IIUC, inter partes review is a relatively recent (9 y.o.?) patent law practice that allows 3rd parties to challenge patents directly to the patent office any time between patent award and expiry. I had thought there was only a short period this could be done after award of the patent.
It's more than that. The fee to request the IPR is $19,000, plus $375 for each claim in excess of 20. If the USPTO decides to institute the IPR, the post-institution fee is $22,500, plus $750 for each claim in excess of 20. [0] Attorney's fees will be far more than these amounts.
Right? The AIA made it easier and cheaper (*) for big companies to invalidate the patents of small inventors who try to assert their patents against them. It reduced the amount of money that big companies will pay to license a patent because the threat of an infringement lawsuit became less valuable. It literally took value from small inventors and handed it to big business.
(*) Edit: An IPR may seem expensive (~$500k is average), but if successful it is much cheaper than winning a patent infringement lawsuit ($millions).
It's almost as if Barack Obama had been bought by big tech moguls who didn't like having to pay IP holders for their work but wanted to stop startups from encroaching on their monopolies. Oh wait...
The patents already include that, they are meant to be only given on things that are not standard practice or obvious to any competent proffesional. Just software patents fucked it up
Had a professor who wat was at big company. Forget which.
IBM came in with a list of patents that were being violated.
Professor went through the list and managed to document fully how each one didn’t apply to company. One of which was for pythagorean theorem.
They had another meeting to go over it with IBM to show results.
Not impressed IBM said fine you don’t violate those. We have a hundred thousand more patents.
Are you buying a license for these, or should we go find more that you “violate”
I've always wondered if sublicensing was a way to get around this. Instead of owning the core technology itself, set up an offshore holding company to own the technology rights, then "license" them out. The main company probably can't be sued since they have a legal contract for the tech and if they go after the holding company, fine, the parent company can then "license" tech from another, similar holding company.
So I think what I'm talking about his more of a decoy than a privateer. I think of privateering as plausible deniability in attacking someone.
Whereas, what I'm suggesting is more structuring a business such that they can't be sued for patent infringement since they don't own the technology that is allegedly infringing. So if your company receives a cease-and-desist letter, your lawyers can respond with a contract from Core Technology LLC granting you license to use the technology as you deem if, and that the Patent Troll needs to contact Core Technology LLC if they have patent issues.
In the mean time, you can stop licensing from Core Technology LLC and instead move to a new vendor, Core Technology II LLC, who offers an improved product anyway.
The goal being to make it not worth pursuing your business.
You don't have to "own" tech in order to infringe a patent. Making a product that includes the technology protected by the patent, or selling it without there being a license (eg you buy it offshore where they're not covered by a particular patent, but you sell it where there is a patent covering that tech).
None of that matters in USA, as the threat of a lawsuit is threat of massive costs; ostensibly it doesn't matter that the court would award costs of a few $thousand against you if the lawyers to get you through the case cost $100,000s.
But if the licence is that cheap, they're showing their hand, the difference between a protection scheme and IP protection here is incredibly murky. Even if you didn't aim to help others not be bullied around, going for a settlement seems the smarter option.
You are right and it probably wasn’t cheap, but at least comparable to the cost of going to court. If you have two options that cost around the same, but one will give you an immediate out, it’s likely you want to take the immediate out rather than taking additional risk for a what if.
On a side note, I know someone who’s company got sued, then when the lawyers came to the table to negotiate, they showed him a list of other companies that had previously settled with them and the amounts they had settled for. He said the lawyers had clearly done their homework in terms of estimating how much it would cost the company to go to court and the proposed settlement amount was within 10-15% of that estimate. He decided to settle.
You can assume in the vast majority of cases patent trolls don't have valid patents. And if even if they are "valid", the patent system is so messed up, that they have to be invalid in reality.
Trolls' method is exactly racketeering because it's extorting money using threat tactics. "You don't want something worse happening to you? Better pay up XYZ amount!". It's not going get much more classic protection racket than that. Except they threaten not with beating you up, but with you spending millions on court cases. I'd say trolls getting jail time for this garbage should be a good medicine for them.
Without knowing the content of the patents(merely that they are valid) - would you be able to differentiate between a patent troll and someone with a great patent that wants their hard work licensed instead of taken for free?
Who is taking anything for free? Do you think people go read through the patent database to get product ideas? If I create a product and bring it to market without any knowledge of your patent, why should I pay you just because you invented it earlier and then sat on it?
It's not _just_ because you invented it earlier, you also have to disclose it in a way that makes it workable. The disclosure is supposed to drive innovation and use of innovations; that's the patent deal, the monopoly is "paid" for with disclosure.
Aside, in the UK there's compulsory licensing (UKPA Section 48x to prevent people from inventing stuff and refusing to license it (at reasonable terms), too.
I would be surprised if this happened even once in the history of the patent system, and I feel confident stating it has never happened in the past 50 years. Patents do not drive innovation, they restrict it and erect barriers to entry.
It's usually cheaper to settle than to go to court. A company I worked for got hit (apparently using TLS violates their patent. Even though it's the browser that initiated the connection). Company simply paid up because it was cheaper.
Unfortunately this is one of those instances where looking out for oneself (in a business sense) does more harm to society than eating the costs and fighting the battle.
IANASBO (I am not a Small Business Owner) so I can't say I wouldn't necessarily do any different, sadly. But I like to think I would.
lotnet.com
Lawsuits from Patent Assertion Entities (PAEs, sometimes called “patent trolls”) can be a drain on resources for any company. With software a primary PAE target, and software becoming an integral part of all industries — putting nearly all companies at risk of being sued.
That’s why leading companies have come together to form a collaborative, voluntary community to reduce this risk – one that grows in importance as the economic environment becomes increasingly uncertain.
