Patent trolls rank right up there with private equity firms that own massive amounts of housing. Scum of the earth right here.
If they exclusively targeted larger companies, they’d be fine with me. Generally, the way they operate is to first strike smaller, more vulnerable companies to build their case before suing a larger one. Patent reform can’t come soon enough.
The fear of being targeted by a patent troll makes both small and large companies afraid to innovate.
Patent and copyright law both need major reforms
I had no idea Cloudflare was combating parent trolls!
Honestly surprised Sable was able to get settlements from Cisco, Fortinet, Check Point, SonicWall, and Juniper Networks. They’re not small names in the industry.
It was only Cloudflare’s legal strategy which managed to invalidate the patents.
I’m glad somebody stepped up after Lee Cheng left Newegg.
NewEgg is such a shell of its former self. They went from fighting patent trolls to platforming scammers.
It seems like as soon as a web store makes the move to being a marketplace where you have no idea who you’re actually buying from, it all goes to shit.
To clarify, they’re not going after patent trolls afaik, just going to court when they’re targeted by them (instead of forking up a payment to the patent troll company to avoid that). Iirc, the last patent troll they took to court ended up collapsing and isn’t operating anymore.
Yes, that was Blackbird Technologies in 2019 (it’s mentioned in the article).
Every time a court finds that the USPTO has issued an invalid patent, they should be given a sizable fine. The patent system won’t work as long as the USPTO has an incentive to turn a blind eye to shit patents.
Not a fine, they should pay the legal costs of the business that successfully defended and invalidated it.
Even better. Or maybe both.
Don’t punish the taxpayer, punish the troll.
Requiring a government agency to pay a penalty will only ensure the agency will work with less efficiency. In turn, ineffective agencies are further criticized and will become a target for privatization, which only ever serves special interests and those with means.
Put an end to this one and for all. Pass a law that requires any entity which files suit on the basis of being a parent holder must show that they use the patent to earn income from sales that are proven to be independent from them and their officers. If the suit is only being filed for easy money, they should be fined heavily.
Even if they aren’t earning income, they should be able to show they had a product/prototype actually built with the patent before the company they’re using developed their product. That way legitimate patent holders who weren’t able to monetize their technology but had a working prototype will still be able to protect their patents. So many times, patent trolls hold patents to “ideas” rather than working inventions with prototypes.
I do not want my taxes further enriching patent hoarders, thanks.
This is idiotic. Theres no reason government should really ever pay private businesses over stuff like this. That’s how you bankrupt an organization.
See: Florida right now and the school systems getting sued into oblivion
The patent holder should receive the large fine. Then the patent lawyers filing will have a duty of care to prevent frivolous patents for their clients, or risk malpractice suits for allowing shit patents.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
“Patent trolls create what we consider to be an unfair, unjust, and inefficient system that throttles innovation and threatens emerging companies,” Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince told Ars.
Whereas other companies often settle with “patent trolls” to avoid costly legal battles that can drain critical resources otherwise funding innovations, Prince said that Cloudflare’s most recent victory is “an important validation that we can successfully fight back against the threat to innovation posed by patent trolls.”
Seemingly utilizing this strategy, Sable had successfully secured settlements from several companies before, including Cisco, Fortinet, Check Point, SonicWall, and Juniper Networks.
“If that meant leveraging a patent related to decades-old router hardware to sue a cloud-based service provider, so be it,” Cloudflare’s blog said.
As a result of that victory, Blackbird “went out of business,” effectively ending that company’s meritless patent infringement claims, Cloudflare said.
With two wins under the program’s belt, Cloudflare hopes the Sable verdict serves as “a strong warning to all patent trolls—we will not be intimidated into playing your game.”
The original article contains 777 words, the summary contains 169 words. Saved 78%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
To defeat Sable, Cloudflare offered $100,000 “to be split among winners that submitted strong prior art.”
Important bit missing. Summary and headline had me imagining something much more dystopia.
