Groklaw - #Lodsys - DriveTime Says It Suspects Lodsys is an "alter ego" of Intellectual Ventures, Asks to Do Discovery

DriveTime Automotive Group has filed a motion, Motion For Leave To Conduct Jurisdictional Discovery And To Stay Response To Motion To Dismiss, in its Arizona declaratory judgment action against Lodsys. That is a mouthful for saying they believe Lodsys does, in fact, have jurisdictional ties to Arizona (where DriveTime is located) and that they should be allowed the opportunity to conduct limited discovery against Lodsys for the purpose of proving that point before the court simply grants Lodsys' motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction

DriveTime is asking the Arizona federal district court to let it do discovery to flush out any Intellectual Ventures ties to Lodsys. DriveTimes says they 'strongly suspect, as do others, that Lodsys is a spin-off and the alter ego of a company called Intellectual Ventures (“IV”), known as “patent troll public enemy #1.”

How the US patent mess affects European Tech and Startups

It’s a situation that has added weight to the argument that software patents shouldn’t exist. VC Fred Wilson, for example, wrote in June this year:

I believe that software patents should not exist. They a tax on innovation. And software is closer to media than it is to hardware. Patenting software is like patenting music.

The mess around the Lodsys patents should be a wake up call to everyone involved in the patent business (government bureaucrats, legislators, lawyers, investors, entrepreneurs, etc) that the system is totally broken and we can’t continue to go on like this.

Well-known developer Mike Lee (who spoke at this year’s The Next Web conference – dressed as a pirate no less) has announced a legal team and fund to help developers fight back against “patent trolls” like Lodsys. He takes a balanced view on software patents and tells me, “One can make purely theoretical arguments either way. We have to look at reality, how software patents are actually used. The reality is, the same patent system that has failed to keep Apple from being ripped off wholesale is being used to harass its developers. You cannot look at that and honestly say this is a system that works.”

Last week in #patents: #Apple, #Android and trolls oh my!

In the fluid smartphone market, this week it was reported that Apple became the top vendor for the first time claiming 19.1% in the second quarter of 2011 with Samsung claiming 16.2%. It was also reported that the iPhone had, indirectly, come to dominate not only the private consumer market but enterprise IT.

Android continues its astronomical growth, last week it was reported that Android accounted for 53% of all ad impressions and claiming 43% of the market share in the second quarter of 2011. Oracle asked the courts to force Google to reveal its Android revenue. Scott Daniels discussed Google's attempts to invalidate Oracle's patents being used in their Android battle. Google accused Microsoft of releasing its proprietary code.

Apple was sued by a possible LG shell company in Florida over the fast booting used in OSX. Florian Mueller suspects it's a preemptive strike in the patent proxy war surrounding Android, which has thus far spared LG but only because of their smaller market share.

Apple was granted additional important patents regarding its touch-screens, no doubt there will be little wait in their use in litigation against its competitors.

Following its success in Australia, Apple succeeded in blocking the release of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the European Union except the Netherlands where a different lawsuit is underway. Samsung is of course, appealing with a date set for August 25th. It was also reported that Apple is also targeting Motorola's Xoom tablet, escalating the the already chaotic Android legal battle.

With Apple and Microsofts success in impeding competitors products through litigation and licensing fees, it's not surprising that Motorola may be joining them in extracting such fees from other Android makers.

For a great overview of the Android battle with Microsoft I suggest the SeattlePI article Microsoft’s biggest mobile failure and success: Android.

HTC is opening to negotiating a deal with Apple, it all comes down to just how much Apple is going to charge in order to settle their numerous lawsuits and what if any, cross-licensing arrangements can be made. HTC continues its acquisitions, buying Beats Electronics, a high-end speaker and headphone maker cofounded by Dr. Dre and will begin using Beats' audio technology in its handsets.

Huawei Technologies accused rival Inter Digital of filing infringement claims against it to boost the value of its patents while courting bids from Google, Apple, and Samsung for them.

Android was also updated to allow its phones to rent movies.

Rovio and EA are urging the federal court to allow Apple to directly intervene in the patent-infringement case targeting iOS developers by Lodsys. Meanwhile Google's response, whose Android developers have also become a Lodsys target, is to seek the invalidation of Lodsys's patents, much to the consternation of Florian Mueller: Google risks alienating its Android developer community if it doesn't do more and quickly, to clear up all the litigation surrounding Android.

