Patent troll Macrosolve has lost its battle to enforce a patent on web forms. An Ars Technica story explains that MacroSolve is a company that got a lot of (generally negative) attention when it turned full-blown "patent troll" in 2011, suing dozens of companies (including small app development shops) over patent No.7,822,816, which it claims covers using questionnaires on a mobile app. From the article:
Now, a coalition of defendants led by Newegg and Geico Insurance has stopped MacroSolve in its tracks. MacroSolve has dismissed all remaining cases, and it has admitted that it can't proceed to go forward with a trial that was scheduled to take place this June in East Texas.
MacroSolve was able to "extort over $4M from over 60 defendants," Newegg Chief Legal Officer Lee Cheng wrote in a victory e-mail to his coalition. Last year, Newegg began to organize the final group of MacroSolve defendants, urging them to band together and stop paying MacroSolve, which was generally demanding between $50,000 to $100,000 to settle a lawsuit. (Those demands are on the low side for patent troll settlements; five-figure settlements are considered to be in the "nuisance" range.) In addition, Geico Insurance filed an ex parte reexam against the MacroSolve patent. That move paid off, and all claims were rejected on March 7. A couple of weeks later, MacroSolve started dismissing defendants.
"MacroSolve is now trading at a smidge above $0.01 per share," noted Cheng in his e-mail to allies, which he shared with Ars. "Why those asshats continue to trade at ANY value, I do not know. The world would be a better place without them and their advantage-taking ways. Please continue to support efforts to bring symmetry to patent law, legislatively, administratively, in the courts, and in the court of public opinion."
Cheng's "stop feeding the trolls" pitch didn't meet with 100 percent success, but it worked well enough. Macrosolve financial filings and court documents show that most of the companies in the final batch of targets did not settle. The holdouts included Chipotle, Kayak, HBO, Meetup.com, Mediafire, Carlson Hotels, and Five Guys Burgers.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by aristarchus on Saturday April 05 2014, @07:22AM
Or is that "please take my pole?" or "take my wife, please!" (Jack Benny points, whoo hoo!!).
(Score: 2, Informative) by gishzida on Saturday April 05 2014, @01:23PM
Um... Actually that was Henny Youngman's [wikipedia.org] favorite punchlines...
It's a kind of Yiddish humor that gives such things as:
Q. Why do Jewish Husbands always die before their wives?
A. Because they *want* to.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by aristarchus on Saturday April 05 2014, @07:27AM
PEOPLE!!!! So, a bit of competition here on the arse end of the world when everyone is is asleep in in an alcohol induced stupor!!! Where are our Auzzie members? Malays, present! Nihon-jin kakimashite!
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by aristarchus on Saturday April 05 2014, @07:30AM
you made me double post. This is really embarrassing, even more so since this acknowledgement of the double post is in fact a triple post, and I AM JUst taLKING to MYSelf!! (At least the conversation is intellectual and stimulating._)
(Score: 2) by elf on Saturday April 05 2014, @07:48AM
I'm glad they lost and I hope they go out of business. Sounds harsh but the type of business they run has nothing to do with protecting innovation. What I find most surprising about this article is how long the patent was and how many words they used to describe each step. The patent is essentially a questionnaire (nothing special) that works on a mobile device (nothing special) that can save its state if the connection goes down and comes up (again nothing special).
My personal opinion on this whole patent troll debacle is the patent organisation in the US is kind of the cause of most of the problems. If they actually did a tiny bit of research upfront and rejected all the patents that they eventually reject on re examination then these patent trolls wouldn't have patents in the first place.
I reckon a short term fix to the problem (software patents) could be to
1) You can only protect your "innovation" if you / company you work for have a product that implements it or will do in a fixed period of time after you file, if you don't then your patent auto invalidates). Your code is then what forms the basis of how you implemented it and how you can then compare alternative versions to. The amount of money you make on your product limits the level to which you can sue for. If you sell 5 applications a year for 10 years and then someone else brings a product out which sells millions you can only sue at the level you sold for (this could be quite a contentious point, hard to quantify and interpretable in lots of different ways but I think there could be a way here to scale things)
2) You can't sell patents. But you can register a patent to a company but 1) applies to either.
