There is clearly prior art. When you make this big a nuisance of yourself, clearly exploiting the system at society's expense, you should be permanently disbarred. You are a clear and present danger to the continued operation of the justice system.
Edit: Might a flood of complaints to the bar association do some good here?
Say what you will about the trolls; these guys have it figured out. They're targeting people with enough cash to make it go away, but not enough to mount a proper defence. Prior art doesn't enter the picture, as the trolls' targets are unlikely to retain counsel. When it costs as much to retain a lawyer as it does to make the issue go away, it's perfectly rational for the small business owner to pay up and move on. Tragedy of the commons at its finest. It's cynical, reprehensible, and evil, but it's a pretty solid business model.
The existence of packet radio doesn't necessarily constitute prior art. The patents are far more likely to be on certain very narrowly defined processes that are arguably implemented in a WiFi system than on a very broad field like "digital communication over radio". If the hams didn't use the particular techniques at issue, then that wouldn't constitute prior art.
You really need to read the specific claims in the patents themselves to figure out how to invalidate or avoid the patents.
The book "Against Intellectual Monopoly" is highly recommended reading for the question of patents (and other intellectual property). The authors make a mostly empirical survey of the effects of intellectual property laws and of their absence in a wide range of industries, and conclude that their effect is a stifling rather than an encouragement of innovation. I think it's especially appropriate because, while my own opinion on the issue comes from moral reasoning (and it's generally frustrating to try to argue that side), this book presents a wealth of stories and statistics that are just plain interesting to anyone who cares about the issue.
I've read that the possibility to patent genes led to the explosion of the field some years back. Are there such positive examples discussed in the book?
It would probably be more effective and work faster if victims of this nonsense just started showing up at these people's houses with ski masks and baseball bats.
I thought politicians just made things worse after problems become calamities. The calamity just alerts them to the fact that there is money to be made being part of the problem.
Watch for campaign contributions to start flowing before these companies start suing regular people.
This is actually a very good development. This will help that even general public start understanding "patent troll" problem which, in turn, will get some ears in in Washington.
I hope that more and more opportunistic lawyers join the "patent troll" bandwagon. Eventually, some of them will not say "wont sue individuals" because they will understand that changes in IP laws are going to happen soon: make money now or never (very similar to what was happening just before the housing crash of 2008).
Then the politicians will act. Hopefully, giving bailouts and not doing reforms will not work for this issue.
Is there anything we can do to speed up this process?
It sounds like they're going after small business owners individually, so not necessarily "any old joe." Still, this gives me hope given how hot small businesses are in the current political climate. Perhaps targeting one or two of the wrong (read: noisy and politically-connected) owners will result in an outcome at least slightly positive for patent reform?
Do the descendants of Joseph Guillotin still hold the patent on his invention? I fancy a scenario unfolding in today's environment that might vastly enrich his heirs.
> While its initial lawsuits against coffee shops and restaurants did focus on the central corporations, with the hotels, Innovatio appears to be focusing on individual franchisees. Yes, the small businesses who own individual hotels and probably have no idea how to deal with a patent infringement lawsuit -- all because they dared to offer WiFi somewhere in their hotels. To make it "easy" of course, Innovatio's lawyers will let them settle for between $2,300 and $5,000. In almost every case, that's going to be cheaper than hiring a lawyer to just get started dealing with this -- which I'm sure is exactly what Innovatio intends.
Isn't this precisely the sort of thing that can be forwarded to corporate? Someone who owns a Motel 6 would surely expect the corporation to help them with this, no?
It's nice to see that Innovatio IP is focused democratizing the opportunity to license their patents. Patent trolling isn't just for the Fortune 500 anymore.
I'm not a lawyer, so my question is simple - say that you receive a citation from Innovation and you simply ignore this. What then ? They will actually take you to court ?
Well, if you ignore it and they get a default judgement against you (i.e. they find that you are infringing) then they can do lots of things to make sure you pay up. IANAL so you would want to talk to one if this happens.
I don't know enough about the details of wifi to say whether the patents in question actually apply, but it seems plausible. Here are all the patents listed in the suit:
After getting sued a good course of action would be to sue the manufacturer for loses incurred. At least that would get their attention. Somebody could start a class action lawsuit agains the manufacturer.
