Wouldn't funding this be in the interest of mid-sized companies? Albeit it's not likely that they'll be targeted it seems like an awfully cheap insurance policy. By "they" I mean "a company".
Seeing as they are a potential target for the next six years they'd effectively pay 20000/6 which rounds up to four grand a year that has to be much cheaper than the legal fees they'd incur if they were targeted.
Split that cost with a few other companies and it hardly costs a thing in the relative scheme of things. Makes for a good PR opportunity as well: "We will not sit idly by when others are bullied into paying licensing fees on such a nonsensical patent, effectively robbing the cradle of new businesses"
Apple is one of the companies that fill more stupid (obvious) patents in the world...
They have a freaking patent on converting different data types, patent US7886264B1 [1]
Even though Apple has never acted as a patent troll, it doesn't mean their patent portfolio isn't potentially harmful and it could be used as such some time soon to maximize profits.
It wouldn't be the first time a once very successful company makes good profits by charging licensing fees on things way far away of their product line. I'm looking at you Microsoft... [2]
Even if the 'invalidating bad patents' idea sounds promising, I still think that in order to stop 'stupid patents', as described in their front page, the smartest move would be to fix this broken patents system so that no more stupid patents could be registered.
I think everyone agrees with you on that. However, I think most people (here) also understand that doing that will take some political heavy lifting. Something on the order of the affordable healthcare act.
If you figure out a way to fix the patent system so no more stupid patents can be registered I'd be all ears :-)
Nobody knows how long it will take and what it will take to fix the broken patent system. Meanwhile, real businesses are getting extorted.
The cost of unpatenting seems a lot lower than the gross extortion amount. And long-term it just might work as deterrent against patent trolls. Without politicians getting involved.
If we lived in a world where the government moves at a decent pace, that'd be an option. As we do not, you can either complain for decades or try to do something that actually fixes the bug.
$500/month to protect against a 0.1% chance of being sued by a patent troll over a 7 year period gives $42 million in expected value to fight a bogus patent when it does come up. Adjust the numbers to whatever's realistic.
It seems more sustainable than asking strangers to fund patent lawsuits.
That is something we have definitely thought about, but when making the numbers with the actual probability of being sued (more like 1% each year if you are a mid-sized VC funded startup) and the average lawsuit cost of going to court against the troll ($3M over 2 years, in case the case goes to the end), it is very dangerous to setup without a proper actuarial model, charging $500/month to some companies might be too risky.
What we are focused on right now is on diminishing patent portfolios so the lawsuit probability goes down. We have a lot of things in the pipeline that will make it easier for companies to be protected using Unpatent, that don't necessarily involve backing individual campaigns.
If you have no insurance, nobody will have a large incentive to sue you, specifically. If you have insurance, suddenly there’s a big reason to single you out for a lawsuit, since the insurance company is liable to pay if you lose.
What we love about the crowdfunding is that it raises awareness about the issue. You have to actively back the campaign. But we're thinking about other, more passive methods as well.
So, I'm curious, is Lee Cheng going to be the one going after Marc and his group, and is the $20k just to try to help pay his court expenses? Because, it seems like it's going to be a lot more expensive than that. I'm asking because there isn't much information about how the money will be used on the campaign page, and I think more would give if this were clearer.
Good luck to Unpatent in this! I think this is an inventive way to help start to solve this problem.
Something else that people could do is write to their representatives about it. These patent problems are solvable with law that penalizes organizations that try to blackmail organizations with patents that are overly broad.
We spend the crowdfunded money on the ex parte reexam PTO fees + lawyer fees (for preparing the filing) + rewarding the prior art searchers. As we're doing an ex parte, it's pretty cheap compared to an inter partes. The IPR one would be >$100k, while ex parte's minimum costs are about $16k. Ex parte has less success probabilities than an inter parte, but the fact that it's so cheap helps scaling the process so we can get rid of stupid patents at a good pace :)
Patent noob here, but wouldn't this violate the basic "you can patent implementations but not ideas" rule?
Did they actually patent all possible methods and apparatuses to select products based on personal information? Or was the patent for one concrete method and apparatus that did so and just formulated intentionally vague?
This patent is almost surely invalid under Alice v. CLS Bank, but nevertheless, the patent office granted it so the troll is using to extort companies.
"The patent has just expired, but the troll still has 6 years to ask anyone for the licensing fees or the damages that they incurred during the term of the patent — which is 20 years."
Am I missing something? This patent is specific to automated insurance marketing. The unpatent.co campaign seems to imply that is some kind of catch all patent that covers all automated decision making. I don't see the link.