Cisco and Twitter joined a Linux patent protection pool, hopefully it's not as devious as Intellectual Ventures which announced a licences deal with LCD maker Chunghwa. Intellectual Ventures is also suing 100+ media companies.

Sony and LG settled their 3 year patent dispute over TV and Blu-ray technology with a cross-licensing arrangement.

Speculation about the iPhone5 and an iOS 5 powered iPad3 release date were abound, meanwhile rumors were spread that Windows Phone "Mango" will be released September 1st and Android's "Ice Cream Sandwich" will likely come at the end of 2011.

With the debt deal past them, Congress looks ready to pass some form of patent reform, whether it will do any good remains to be seen, but Mike Elgan is skeptical. News surfaced of possible legislation to curb the lawsuits generated by non-practicing entities or patent trolls.

Tim Richardson defended NPEs, explaining that software patents were just as sellable as anything else. Timothy Lee continued making the case for invalidating software patents and conducted a very enlightening discussion with Julian Sanchez on topics ranging from NPEs, software patents, and the charges against Aaron Swartz, if you've got 35 minutes I strongly suggest listening to it. Brad Feld, Martin Fowler, and Brian Kahin also make the case against software patents. Meanwhile, Nilay Patel defends the software patent system.

Pantently-O's Dennis Crouch got to the heart of patent reform: the statistics behind filings, litigation and the USPTO's budget and stats on patents and litigation.

Lawrence Higgins also has a great roundup of other patent news not covered here.

What lengths will Myhrvold go to prop up Intellectual Ventures in-house "inventions"?

To say the dishes are unusual would be an understatement. The first consists of watermelon chips with spicy pickles. Thin slices of fruit and pickle are mixed with modified starch slurry, compressed in vacuum bags and then deep fried.

“I figured that if I could make chips out of watermelon, I could do it for anything,” Myhrvold explains as we sip hyper- decanted wine.

Classical Myhrvold theatre for print order to convince us Intellectual Ventures isn't just a non-practicing entity farming out bogus software patent "protection".

#Chunghwa Picture signs pact with #IntellectualVentures

LCD panel maker Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd yesterday said it had teamed up with a US patent-holding company as an increasing number of technology firms worldwide resort to patent lawsuits to ward off potential competition.

#Google Steps Up to Defend #Android Developers From #Patent Troll #Lodsys

Google has intervened in an ongoing intellectual property dispute between smartphone application developers and a patent-holding firm, Wired.com has learned, marking the Mountain View company’s first public move to defend Android coders from a patent troll lawsuit that’s cast a pall on the community.

The company says it filed a request with the United States Patent and Trademark office Friday for reexamination of two patents asserted by East Texas-based patent firm Lodsys. Google’s request calls for the USPTO to assess whether or not the patents’ claims are valid.

#Patent Holders Trying To Drag 3rd Parties Into Patent Disputes

If you thought bogus patent lawsuits were crazy now, just wait and see what might happen if a court rules the way two companies are arguing they should. The EFF has filed an amicus brief in two cases in which patent holders are arguing that they can drag third parties into patent lawsuits if those third parties do one part of a claim, while someone else does the rest. If you think about this, and are aware of current patent lawsuits, this is a horrifying prospect. Think Lodsys on steroids, where individual consumers could be sued for patent infringement, merely for making use of what a service provider offers.

Intellectual property: #Patents against prosperity

This is apparently a patent on streaming music over the internet. Naturally, you are familiar with #PacketVideo 's popular music streaming service. Oh, you're not? I guess that's because they don't offer one. So, #Spotify is trying to make money offering a service that will make consumers happy. (I'm using it right now. I think it's terrific.) PacketVideo is trying to make money doing what? Shaking down Spotify?

Here's where Mr Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures comes in. Intellectual Ventures owns a huge portfolio of patents. Quite possibly they also have some sort of patent that covers streaming music over the internet. Intellectual Ventures makes money through a sort of protection racket that helps Spotify defend themselves against companies like PacketVideo. For a considerable fee, a company can access Intellectual Venture's storehouse of patents and use them defensively against companies claiming patent infringement.

