Lodsys Expands Patent Lawsuit to 10 More Companies 75
An anonymous reader writes "A day after Apple filed a motion to intervene in Lodsys's lawsuit against seven app developers (EFF comments), Lodsys has filed its third lawsuit this year. The latest complaint targets ten companies including Adidas, Best Buy, Best Western, Black and Decker. Lodsys sues them over two patents, one of which it also asserts against app developers in court as well as its now famous letters (an example of which has meanwhile been published as a result of Apple's intervention). The ten new assertions relate to web surveys, feedback-soliciting FAQs, and live interactive chat."
I patented the tubes! (Score:4, Interesting)
We're going to be rich!
Gah, I am so sick of watching this unfold. I keep thinking, well, at least this will highlight the absurdity of it all. But no, it never does, either the case gets dismissed or the idiots actually win [slashdot.org], whether through settlement or actual trial victories.
When will it end?
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Please not i4i case in same basket, because it is more complex than that. Microsoft literally stole their tech while working togheter. Yes, software patents are bad, but there are those who tries to use system honesly and those who game the system in the open (patent trolls, offensive pattenting from Amazon, Microsoft).
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Yes, i4i was definitely the inventor of "custom XML". OMG so novel!
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Maybe Microsoft did "literally steal their tech", but it shouldn't have been patentable in the first place. What i4i had was like a patent on the wheel: obvious.
The wheel is obvious now... The first wheel? Not so much.
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The wheel is obvious now... The first wheel? Not so much.
And inventing it without the incentives and legal rights that patents systems provide.
Why would one even bother inventing the wheel if he couldnt even commercial it or license the rights to others ! /saracsm
If intellectual property rights are so important, how did we survive without them.
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If intellectual property rights are so important, how did we survive without them.
Good question. Fortunately, we can look back at history. Prior to intellectual property rights, life expectancy was about 35 years. If you made it through childhood, you could expect to live to 45. So, we didn't really survive terribly well.
The industrial revolution, on the other hand, resulted in life expectancies in the 70s and rising. The graph resembles a hockey stick [typepad.com].
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If intellectual property rights are so important, how did we survive without them.
Good question. Fortunately, we can look back at history. Prior to intellectual property rights, life expectancy was about 35 years. If you made it through childhood, you could expect to live to 45. So, we didn't really survive terribly well.
The industrial revolution, on the other hand, resulted in life expectancies in the 70s and rising. The graph resembles a hockey stick [typepad.com].
Not quite true. People normally have quite long lives if there is adequate clean water and the facilities to dispose of waste properly (this translate to good hygiene), of course a good medical service does go a long way in extending life but the first two are more important. Actually the industrial revolution lowered the average human life expectancy because of pandemics, excessive pollution and unsafe drinking water, but there were profits to make and who cares about the unwashed masses when you live comf
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Not quite true. People normally have quite long lives if there is adequate clean water and the facilities to dispose of waste properly (this translate to good hygiene), of course a good medical service does go a long way in extending life but the first two are more important.
And they didn't, prior to the industrial revolution. See my linked chart.
Actually the industrial revolution lowered the average human life expectancy because of pandemics, excessive pollution and unsafe drinking water, but there were profits to make and who cares about the unwashed masses when you live comfortably.
[Citation needed]. Your assertion is directly opposite to the chart I linked, so I'm sure you've got some data...?
Actually the graph does not quite tell the whole truth since if you have say 100 people on the planet living to say 5000 years and the rest of the population only living to say 25 years (the graph) then the average age is still 25 years. Ok that was extreme but say you have a civilization that that has clean water and good sanitation and the average life expectancy was say 80 years but the rest of the known world had a life expectancy of say 25 years then the overall live expectancy of the world would still be about 25 years.
And where's this mythical civilization with 80 year life expectancy in the 1500s? Do you have data, or are you just going to wave your hands and say "western civilizations"?
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It would be convenient if you were right, but you've confused correlation with causation. There were a great number of inventions and innovations over the past 400 years that were not in any realm involving intellectual property or we placed in the public domain by their invetors: sanitary sewers, the corporation, scientific method, the modern democratic republic, rotation of crops, pasteurization, immunizations (Salk asked, "Would you patent the sun?" when asked about patenting his Polio vaccine), and peni
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They're not. All studies have shown that they stifle innovation to the tune of setting us back 20 years or so.
Take touch screens, for example. Innovation in them didn't even start until the initial patents expired. This isn't uncommon.
This whole thing though, is stinks of SCO style tactics... in my opinion.
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> When will it end?
That much I can answer you.
Remember the English, the French & others trying to rip off the world claiming their "nobility" was reason enough; nowadays, it's the US and other countries legal systems.