A lot of patents affect a huge, broad space different that the one they are supposed to cover. These guys filed the first application in '96, then started other broader applications linking that first application so it counts as its priority date.
If i read this correctly, this should expire in 4 years anyway, I know it's a lot of time in tech, but might be around the same time that trial completes?
Is there any reason why an unpatent campaign is limited to 30 days? Wouldn't it be better if campaigns expired only after their funding threshold was achieved?
We're pretty open about that and gathering feedback to build a timeline that makes sense. We are thinking about moving between stages only if they're successful instead of just looking at some arbitrary number of days.
[+] [-] leksak|9 years ago|reply
Seeing as they are a potential target for the next six years they'd effectively pay 20000/6 which rounds up to four grand a year that has to be much cheaper than the legal fees they'd incur if they were targeted.
Split that cost with a few other companies and it hardly costs a thing in the relative scheme of things. Makes for a good PR opportunity as well: "We will not sit idly by when others are bullied into paying licensing fees on such a nonsensical patent, effectively robbing the cradle of new businesses"
[+] [-] PieterH|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] luisivan|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Cozumel|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] izqui|9 years ago|reply
They have a freaking patent on converting different data types, patent US7886264B1 [1]
Even though Apple has never acted as a patent troll, it doesn't mean their patent portfolio isn't potentially harmful and it could be used as such some time soon to maximize profits.
It wouldn't be the first time a once very successful company makes good profits by charging licensing fees on things way far away of their product line. I'm looking at you Microsoft... [2]
[1]: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7886264B1 [2]: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2015/11/01/microsoft-...
[+] [-] danirod|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] izqui|9 years ago|reply
Not even a letter to Congress signed by very important SV players did anything... [1]
At Unpatent we believe that big changes can be made using technology when legislation is clearly falling behind.
[1]: http://www.unitedforpatentreform.com
[+] [-] bborud|9 years ago|reply
If you figure out a way to fix the patent system so no more stupid patents can be registered I'd be all ears :-)
[+] [-] infodroid|9 years ago|reply
The cost of unpatenting seems a lot lower than the gross extortion amount. And long-term it just might work as deterrent against patent trolls. Without politicians getting involved.
[+] [-] luisivan|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomtomtom777|9 years ago|reply
Donating here feels like funding the 'stupid patent' system.
[+] [-] MichaelBurge|9 years ago|reply
$500/month to protect against a 0.1% chance of being sued by a patent troll over a 7 year period gives $42 million in expected value to fight a bogus patent when it does come up. Adjust the numbers to whatever's realistic.
It seems more sustainable than asking strangers to fund patent lawsuits.
[+] [-] izqui|9 years ago|reply
What we are focused on right now is on diminishing patent portfolios so the lawsuit probability goes down. We have a lot of things in the pipeline that will make it easier for companies to be protected using Unpatent, that don't necessarily involve backing individual campaigns.
[+] [-] teddyh|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] luisivan|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] watermoose|9 years ago|reply
And, it looks to have a great team behind it: https://unpatent.co/about
So, I'm curious, is Lee Cheng going to be the one going after Marc and his group, and is the $20k just to try to help pay his court expenses? Because, it seems like it's going to be a lot more expensive than that. I'm asking because there isn't much information about how the money will be used on the campaign page, and I think more would give if this were clearer.
Good luck to Unpatent in this! I think this is an inventive way to help start to solve this problem.
Something else that people could do is write to their representatives about it. These patent problems are solvable with law that penalizes organizations that try to blackmail organizations with patents that are overly broad.
http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_c...
[+] [-] luisivan|9 years ago|reply
We spend the crowdfunded money on the ex parte reexam PTO fees + lawyer fees (for preparing the filing) + rewarding the prior art searchers. As we're doing an ex parte, it's pretty cheap compared to an inter partes. The IPR one would be >$100k, while ex parte's minimum costs are about $16k. Ex parte has less success probabilities than an inter parte, but the fact that it's so cheap helps scaling the process so we can get rid of stupid patents at a good pace :)
[+] [-] xg15|9 years ago|reply
Did they actually patent all possible methods and apparatuses to select products based on personal information? Or was the patent for one concrete method and apparatus that did so and just formulated intentionally vague?
[+] [-] zipwitch|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] luisivan|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dest|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kitbrennan|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sjclemmy|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] luisivan|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xchaotic|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BillyParadise|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] izqui|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] infodroid|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] luisivan|9 years ago|reply