Another Patent Troll Slain. You Are Now Free to Rotate Your Smartphone

http://www.rackspace.com/blog/another-patent-troll-slain-you-are-now-free-to-rotate-your-smartphone/

by VanL • 12 years ago

384 41 12 years ago

arbuge• 12 years ago

> We are still fighting some of the trolls that have come after us and we expect to win those cases too. Without changes in the law we believe that the only way to end the plague of patent trolls is by fighting every troll that comes at us – and we encourage all others to do the same.

Needless to say, Rackspace can afford this strategy whereas smaller companies, who have no full-time attorneys on staff and little funds to retain outside counsel, generally cannot. A change in the law is needed to legislate patent trolls out of existence is still needed, basically yesterday.

r00fus• 12 years ago

"Rotatable sued us and immediately asked for $75,000 to go away. We refused. And we fought. It’s Rackspace policy to not pay off patent trolls, even if it costs us more to fight. Eventually Rotatable offered to just walk away – but we refused again. Just as we promised last year, we challenged the patent and the USPTO invalidated it.

This means that Rackspace will not pay one penny to this troll, nor will Apple, Netflix, Electronic Arts, Target, Whole Foods or any of the other companies sued by Rotatable for how they use screen rotation technology in their apps."

It surprises me why there aren't joint defense funding efforts in place to put these industry pests to bed... Clearly Apple, Google and Microsoft would have been next on Rotatable's target list if Rackspace had caved - and like weeding, rooting them out early will prevent infestations.

Is it because the big corps perhaps view the trolls as worth their pain - what function could they serve?

MiguelHudnandez• 12 years ago

Bureaucracy and frivolous lawsuits end up being minor nuisances for large firms, but dangerous to smaller businesses.

golemotron• 12 years ago

It surprises me why there aren't joint defense funding efforts in place to put these industry pests to bed...

Or at least Troll Defense Insurance

bigiain• 12 years ago

Heh - I can see this turning out just like the auto repair insurance rorting industry. I fully expect if Troll Defense Insurance becomes "a thing", the first question a patent lawyer will ask you before indicating a price will be "Insurance job? Or private?"...

marcosdumay• 12 years ago

What? Apple, Google and Microsoft?

Two of those companies are recurrent patent trolls, and the third isn't in a clear-cut situation at all. Why would they create a found to fight trolls?

dragonwriter• 12 years ago

Two of them might be patent aggressors, but none of them have much history as patent trolls (nonpracticing entities).

Shivetya• 12 years ago

going to go with the idea that joint defense funds don't exist because members would probably want their work protected. trying to find sufficient companies who are altruistic might be harder than making sense of the Patent Office

ROFISH• 12 years ago

It surprises me why there aren't joint defense funding efforts in place to put these industry pests to bed...

Wasn't that the original business model of Intellectual Ventures?

dontmindifido• 12 years ago

It's actually in larger companies best interests to pay patent trolls. Like internet fast lanes it creates barriers to entry that effect smaller competitors much more.

ozim• 12 years ago

Nope, they would not attack Apple, Google or Microsoft, same way why you are scamming weak people. Big company would send people who don't have sense of humor once and "Rotatable" would be gone. You attack new or not that big organization which would be "scared". Like "Hey, they are suing us, we better pay before they ruin us, and we just got money". Anyway I see this kind of thing everywhere, most of people also rather to pay ticket or fine, even if they could argue, than go to court because it is more of a hassle.

acdha• 12 years ago

Note the date:

https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/chapter2_105.html

The writing was on the wall in 1993 but it took a couple decades for the courts to realize the mess they'd created and companies to realize that paying ransom doesn't lead to fewer bandits.

josaka• 12 years ago

It surprises me why there aren't joint defense funding efforts in place to put these industry pests to bed... One barrier to collective action is that the courts only give you a limited number of attempts to kill a patent (usually one, but sometimes sort of two). So if you join up with a group, that group's attempt is attributable to you, and your one shot is used up. This effect, called an estoppel, is one reason you don't see more of this.

ps4fanboy• 12 years ago

This has really bought rack space a lot of good will in my mind. Everytime I read an article like this I find myself wanting to do business with them more and more.

woodchuck64• 12 years ago

Could fighting patent trolls be a solid marketing strategy? It could!

acgourley• 12 years ago

And recruiting - it builds mindshare in the people you employee.

yeukhon• 12 years ago

To be fair, from the finance and legal perspective, it is not healthy to pay a troll anything.

luxstyle• 12 years ago

Why do trolls still try to sue Rackspace? They publicly proclaim their anti-troll policy. If 88% of these cases kill the troll when they go through the courts fully, I would stay well away from them if I was a patent troll.

lstamour• 12 years ago

Same with New Egg ... but I guess it's because patent trolls know the patents aren't worth much unless they try to hit every "big" user who can pay up. And even if 88% of cases are won if followed through, I bet 88% of the time they're not followed through, and the payments then keep trolls alive. Reform is still our best option, for software patents.

damoncali• 12 years ago

Don't know. But I'd guess it has something to do with that 12%.

crhulls• 12 years ago

Startups can pool together to fight these guys. My company, Life360 got sued after raising $50m. They thought this meant we had money to write checks from, but instead we decided to use it to fight.

We're basically being sued for allowing you to click a marker on a map initiating a phone call.

This obviously should never have been patented, so we are doing all the legal defense work and sharing it with the startup community.

See www.stopagis.com if you want to see how we really pissed off our troll.