Somehow they expect:
a) that their internal laws cover other countries;
b) that their internal laws are moral.
It's more or less like that: "hey, don't do that, because it's immoral (or inhumane)"... and there comes the answer: "no, it's ok, because it's legal".
But, as you were asking, "whe
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I'm glad to see some countries denying the US patent laws although I worry about where it will lead.. we need to face the fact, though, that every minute patent troll are allowed to keep this up, they are damaging smaller companies, stifling innovation and stomping on the true spirit of capitalism.
I have a friend who constantly comes up with great ideas, but he can't develop them because he can't afford to pay off the patent trolls, who do nothing with their patents... it's disgusting.
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When you, and other people like you do the hard work of getting elected to congress and change the law.
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Some of us aren't American but disagree with how this is affecting our world. What do you propose we do?
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It's great to say "Kill all the lawyers" - until you need one. There's a surprising number of people and companies willing to simply not pay you. Even if you have a contract, and completed the services rendered. My corporation has had to do it 3 times, and has won 100% of the owed money plus legal fees each time. Would we have won if I had self-represented? It's hard to say.
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I just wonder which competitor of Apple would have the reason, reasources and lack of morals to secretely fund a lawsuit against them. Ummm...
Re: reason, reasources and lack of morals (Score:4, Funny)
Oracle?
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Because as we know, companies in the mobile phone market never sue eachother when they're already involved in a dozen lawsuits already.
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When the USDA Grade A Bullshit like this gets this thick, I shamefully find myself wishing someone with the means and with the same morals that the execs and lawyers of these corporations who instigate these lawsuits have would engage in some selective assassinations on said execs and lawyers.
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Says something about the state of the US today, that someone's "vain hope" is that a large company will spend lots of money to change the law the way that company wants it to be, just because that might coincide with that person's interests.
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These same pharma companies then gouge the tax payers and bankrupt the country by charging $120 for $10 aspirin equivilents. Ironic these same senators blame Obama sayinh we didn't create this problem when letting these drug companies gouge and write the health insurance bill that forces people to pay agaisnt their will.
So, they are expanding their ... (Score:2, Informative)
attempt to gain control over the Internet and put a tollbooth on everyone's driveway.
The only questions left to ask are: "Did they pay enough congressmen?", and, "have they given enough trips to judges?"
Without those cash payments and "rewards" they can't win. With them they can't lose.
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The patent statutes have been changed relatively little since 1952. There have been updates since then to accommodate a few treaties that the US has since ratified, but those updates didn't really affect patent validity and infringement. In fact, the biggest change in that regard was the gradual elimination of submarine patents by changing the patent term from 17 years after issuance to 20 years after effective filing date. In other words, payments to congresspeople would have had little effect on Lodsys
Re:control over the Internet (Score:2)
And who exactly is "lodsys" anyway? So when they're done suing everyone via secret funding... then they'll sell their lock over the internet to the highest bidder!
We have no invention to surpass the net anywhere on the horizon for the next 10 years.
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As far as anyone can tell Lodsys is one patent attorney and thats it.
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Now pay me!
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"A method of breathing involving at least one nostril and/or the mouth."
Now you pay me!
Are these real patents? (Score:1)
-A survey.
-A remote survey on a computer. Oh, oops. A "two-way interaction".
Damn. Are these real patents?
They're just...vague ideas. I'll admit I'm new to reading patents, but I guess I was under the impression you needed an actual implementation of something to get a patent. Why not just dream everything you could ever think of, and lie in wait for someone to actually do it, then pounce?
Oh. It seems that's exactly what they did, nevermind.
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Most of Lodsys's patents appear to be invalid due to prior art, especially teletext, which was fielded commercially in Florida (at least) by Viewdata Corp of America in the early 1980's.
Unisys? (Score:2)
Seriously, is this company related to Unisys in any way?
Frivolous. (Score:2)
I feel like there should be a statute of limitations on this crap. Obviously this guy made no/little efforts prior to this to enforce his "intellectual" property. It's like waiting until they feel like cashing out that they start these kind of lawsuits.
Re:Frivolous. (Score:4, Informative)
I'll just make that my homepage (Score:2)
I'll just make that my homepage to put load on their servers instead of ecosia and never ever using ecosia anymore ;-)
Seriously, there is probably some merit to the patents in some of the claims, but the practice of filing a broad claim 1 that basically describes not an implementation, but a wish list, makes me throw up.
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Pretty sure we beat all prior art for this.
No no no, you misunderstand the game.
You patent everything you can think of in the absolute, most general terms possible. Then you wait for someone to actually do it, then you wait some more for it to become popular, then you come along and blow them all out of the water. (But do it too early and you ain't got nutin' to show for all of your hard work.)
You actually created something though?!!? How the hell did you do THAT?
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