by barrynolan on 3/13/12, 11:38 AM with 230 comments
by viggity on 3/13/12, 12:05 PM
Don't hate the player, hate the game.
We need real, substantive patent reform in this country.
by markokocic on 3/13/12, 1:38 PM
Why would it be ok for Yahoo and other big companies to use patents "only" to threaten small shops and keep the status quo?
Let them fight between eachother, let Yahoo sue Facebook sue Gooogle sue Microsoft sue Apple sue HTC sue Samsung sue Sony sue Oracle sue ... let everyone sue everyone else. Let the total war on patents begin. Let the big players burn a ton of money on pointless legal battles. And then, and only then, they might push for a patent reform which will level playing field for all players, including new ones.
by bambax on 3/13/12, 12:14 PM
That's the strangest part. I never found Yahoo useful for anything (except Douglas Crockford, but he could have been employed anywhere).
by monochromatic on 3/13/12, 3:22 PM
> None of them represent unique and new ideas at the time of the filing. I supect they all can be thrown out over prior art if Facebook takes the time and effort to do that.
Also, even the article that he links to just quotes the damn abstracts of the patents, as if that has anything to do with what they cover.
Honestly people, I know you like to rail against software patents and the patent system in general... but educate yourselves first, or you just come off looking ignorant to anyone who knows the first thing about patents.
by cs702 on 3/13/12, 12:27 PM
by PaulHoule on 3/13/12, 12:57 PM
Patents are a game that's a lot like Poker.
I couldn't blame any startup for accumulating a patent portfolio because that's something of economic value -- it could help an acquisition because a larger company would like to put together a broad portfolio.
So long as you can get value out of it that way, it's all roses. Once you get to a lawsuit, it's ugly, largely because the result is unpredictable -- if people settle out of court you get the desired result, but if your opponent can fight you to the end, you're very likely to end up with invalidated patents. That, of course, is why companies like this broad portfolios -- if there are ten patents involved, it's much more likely something will stick.
by tzaman on 3/13/12, 11:46 AM
by zyb09 on 3/13/12, 1:24 PM
by bergie on 3/13/12, 1:43 PM
So: suggestions for a social photo archive service which is reliable enough to be the "master copy" of my pictures, and preferably has Flickr import ability?
by joering2 on 3/13/12, 1:29 PM
Further, whether patent system needs "reform in this country" is relevant to the fact that one part believes other part infringe. If Yahoo!, Facebook or anyone else feels someone infringe and ended up saying "oh they system is broken lets wait until its fixed", then they may as well wait another 75 years.
I say good things can come up from this, especially if Yahoo! loses. Facebook is claiming that what they are being sued over was "nothing new" at that time. Cool! Have them win. Next time someone build highly successful social website with human connections done based on request/approve/reject, and Facebook will try to shut them down based on infringe of one of their hundreds of patents, you can say: "oh, none of this was new at the time of Facebook: MySpace, Fridndster, etc. Here, I am using Facebook own rules - they win, I need to win too".
by lrobb on 3/13/12, 1:45 PM
Wait... Is he still talking about the facebook lawsuit?
by pagehub on 3/13/12, 12:02 PM
by michaelw on 3/13/12, 12:30 PM
The article links to the description of the patents http://paidcontent.org/article/419-meet-the-10-patents-yahoo... and tries to summarize each one in "plain English."
> Control for enabling a user to preview display of selected > content based on another user’s authorization level (Filed > 2005, Issued 2009) > In plain English: Share an item only with selected friends
This is actually about a preview of what a given user (friend) would see.
The reason software patents suck so hard is because for every 10,000 totally bogus patents there's one that when you read it makes you think, wow, that really is an invention.
by ypcx on 3/13/12, 3:29 PM
by mrgreenfur on 3/13/12, 2:12 PM
by barrynolan on 3/13/12, 11:58 AM
by Teef on 3/13/12, 2:08 PM
by Hoff on 3/13/12, 2:52 PM
Yahoo! could be aiming to be acquired by Facebook or Google.
