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posted by janrinok on Friday October 04, @04:23PM   Printer-friendly
from the I-forget,-which-side-are-we-on? dept.

https://blog.cloudflare.com/patent-troll-sable-pays-up/

Back in February, we celebrated our victory at trial in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas against patent trolls Sable IP and Sable Networks. This was the culmination of nearly three years of litigation against Sable, but it wasn't the end of the story.

Today we're pleased to announce that the litigation against Sable has finally concluded on terms that we believe send a strong message to patent trolls everywhere — if you bring meritless patent claims against Cloudflare, we will fight back and we will win.

[...] While Sable's technical expert tried his hardest to convince the jury that various software and hardware components of Cloudflare's servers constitute "line cards," his explanations defied credibility. The simple fact is that Cloudflare's servers do not have line cards.

[...] Ultimately, the jury understood, returning a verdict that Cloudflare does not infringe claim 25 of the '919 patent.

In the end, Sable agreed to pay Cloudflare $225,000, grant Cloudflare a royalty-free license to its entire patent portfolio, and to dedicate its patents to the public, ensuring that Sable can never again assert them against another company.

Let's repeat that first part, just to make sure everyone understands:

Sable, the patent troll that sued Cloudflare back in March 2021 asserting around 100 claims across four patents, in the end wound up paying Cloudflare. While this $225,000 can't fully compensate us for the time, energy and frustration of having to deal with this litigation for nearly three years, it does help to even the score a bit. And we hope that it sends an important message to patent trolls everywhere to beware before taking on Cloudflare.


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  • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday October 05, @04:02AM (1 child)

    by Reziac (2489) on Saturday October 05, @04:02AM (#1375803) Homepage

    Except that's not what your link says. Rather, that there's concern that
    https://www.uspto.gov/patents/ptab/trials/inter-partes-review [uspto.gov]
    can become the basis for persistent harassment, as no patent is safe from repeated challenges by people who have no direct interest.

    What they're proposing to limit appears to me to be lawsuits akin to the troll lawsuits common in Los Angeles, where a law shark sues random businesses for not being ADA compliant (whether they are compliant or not; the object is to extract a settlement to make the lawsuit go away).

    They propose limiting challenges to impacted parties, and not allowing double jeopardy.

    While I'd agree the patent system has gone from useful to excessive, letting it devolve into lawsuit soup would not be helpful either, especially to little guys who can't afford to fight off the sharks.

    --
    And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Whoever on Sunday October 06, @02:05PM

    by Whoever (4524) on Sunday October 06, @02:05PM (#1375955) Journal

    I posted an article from the proposers of the changes, who will cast it in the most favorable light and it's still terrible.

    What they're proposing to limit appears to me to be lawsuits akin to the troll lawsuits common in Los Angeles, where a law shark sues random businesses for not being ADA compliant (whether they are compliant or not; the object is to extract a settlement to make the lawsuit go away).

    No, what they are proposing is enabling the troll lawsuits.

    They propose limiting challenges to impacted parties, and not allowing double jeopardy.

    Quite often a patent is challenged and the challenge is not successful, but then more information comes out. Do you think that people should be able to challenge the patent then?

    Did you not see the change in burden of proof? That alone will shut down many patent challenges.

    There are many, many bogus patents and this will make those bogus patents more powerful.

    Some other links:
    https://patentprogress.org/2024/01/the-prevail-act-a-step-backward-for-patent-policy/ [patentprogress.org]
    https://www.rstreet.org/outreach/coalition-letter-opposing-the-prevail-act/ [rstreet.org]
    https://www.techdirt.com/2024/09/19/congress-poised-to-bring-back-unfettered-patent-trolling/ [techdirt.com]

    I guess you must just like paying more for the stuff you buy and transferring more of your wealth to already wealthy people!