I am not a fan of patents so i'd prefer they go away completely. But if they were to stay then I'd like the above rules
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Open4D on Saturday April 05 2014, @11:10AM
Doesn't sound harsh to me. I too am glad.
But the real software patent abusers are Microsoft, Apple, etc.. (I think Google have in the past been okay on this issue, but the system is forcing them to become patent hoarders as well - just to stay in business. So it may only be a matter of time until some new manager joins Google, casts his greedy eye on their now-impressive software patent portfolio, and turns the company into just another software patent abuser.)
Sadly I don't think New Egg will be able to take them down.
Everybody please join the FFII [ffii.org], EFF [eff.org], End Software Patents [endsoftpatents.org], etc.. Let's end this madness!
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Saturday April 05 2014, @09:54PM
That's just it, in this particularly case, they didn't lose, they ran out of money to continue fighting [which is what patent trolls actually threaten to do (or do) to small companies that fight them in court].
This also happens to the 'regular' small inventor, who gets a patent on something, and then some big company decides that they want to use it. He has no way to get them to pay him anything because they both know he will be bankrupt probably before the lawsuit gets to the trial phase.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 05 2014, @08:48AM
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(Score: 5, Interesting) by Open4D on Saturday April 05 2014, @10:53AM
I would want to look on New Egg favourably after this. It looks like they have a similar range of product categories to Amazon, except without the most well-known areas: books, music, movies.
But it looks like they only operate in USA, Canada and China:
Anyway, maybe they should become one of Soylent News's selected advertisers/sponsors? (Personally I would pay to not see adverts, but I know I'm in the minority.)
(Score: 3, Informative) by Blackmoore on Saturday April 05 2014, @01:21PM
I use Newegg for computer hardware- when i do scratch builds. in the years I've used them i've had 1 DOA motherboard, and the RMA went acceptably fast. They focus on electronics, and I'll keep supporting them.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday April 05 2014, @09:30PM
With Newegg, remember to mark your DOA products, with indelible markers, on the back side of the board before returning it.
I've received more than one product from them, (video cards and Mother boards) that were clearly rejected by other users, and simply restocked by the store, on the assumption that the user was an incompetent idiot.
None of these are going to be repaired anyway, nobody does any board level repairs anymore.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by spxero on Saturday April 05 2014, @01:22PM
I would not be opposed to newegg advertisements. In this sense I think it would follow similar to what a Penny Arcade does, in that they don't put any ads on their site of something that they don't personally endorse.
Newegg has been great to me in both price and customer service, and if it helps SN stay alive I'm all for seeing those ads. Maybe we should have a poll about showing ads on the site and get some feedback.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Saturday April 05 2014, @06:35PM
They would be a good choice for it if done right. Newegg has, so far, had a strong stance on fighting patent trolls even if it's cheaper to settle, and I already tend to look there first if I need something partly as support for that, and partly because they tend to have good price+service.
However, I only think to visit their site when I know I need something, and I'm probably not the only one. If the adverts are used to highlight special deals (similar to their neweggflash.com site) it might bring them more impulse purchases.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 06 2014, @03:32AM
I used to use them almost exclusively. After a few difficult returns, and getting socked with a $450 restocking fee on an unopened $3000 switch ("never order n+1 from Newegg!"), I moved most of my business to Amazon.
But ... I do admire what they've done here, so I will look and see if their policies have changed.
(Score: 1) by shortscreen on Saturday April 05 2014, @01:15PM
1) No software patents. Software is already protected by copyright. Patenting software is the equivalent of patenting vampire romance novels and then suing everyone else who writes a vampire romance novel.
2) Patent applicants should be required to document and submit their R&D expenses associated with their invention. This way, legitimate advances that result from a serious investment in R&D can more readily be distinguished from obvious, dime-a-dozen ideas like "_____ on a mobile device."