#Patent Owner With Ties To #IntellectualVentures Sues 100+ #Media Companies

Although this news is fairly old at this point, the Intellectual Ventures connection to Mission Abstract Data’s lawsuit against 116 media companies seems to have gone relatively unreported until last week. That’s when Tom Ewing (who runs an IP consulting firm) left a comment on Joff Wild’s article about NPR’s unflattering portrial of the IP world and IV in particular. Specifically, Tom mentioned that “[a]n IV-connected outfit called Mission Abstract Data LLC sued 116 radio stations in March for patent infringement. One could imagine that IV may have long-term plans for making itself heard in the media.”

Mission Abstract’s patents have a quite a history, including being the subject of a license agreement between Concert Technology Corporation and IM Networks (formerly Sonicbox), despite neither company having an apparent connection to the patents. Concert recently announced its offering of covenants not to sue in ICAP’s upcoming auction. Hopefully, a copy of the license agreement requested from the USPTO will shed some more light on this transaction.

#Rovio, #EA Urge Court To Let #Apple Join #Lodsys Patent Suit

Electronic Arts and Angry Birds developer Rovio have submitted a federal court filing insisting that Apple should be allowed to intervene in a patent-infringement lawsuit against developers of iPhone applications.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/36490/Rovio_EA_Urge_Court_To_Let_Apple_Join_Lodsys_Patent_Suit.php

Must watch talk between Tim Lee and Julian Sanchez

Patent trolls and property-rights goblins: What Harry Potter can teach us about patents and property rights

But in all the discussion of "patent trolls", I haven't come across the accusation of stolen patents (or murder). The inventor and the “troll” mutually entered an agreement to transfer ownership. Transfer of property rights happens all the time. Someone may construct a shop, and then sell it to someone else, who then charges rent to a tennant. Such transfers of exclusive access to property are common. No one calls the new owner a “property troll” because they neither built nor occupy the shop. The new owner is simply an intermediary who is good at managing property, just as the original builder is good at financing and managing construction, and just as the tenants are good at running a shop. I'd guess that in Australia and America, this accounts for the vast majority of commercial property.

http://www.tim-richardson.net/joomla15/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=186:patent-trolls-and-property-rights-goblins-what-harry-potter-can-teach-us-about-patents-and-property-rights&catid=83:profoverview&Itemid=54 

Problem #Patent Trolls Inspire New #Legislation

The increase in patent litigation has moved #Congress to consider legislation to stem the practices of "patent trolls:" individuals and companies that use patents to license revenue from other companies or to file-patent infringement lawsuits -- rather than to build and sell products using the patented inventions. Several other changes to U.S. patent law are also under consideration.

Patent trolls' aims are not to further innovation in products or services. Instead, they hold a patent, much like a stock investment, until it can be licensed to another company that is developing a similar product using the patented technology. Or, if a competing product actually comes to market, patent trolls file infringement lawsuits in the hopes of cashing in on their patent investment. 

Patent trolls have been an especially difficult problem for companies to manage. They are reminiscent of cyber-squatters who bought up Internet domain names during the dot-com boom, and, because of patent trolls' behavior, patent-infringement legislation is growing at an incredible pace. In the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (where many of patent-infringement lawsuits are initiated), filings in 2010 increased by 20 percent compared to 2009.

http://uspolitics.einnews.com/247pr/228082 

The Spoilsmen: How #Congress Corrupted #Patent Reform

When legislators first introduced a patent bill in 2005, they designed it to lower the costs of lawsuits burdening Internet and software companies. Lured by the big, juicy settlements to be won by suing huge companies for intellectual property theft, an entire industry had emerged around patent chasing alone. These so-called "patent trolls" don't produce any goods. Instead, they secure unclaimed patents for ideas in use and try to cash out in court.

Trolls file hundreds of lawsuits a year over "low quality" patents -- lobbyist legal jargon for the questionable or downright bizarre patents routinely granted by the understaffed Patent and Trademark Office. In recent years, patents have been approved for products including a wheeled flower pot (patent No. 7,908,942), the crustless peanut butter and jelly sandwich (patent No. 6,004,596), a decorative box that can be placed in a casket (No. 7,908,942) and an accounting scheme that helps people dodge taxes by moving stock options around (No. 6,567,790). Once approved by the patent office, it's difficult and costly to overturn the patent in courts, which grant significant deference to the office's decisions.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/04/patent-reform-congress_n_906278.html?view=print 

If you want to see more jobs created – change #patent laws

I’m not talking about a new company that had an idea that someone beat us to. No sir. I’m talking about companies that have been doing business the same way for years that are getting hit by patent trolls . These aren’t operating companies that are trying to protect their business. These are companies that aggregate patents and raise capital for the sole purpose of suing companies and extorting money from them.

