Category Archives: IP

Intellectual Property issues and news

Victory Lap for Ask Patents

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The other 40,000-odd software patents issued every year are mostly garbage that any working programmer could “invent” three times before breakfast. Most issued software patents aren’t “inventions” as most people understand that word. They’re just things that any first-year student learning Java should be able to do as a homework assignment in two hours.

via Victory Lap for Ask Patents – Joel on Software.

There is, though, an interesting lesson here. Software patent applications are of uniformly poor quality. They are remarkably easy to find prior art for. Ask Patents can be used to block them with very little work. And this kind of individual destruction of one software patent application at a time might start to make a dent in the mountain of bad patents getting granted.

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Got 15 minutes? Go to Ask Patents right now, and see if one of these RFPAs covers a topic you know something about, and post any examples you can find. They’re hidden in plain view; most of the prior art you need for software patents can be found on Google. Happy hunting!

MIT Moves to Intervene in Release of Aaron Swartz’s Secret Service File

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MIT claims it’s afraid the release of Swartz’s file will identify the names of MIT people who helped the Secret Service and federal prosecutors pursue felony charges against Swartz for his bulk downloading of academic articles from MIT’s network in 2011.

MIT argues that those people might face threats and harassment if their names become public. But it’s worth noting that names of third parties are already redacted from documents produced under FOIA.

via MIT Moves to Intervene in Release of Aaron Swartz’s Secret Service File | Threat Level | Wired.com.

Why Nintendo can legally shut down any Smash Bros. tournament it wants

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Video games are treated differently, though, primarily because they exist on a screen rather than a board. “A video game under copyright law is an audiovisual work, which gives a public performance right to the copyright holder,” Dallas attorney and Law of the Game blog author Mark Methenitis explained in an interview with Ars. “Under the public performance right, the copyright holder is allowed to say when, where, or whether something is publicly performed, meaning displayed in front of a group of people larger than, say, at your house.”

In other words, if you want to put on a Street Fighter tournament and charge people to watch, Capcom can make you get a license for the “public performance” of the game. In fact, that is exactly what Capcom does with for-profit tournaments.

via Why Nintendo can legally shut down any Smash Bros. tournament it wants | Ars Technica.

AT&T Invents The Ultimate Anti-Piracy System

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The patent in question is named “Real-time content detection in ISP transmissions” and focuses exclusively on tracking and deterring online piracy. According to the telco, copyright infringement is a “recurring problem in Internet usage” that is hard to police without the proper tools..

via PRISM for Pirates: AT&T Invents The Ultimate Anti-Piracy System | TorrentFreak.

It looks like deep packet inspection comparing against hashes of known violating content that constantly updates.  Even the patent seems obvious as I had that idea circling in my head how they would do that as soon as I read the headline of this article.   This is not innovative.  AT&T must feel comfortable with their monopoly status to screw over customers like this.  I can’t imagine keeping hash tables of content violations accurate will be very easy.   Add to that the security implications of hackers infecting these tables with bogus hashes and you have a recipe for disaster.  Only a company with monopoly status can take such a risk because many of their “customers” have no other choice for Internet access.

Why I’m not paying the Troll Toll

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Lodsys is seeking a percentage of revenue from the time they sent me the letter to the time their patent expired. Usually they request around 1% of your in-app-purchases. My company made about $500 with in-app-purchase during this time period and 1% of that is $5. What? I’m getting sued for $5? Given it cost Lodsys $350 to file the lawsuit I assumed they would ask for more than that. And they did.

Lodsys offered to settle with my company for $3,500. If I pay them off, what is stopping the next troll from knocking on my door? Nothing. And I’ve heard that if you pay a troll to go away it can lead to more trolls showing up.

via Why I’m not paying the Troll Toll | Todd Moore.

This passage seems like an appropriate response.

It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
To call upon a neighbour and to say: –
“We invaded you last night–we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away.”

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you’ve only to pay ‘em the Dane-geld
And then you’ll get rid of the Dane!

It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say: –
“Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away.”

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say: –

“We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that pays it is lost!”

–Rudyard Kipling

Patent troll that sues public transit systems gets hauled into court

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ArrivalStar doesn’t want to litigate; it wants fast cash. The company has never taken a case to trial, and last year it admitted it had only seen one case through to the early “claim construction” phase.

via Patent troll that sues public transit systems gets hauled into court | Ars Technica.

This patent troll recently settled with Metra for $50K, Chicago’s local train operator.  Here’s a Chicago Tribune article:

Metra paid $50,000 in ‘frivolous’ patent suit, officials say – chicagotribune.com

VCs Get Their Pick Of Hungry Start-ups

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But there is a dark side because VC’s often only make safe bets, backing companies which can show they have enough valuable intellectual property (IP) to reassure the funders that they can salvage a large part of their money through IP asset-stripping, if the business doesn’t thrive.

Perhaps the slogan for the session should have been: “No IP, no VC”.

via Demo Europe: VCs Get Their Pick Of Hungry Start-ups.

White House effort targets ‘patent trolls’

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President Barack Obama spoke about the problem of patent litigation at a recent Google+ hangout, saying that patent trolls “don’t actually produce anything themselves” and instead develop a business model “to essentially leverage and hijack somebody else’s idea and see if they can extort some money out of them.”

via White House effort targets ‘patent trolls’ – Michelle Quinn – POLITICO.com.

Apple, betrayed by its own law firm

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FlatWorld Interactives sued Apple in April 2012, naming just about every gadget in Apple’s arsenal as a product that infringed its two related patents, said to cover swiping gestures on a touch screen. Over the next three months, the company filed similar lawsuits against LG Electronics and Samsung, against a wide array of smartphones made by those companies.

via Apple, betrayed by its own law firm | Ars Technica.

USA Intellectual Property Theft Commission Recommends Malware!

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“Additionally, software can be written that will allow only authorized users to open files containing valuable information. If an unauthorized person accesses the information, a range of actions might then occur. For example, the file could be rendered inaccessible and the unauthorized user’s computer could be locked down, with instructions on how to contact law enforcement to get the password needed to unlock the account. Such measures do not violate existing laws on the use of the Internet, yet they serve to blunt attacks and stabilize a cyber incident to provide both time and evidence for law enforcement to become involved.”

via Lauren Weinstein’s Blog: USA Intellectual Property Theft Commission Recommends Malware!.