Apple 'calling for patent reform' after NPE beats them at their own game.

[Garacesh]

BBC News - Apple faces $533m iTunes patent payout

 

Apple has been declared to be 'wilfully infringing' patents related to "manage the storage of audio and video files, apps and games, including ways to ensure the data had been purchased properly before being allowed to run on a portable device."

 

[Apple] has been ordered to pay $533m (£344m) to Smartflash, a British Virgin Islands-based firm that owns and licenses tech-related patents but does not make products itself.

Apple said it intended to appeal and called for patent reform.

 

"We refused to pay off this company for the ideas our employees spent years innovating and unfortunately we have been left with no choice but to take this fight up through the court system," the iPhone maker said in a statement.

 

Pots and kettles spring to mind.. Mr. Vague-wording-and-rounded-corners wants a patent reform? They'd lose half their stuff.

 

Still don't quite know how I feel about NPE's.. I think in most circumstances a patent should be revoked (or made FRAND, at least) if the company filing it hasn't began producing something with it for 3 years (unless good reason is shown) and if they do produce something, if they stop producing it for 5 years, the patent becomes FRAND. I just think that the way patents are run now it's ridiculous. I understand the need for companies to protect the technology they develop but the current state of the Patent Office is ridiculous.. Big companies with vaguely-worded patents that don't really explain the technology (giving them a blanket to sue others later) or ridiculous concepts (aforementioned rounded corners being the immediate one that springs to mind)..

 

Maybe my envisioning of the system is a little too harsh, maybe I don't know as much as I should and need to look into it more.. But all the sueballs flying everywhere is just blah.

Edited February 26, 2015 by Garacesh

[Quackers]

Its not really calling for reform AFTER the NPE beats them, they have been calling for reform for ages.

[Garacesh]

Touché. It's just the way it was written. Still, seems a bit daft that Apple of all companies would want a patent reform, given their abundance of them.

[pcstru]

I think in most circumstances a patent should be revoked (or made FRAND, at least) if the company filing it hasn't began producing something with it for 3 years (unless good reason is shown) and if they do produce something, if they stop producing it for 5 years, the patent becomes FRAND.

 

A patent is one way that little guys can protect and profit from mere ideas. There are a lot of people who do the R&D to develop ideas but who have no intention of actually churning out a product. ARM might be a good example (not of a little guy!) - they don't even make chips.

[Garacesh]

A patent is one way that little guys can protect and profit from mere ideas. There are a lot of people who do the R&D to develop ideas but who have no intention of actually churning out a product.

If they patent something and don't intend to make it themselves, then their parent should be FRAND. I have no objection of the 'little guy' making some holla-holla off his eureka-moment idea, in fact I'm all for it.. What I'm against is patents being held back by NPE's until they can sue somebody, which has an overall effect of holding back the industry.

 

FRAND patents are still licensed at a cost, It just has to be Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (which of course, is always debatable in of itself)

Edited February 26, 2015 by Garacesh

[pcstru]

If they patent something and don't intend to make it themselves, then their parent should be FRAND. I have no objection of the 'little guy' making some holla-holla off his eureka-moment idea, in fact I'm all for it.. What I'm against is patents being held back by NPE's until they can sue somebody, which has an overall effect of holding back the industry.

Companies that hold patents as assets may be very useful to the little guy who can either sell the patent or partner with that company, who will act to protect the patent and any revenue on their behalf. It's unlikely that a little guy on their own can act to protect their property. Joe Bloggs vs Apple - they will just put any dispute out of the (financial) reach of an individual. As for holding back industry - I'm not clear why 'progress' should be put above the rights of an individual to own their intellectual property. Perhaps doing so would retard progress, since there would be no point in individuals generating and acting to protect their ideas - they just wouldn't bother!

[Pottsey]

 

 

Still don't quite know how I feel about NPE's.. I think in most circumstances a patent should be revoked (or made FRAND, at least) if the company filing it hasn't began producing something with it for 3 years (unless good reason is shown) and if they do produce something, if they stop producing it for 5 years, the patent becomes FRAND. I just think that the way patents are run now it's ridiculous. I understand the need for companies to protect the technology they develop but the current state of the Patent Office is ridiculous.. Big companies with vaguely-worded patents that don't really explain the technology (giving them a blanket to sue others later) or ridiculous concepts (aforementioned rounded corners being the immediate one that springs to mind)..

 

Maybe my envisioning of the system is a little too harsh, maybe I don't know as much as I should and need to look into it more.. But all the sueballs flying everywhere is just blah.

 

We have a lot of technology companies in the UK who do nothing but designed IP, patent it and licence it out. Never producing any products themselves.

95%+ of smart phones are made from IP designed in the UK from companies that do not produce products. We have to be careful not to hurt these company's. IP patents are a big part of the UK. Most CPU's and GPU's in the world are designed by UK company's.

[Garacesh]

I still don't understand how FRAND would hurt these people, though. They're still earning a fee for licensing out their material, and the industry as-a-whole progresses much quicker as everyone is able to use the tech, rather than this arbitrary blocking bs that goes on.

If you're using it to produce a product, keep it to yourself, that's cool. If you're not using it to make a product, sell it to everybody.

 

Like I say, maybe I don't know enough about the patent system to be really able to make this kind of remark.