And public shaming also works, the CEO of our troll didn't own his domain, so we bought it and drive traffic to the site whenever people search for his name (Malcolm Beyer www.malcolmbeyer.com). They don't like that we "aren't playing by the rules".

xster• 12 years ago

Wonder if it's possible to sue the patent clerk that admitted the patent application in the first place. Keep the fight even further from the homeland.

adventured• 12 years ago

Gotta suspect that would bring the US Government to the patent clerk's defense and end up being exactly what you don't want to have happen (pissing of the US Govt for no good reason, as they can be incredibly vindictive).

Further likelihood is that a judge would toss that lawsuit almost immediately.

teachingaway2• 12 years ago

>... sue the patent clerk?

No, not really. The patent clerk made a mistake in approving the patent, buy they didn't intentionally grant a bad patent to cause trouble or make money. Its really the patent trolls that are at fault for weaponizing the patent clerk's mistake.

scott_karana• 12 years ago

Wouldn't you have to prove that the patent clerk colluded with the applicant?

I don't think you would appreciate being sued for making a mistake at your job, would you? ;)

notastartup• 12 years ago

It's really mind blowing how thick faced these patent trolls really are, making money off by literally a mafioso like shakedown.

Great job man. And what a great move, buying a name with his domain name. Keep the fight going.

octref• 12 years ago

Hello, I just made a blog post about this for my Networks class. If you are interested, here is the link

http://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2014/09/23/to-slain-or-not...

kissickas• 12 years ago

Not sure if it's intentionally "slain" or if you meant "slay" in most/all of those occurrences.

teachingaway2• 12 years ago

1. Love what Life360 is doing with the shared resources. Anti-patent troll caselaw has been AMAZING the last few months. I'll try to put together a good collection of the recent wins.

Anyone can reach out to me at @teachingaway if you want some law students to pitch in on a patent troll defense case. We don't have a huge capacity, but we can help a few startups with legal defense.

2. I'm getting FOUT on life360.com. Possibly caused by loading typekit fonts with tk.async="true"; ?

darkarmani3• 12 years ago

HN posters can check out their list of patents or even better look up their pending patents and provide prior art to invalidate them before they are granted.

http://www.agisinc.com/Contact/Patents/Patents.html

The latest one seems like it could be invalidated by the "do it on a computer" rulings.

darkarmani3• 12 years ago

I'm sorry, but the US Army has been doing that since the late 90s. http://www.alu.army.mil/alog/issues/MayJun04/alog_revol_log....

They used satellite and VHF for communications. When I left they had very localized PCS phone networks and packet switched networks over radio. I find it very hard to believe there isn't prior art for all of this in the DoD.

dthunt• 12 years ago

I am a strong advocate of the following principle:

Defeat your enemies.

Rackspace deserves some big props, here. More should follow their example.

thaumasiotes2• 12 years ago

    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 plays it is lost!"

Obviously, the sentiment has broad appeal. But in practice it almost always goes the other way -- caravans prefer paying bandits off to fighting them; shops prefer paying protection money to defying the mob; villagers prefer paying taxes to declaring rebellion; and, as called out in the poem, empires prefer paying foreign aid to sending their expensive armies off into the middle of nowhere. Paying the Dane-geld is forever, but even when you do defeat the barbarians it's not like they stay defeated. You just get different barbarians later.

Interestingly, the Roman empire liked to make sure that negotiations with border tribes went its way by waging terrifying scorched-earth campaigns against those border tribes shortly beforehand. It worked. But the negotiated settlements would include subsidies paid annually from Rome to the new barbarian leaders -- Rome liked this system because the subsidies (a) made sure the new leaders were pro-Rome, and (b) really helped stabilize the pro-Rome guy against local challengers.

willchang• 12 years ago

In the same vein, the most bravado-laden thing an American president ever said was Madison announcing his intent to fight the Ottoman states that were sponsoring raids on American ships:

The United States while they wish for war with no nation, will buy peace with none, it being a principle incorporated into the settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, so war is better than tribute.

jmedwards• 12 years ago

Rotatable sued us and immediately asked for $75,000 to go away. We refused. And we fought. It’s Rackspace policy to not pay off patent trolls, even if it costs us more to fight. Eventually Rotatable offered to just walk away – but we refused again. Just as we promised last year, we challenged the patent and the USPTO invalidated it.

This is an excellent strategy and will pay dividends to RackSpace in the long term: what minor patent trolls will touch them now?

tempodox• 12 years ago

Nice going, and a service to the community. Thanks!

shittyanalogy• 12 years ago

This is fun and all but calling the patent troll slain is a bit optimistic. Most likely "Rotatable Technologies" was specifically created to sue companies for this patent so they could simply go out of business if things got too rough. The larger patent troll, I'm sure, considers this loss a normal part of doing business and will continue with other patents. This does not get any better simply because one patent was invalidated.

We need legislative change, not to fight fire with fire. Public perception of these companies being trolls and detrimental to innovation is important but this is not a victory. It is simply not a loss and still an enormous waste of resources. We need patent reform.

MiddleEndian• 12 years ago

Rackspace's post does address this as well:

We are still fighting some of the trolls that have come after us and we expect to win those cases too. Without changes in the law we believe that the only way to end the plague of patent trolls is by fighting every troll that comes at us – and we encourage all others to do the same.

with a link to http://www.rackspace.com/blog/a-sad-day-for-patent-reform-a-...

darkarmani3• 12 years ago

The larger patent troll, I'm sure, considers this loss a normal part of doing business and will continue with other patents. This does not get any better simply because one patent was invalidated.

It definitely gets better as you raise the costs around the "normal part of doing business." The trolls still have the advantage, but the advantage is less.

Another Patent Troll Slain. You Are Now Free to Rotate Your Smartphone

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