It’s bad for my little companies. It’s horrific for bigger companies. It’s so bad that  major tech companies are  buying big collections of patents not because they want to own the intellectual property but rather because they want the ability to respond to patent lawsuits with a lawsuit of their own. It’s like playing a game of thermo nuclear war. If all sides have “nuclear patents” they can respond to patent litigation with equal force . In other words, if you have enough “nuclear patents” no one will sue you for patent infringement because you have enough power to respond in kind. Its crazy and costing this country jobs.

Google just bid $900mm to buy a patent collection. Those patents ended up being sold for $4.5BILLION dollars .  That is money that for could have  gone to job creation.

http://blogmaverick.com/2011/08/06/if-you-want-to-see-more-jobs-created-change-patent-laws/

Martin Fowler on Software #Patents

Everyone in the software field has seen a parade of patents which do nothing but try to claim rights on techniques that have already been in use for years, let alone developments that while new, are are still obvious to those of us with ordinary skills in programming.

Although this debasement is quite enough to ruin the integrity of software patents, there are some other debasements worth mentioning too. Patents were originally created with a limited time in mind - the 1623 law placed them at fourteen years. This, of course, at a period of time when change was much slower than it is now, let alone than it is in our field. Proper software patents should hold for a shorter period than that.

http://martinfowler.com/bliki/SoftwarePatent.html 

Time To Really Deal With The Broken Software #Patent System

I’ve been railing against software patents for a number of years. I believe software patents are an invalid construct – software shouldn’t be able to patented.

For a while, I felt like I was shouting alone in the wilderness. While a bunch of software engineers I know thought software patents were bogus, I had trouble getting anyone else to speak out against software patents. But that has changed. In the last few month the issue of software patents – and the fundamental issues with them – have started to be front and center in the discussion about innovation.

 http://www.businessinsider.com/time-to-really-deal-with-the-broken-software-patent-system-2011-8#ixzz1URzyLePq

Samsung licenses patents from Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures

Samsung licenses patents from Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures:

Samsung Electronics has struck a long-term licensing deal with Intellectual Ventures, giving the South Korean electronics giant rights to the technology patents held by the Bellevue-based firm run by Nathan Myhrvold, the former Microsoft chief technology officer.

No financial terms were disclosed as part of the announcement. The deal 'grants Samsung access to a broad and comprehensive IP portfolio under terms attractive to Samsung,' said Dr. Seungho Ahn, a Samsung Electronics senior vice president, in the news release.

Problem Patent Trolls Inspire New Legislation

Problem Patent Trolls Inspire New Legislation - U.S. Politics Today - News Media Monitoring:

"Patent trolls have been an especially difficult problem for companies to manage. They are reminiscent of cyber-squatters who bought up Internet domain names during the dot-com boom, and, because of patent trolls' behavior, patent-infringement litigation is growing at an incredible pace. In the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (where many of patent-infringement lawsuits are initiated), filings in 2010 increased by 20 percent compared to 2009.

In addition, new patent cases in the Eastern District outnumbered new filings in every other federal district. The total number of new defendants (3,879) marks a 70 percent increase from 2009 and is more than four times the next highest number for new defendants (884), in the District of Delaware.

The Federal Trade Commission recently issued a report indicating that patent trolls appear focused on hindering companies that have actually innovated rather than 'developing and transferring technology' themselves. It also notes that one of the primary problems exploited by patent trolls is the vagueness in patent applications. Some patents are intentionally vague and, as a result, often do not serve their purpose in giving notice about what the covers."

Patent Trolls Sitting Under The UX Bridge: How the U.S. patent system may affect your everyday UX work

Patent Trolls Sitting Under The UX Bridge: How the U.S. patent system may affect your everyday UX work:

"The reality is that generic elements of digital interfaces or parts of websites are in fact owned by various corporate entities and some of these entities have no intention of commercializing them within their own products. Simple functions within UX design as basic as menu systems and “upgrade” buttons are patented. These patents cannot be freely used by the people who don’t own them. I am sure almost every UX designer has unknowingly infringed upon a U.S. patent."