They should be suing the manufacturers in the first place. Even if we were to assume for a moment that this patent has any validity whatsoever, it would not be the users of the wireless router than owe them a royalty payment, but the router manufacturers. And I seriously doubt that a fair royalty on a single router (such as what you might find in one of these small coffeeshops that they are suing) is in the thousands of dollars.
I hope their greed gets the best of them. Here's a poll I created to get general feedback on this subject. It's so infuriating to me, but a lot of people seem to be indifferent on the subject of patents: http://www.wepolls.com/p/3363896/
[+] [-] noonespecial|14 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packet_radio
There is clearly prior art. When you make this big a nuisance of yourself, clearly exploiting the system at society's expense, you should be permanently disbarred. You are a clear and present danger to the continued operation of the justice system.
Edit: Might a flood of complaints to the bar association do some good here?
[+] [-] redthrowaway|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] caf|14 years ago|reply
You really need to read the specific claims in the patents themselves to figure out how to invalidate or avoid the patents.
[+] [-] waterhouse|14 years ago|reply
http://www.dklevine.com/papers/imbookfinalall.pdf
[+] [-] kprobst|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] radu_floricica|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Bud|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beedogs|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] prawn|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danssig|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrspandex|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kylec|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] diego_moita|14 years ago|reply
Politicians will only solve a problem after it becomes a calamity. If the problem gets bad enough, they might start paying attention.
[+] [-] fleitz|14 years ago|reply
Watch for campaign contributions to start flowing before these companies start suing regular people.
[+] [-] Astrohacker|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] prawn|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tlogan|14 years ago|reply
I hope that more and more opportunistic lawyers join the "patent troll" bandwagon. Eventually, some of them will not say "wont sue individuals" because they will understand that changes in IP laws are going to happen soon: make money now or never (very similar to what was happening just before the housing crash of 2008). Then the politicians will act. Hopefully, giving bailouts and not doing reforms will not work for this issue.
Is there anything we can do to speed up this process?
[+] [-] tjmc|14 years ago|reply
1. Pay - where all proceeds will be used to acquire more frivolous patents and lawyers to sue them again
2. Change the law to ban all software patents
[+] [-] MrUnknown|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrspandex|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mkjones|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] plink|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pavel_lishin|14 years ago|reply
Isn't this precisely the sort of thing that can be forwarded to corporate? Someone who owns a Motel 6 would surely expect the corporation to help them with this, no?
[+] [-] colanderman|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fleitz|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway0815|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] octopus|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hvs|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jcromartie|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] colinhowe|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skymt|14 years ago|reply
I don't know enough about the details of wifi to say whether the patents in question actually apply, but it seems plausible. Here are all the patents listed in the suit:
http://www.google.com/patents?id=zi8SAAAAEBAJ http://www.google.com/patents?id=0W-qAAAAEBAJ http://www.google.com/patents?id=89fGAAAAEBAJ http://www.google.com/patents?id=rlHHAAAAEBAJ http://www.google.com/patents?id=HQwgAAAAEBAJ http://www.google.com/patents?id=i9UYAAAAEBAJ http://www.google.com/patents?id=Uz8JAAAAEBAJ http://www.google.com/patents?id=f6mwAAAAEBAJ http://www.google.com/patents?id=YxQcAAAAEBAJ http://www.google.com/patents?id=unMYAAAAEBAJ http://www.google.com/patents?id=yPcOAAAAEBAJ http://www.google.com/patents?id=zDQSAAAAEBAJ http://www.google.com/patents?id=Bkh4AAAAEBAJ http://www.google.com/patents?id=vfnOAAAAEBAJ
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] sukuriant|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] greatreorx|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] felipemnoa|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tjr|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanBC|14 years ago|reply
Then start trolling politicians.
[+] [-] pyrotechnick|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whatusername|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crizCraig|14 years ago|reply
I hope their greed gets the best of them. Here's a poll I created to get general feedback on this subject. It's so infuriating to me, but a lot of people seem to be indifferent on the subject of patents: http://www.wepolls.com/p/3363896/
[+] [-] machrider|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SODaniel|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Vivtek|14 years ago|reply