- “Kanye West Sues Coinye Altcoin into Oblivion” [CoinDesk]
- Not new, but new to me: animated riff on Hindu “Ramayana” saga winds up in public domain because of inability to clear copyright on songs of Jazz-Age vocalist Annette Hanshaw [Nina Paley, “Sita Sings the Blues”]
- “Update: Supreme Court Issues Two More Patent Law Rulings” [WLF; Limelight and Nautilis]
- On copyright, more litigious not always better: “The Authors Alliance vs. The Authors Guild” [Alex Tabarrok quoting Virginia Postrel]
- “Thwarting ‘patent trolls’: Not as easy as it sounds” [Michael Rosen, AEI] “Trolls and Trial Lawyers Should Curb Their Enthusiasm Over Patent Reform Timeout” [Cory Andrews, WLF]
- “I realized that receiving a patent really just meant that you bought a lottery ticket to a lawsuit” – [Elon Musk, Tesla; Brad Greenburg, Concurring Opinions]
- Ready for Hillary is latest political campaign to fire off takedown demand against satirical product [Paul Alan Levy]
Posts Tagged ‘patent trolls’
“Targeting Rogue and Opaque Letters”
A House panel approves a bill aimed at patent demand letters that are in bad faith or based on invalid patents [Reuters]
Intellectual property roundup
- Supreme Court tackling patent law in several cases this term [Sartori and Aga, WLF; Richard Epstein; Kristen Osenga/Prawfs] New fee-shifting regime announced in Octane Fitness already bringing relief to litigants [Ars Technica on Lumen View/FindTheBest case]
- Copyright claims on intrinsically newsworthy material: curious claim concerning suicide note [Eugene Volokh] “Is it copyright infringement to post a lawyer’s cease-and-desist letter?” Australian university seems to think so [same]
- Fate of Prenda Law model spirals downward [Ars Technica, Volokh, EFF]
- Comedian Adam Carolla has “decided to make himself the focus of the Personal Audio suit against podcasters.” [Steven Malanga]
- Why, as a textbook author, Alex Tabarrok has concluded copyright law is out of control [Marginal Revolution]
- Remembering when patent examiners were celebrities (in the 19th Century) [Slate]
- Someone sends Jim Harper a dubious DMCA takedown notice, and this is his response [Cato]
“Don’t settle”
Newegg fights a patent assertion entity:
Most companies choose not to recover their legal fees in patent suits because prevailing defendants are required to demonstrate that a plaintiff acted in bad faith. This is extremely difficult to prove and it’s usually easier to just walk away and count your losses – unless your name is [Newegg chief legal officer] Lee Cheng…
Thanks to the efforts of Lee Cheng and his legal team, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a trial court to reconsider its earlier denial of Newegg’s request for attorneys’ fees and costs in the patent infringement lawsuit brought on by SUS. Newegg pursued justice in the matter because it is consistent with our corporate mission of bringing the benefits of technology and technology products to our valued customers. And, when defendants settle these frivolous claims, it’s always the customer that ends up paying. We care too much about our loyal customers to subject them to paying these trolls.
Don’t settle.
“How the patent trolls won in Congress”
Sen. Harry Reid seems to have been central:
“We felt really good the last couple of days,” said the tech lobbyist. “It was a good deal—one we could live with. Then the trial lawyers and pharma went to Senator Reid late this morning and said that’s it. Enough with the children playing in the playground—go kill it.”…
Trial lawyers are heavy donors to Democratic politicians, including Reid. … The long history of the divide over other kinds of legal tort reform loomed over the bill, which was dubbed the Innovation Act in the House. The fact that it was the trial lawyers’ lobby that reportedly delivered the death blow suggests that the rift only got wider as debate dragged on.