Assuming the patents involved are tenable, this looks rather like a viable reverse-acquisition strategy.
by shapeshed on 3/13/12, 6:18 PM
by polshaw on 3/13/12, 2:43 PM
by joshuahedlund on 3/13/12, 6:53 PM
http://www.m-cam.com/patently-obvious/intellectual-property-...
by laconian on 3/13/12, 5:31 PM
by jpdoctor on 3/13/12, 2:55 PM
Probably the reason for this post in fact.
by JVIDEL on 3/13/12, 12:41 PM
Is not that crazy to assume this may actually be a last-resort strategy to sell Yahoo once and for all. Most agree Yang dropped the ball when he refused MSFT's offer.
by pedalpete on 3/13/12, 4:47 PM
If everyone really just uses patents for the threat of a possible lawsuit, is it still worth having them, even if you hope to never use one?
by eroach on 3/13/12, 4:16 PM
by larrys on 3/13/12, 6:09 PM
"They are dead to me. Dead and gone. I hate them now"
to:
"Yahoo Crosses The Line"
Curious about the reason this was done.
by law on 3/13/12, 6:38 PM
Notwithstanding the foreseeability of patent warfare, I remain despondent toward "unwritten rules" in American law. Yes, they exist; it's no surprise that defendants in criminal cases who assert their 6th Amendment rights to a speedy trial that they subsequently lose will suffer a heightened penalty. The seminal case on this subject, Bordenkircher v. Hayes, specifically endorses threats of stiffer sentences to entice criminal defendants to waive their right to trial and plead guilty to a lesser offense. One can model this as a game of imperfect information, with society reaping the rewards.
So the author's reliance on this de facto "rule not to litigate" is flawed. The real problem arises when companies exclude others from practicing a technology in which that company's property interest is a mere subterfuge. Rarely do companies practice the technologies for which they've secured patent protection, and that brings me to my last Thomas Jefferson quote:
A man has a right to use a saw, an axe,
a plane, separately; may he not combine
their uses on the same piece of wood?
He has a right to use his knife to cut
his meat, a fork to hold it; may a
patentee take from him the right to
combine their use on the same subject?
Such a law, instead of enlarging our
conveniences, as was intended, would
most fearfully abridge them, and crowd
us by monopolies out of the use of the
things we have.
So in my view, the solution isn't at the corporate level; it's at the national level. As such, patent reform should be a national issue addressed by politicians. Patent term length [c|sh]ould be proportional to the research expenses actually incurred. Alternatively, we might want want a "patent abandonment doctrine" that moves to public domain those patents whose rights haven't been enforced (almost like in trademark law). Even still, we might want to wholly abandon the right to transfer or sell patents (and for that matter, all intellectual property) entirely. I haven't researched the ramifications of these potential solutions, so they're offered merely as points for discussion.
by rdl on 3/13/12, 3:06 PM
by huhtenberg on 3/13/12, 3:41 PM
by Rawgawd on 3/13/12, 5:10 PM
by iamgopal on 3/13/12, 2:56 PM
by badclient on 3/13/12, 2:12 PM
by nileshtrivedi on 3/13/12, 3:45 PM
by marizmelo on 3/13/12, 8:19 PM
by CPlatypus on 3/13/12, 12:12 PM
If you want to oppose software patents - and you should - then be consistent about it. Either forego them entirely, or require via contract that they be used only defensively. The latter is the approach taken by my employer, BTW, who also spends more money than anyone else fighting software patents. As schizophrenic as that strategy might seem, I believe it's the right one for the crazy world we live in.
by smeg on 3/13/12, 11:42 AM
by shareme on 3/13/12, 1:17 PM
And where was Fred when MS started its shit?
Oh effing come one now, lets have a honest conversation Fred instead of some lame miss-direction..
by Porter_423 on 3/13/12, 1:53 PM
by justmyopinion on 3/13/12, 3:26 PM