books in violation of antitrust law, and called for a trial on damages. The decision by U.S. District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan is a victory for the U.S. government and various states, which the judge said are entitled to injunctive relief." Yet another ruling confirming that virtually all technology companies are criminals. But don't worry, there's nothing wrong with how companies are run and the immense power they have, no sirree!

Apple, Amazon end ‘app store’ lawsuit

Thom Holwerda 2013-07-09 Legal 8 Comments

"Apple and Amazon.com have ended their lawsuit over who has the right to use the 'app store' name, clearing the way for both companies to use it." The silliest lawsuit in the history of technology.