Key Litigation Lobby allies like Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) spoke out against the legislation on the Senate floor. [Joe Mullin, ArsTechnica]
Homebuilders hit by patent claim on frame-drying
“Hundreds of home builders in the Pacific Northwest have been put on notice that if they use a dehumidifier to dry rain-damaged projects, they are infringing on a patent recently issued to a father and son who claim they invented the process.” [Legal NewsLine] (& Coyote)
Intellectual property roundup
- Federal judge invalidates two patents Intellectual Ventures had used to sue banks [Ars Technica]
- Is there an actual debate over the economic effects of stronger vs. weaker IP protection, or are people talking past each other? [Simon Lester, Cato]
- “Teller Wins Lawsuit Over Copied Magic Trick Performance” [Hollywood Reporter] Custom, informal law enforce joke “property” among comedians [McGraw/Warner, Slate]
- I read the news today, oh boy/ And now I have to pay a license fee/ [ABA Journal on actions against song lyrics sites; earlier here and here; h/t for joke to Rogers T.]
- “Paper” town, placed by cartographer on map to foil plagiarism, springs into real life [Now I Know]
- Unsuccessful courtroom demand for access to list of donors to “Save Podcasting Campaign” [EFF]
- Idea of giving people copyright in their faces (as against facial-recognition systems) “has two demerits: it is unconstitutional, and it is insane. Otherwise, it seems fine.” [Info/Law via @petewarden]
Medical roundup
- Oscar-winning “Dallas Buyers Club” should please libertarians and FDA reformers [David Boaz/Cato, Jack Hunter/Rare, Kyle Smith/Forbes]
- Don’t assume patent trolls won’t threaten pharma/biotech [Nicholson Price, Bill of Health]
- “Why are patients shut out of the debate over prescription pain medicine?” [Maia Szalawitz]
- A retrospective on the Satanic abuse panic [Richard Noll, courtesy Maggie McNeill] And why you haven’t read it at Psychiatric Times [Gary Greenberg]
- High-profile medical and custody dispute in Massachusetts over teenager Justina Pelletier appears to pit hospital against hospital [Boston Globe (autoplays), CBS Boston, J.D. Tuccille/Reason]
- Actual fertility procedure under FDA consideration doesn’t live up to hype about supposed “three-parent babies” [Nita Farahany]
- Study points to benefits of easing licensing constraints on nurse practitioners [Jeffrey Miron, Cato]
- More: Florida Supreme Court, long elected with support from plaintiff’s bar, invalidates medical malpractice limits [Miami Herald, Alex Stein/Bill of Health]
William J. Watkins, Jr., “Patent Trolls”
New 96-page paperback available from the Independent Institute. I wrote a blurb:
In clear and non-lawyerly language, Patent Trolls spells out why patent trollery is so loathed and so lucrative: its rapid rise (with lawsuits quintupling in the past three years), the havoc it’s wreaking from Silicon Valley down to your local restaurant and hotel; and the reasons it can be so hard to distinguish trolls from legitimate patent claimants. He lays out remedies worth considering.
— Walter K. Olson, Senior Fellow, Cato Institute; author, The Litigation Explosion and The Rule of Lawyers; editor, Overlawyered.com
Speaking of restaurants, the latest business to speak out about its bad experience with patent trolls is the venerable hamburger chain White Castle.
16,000 demand letters, 17 agreements to pay
Is this patent asserter seriously overestimating the persuasive validity of its claims to own the process of scanning a document to email? Or is there a rash of inappropriate resistance by small businesses nationwide? “MPHJ has sent letters to approximately 16,465 small businesses nationwide. … it only received 17 (yes, 17!) licenses. Yet the price of these 17 licenses was thousands of small businesses going through the stress and expense of facing a threat of patent litigation.” MPHJ is said to believe that if a business has more than twenty employees and operates in various fields such as “professional services,” it very likely infringes on its patent and owes a royalty of $1,000-$1,200 per employee. [Julie Samuels, Electronic Frontier Foundation; Joe Mullin, ArsTechnica, more and related last year on patent asserters in the office scanning field]