Patent trolling is exactly that - protection racket. It's a shame that the judicial / legal system is so broken that it can't apply the existing laws to smash these racketeers for good.
The problem is that the entire legal system is a protection racket. If you don't have deep pockets, you are 100% subject to the whims if whatever kind of troll that comes knocking.
But why should this be surprising when the people who pass the laws are mostly members of the group that gets rich either way.
I don't intend to be mean, but you should really try to avoid seemingly partison statements like that unless you make them less vague, more relevant and add citations. It's not simply that your statement isn't true (you didn't specify enough for it to be one way or another), it's that it amounts to just spouting cynical minutia.
It gives people an excuse not to listen to your point if you tag a bland political statement on to an otherwise substantial point.
The party implied is democratic liberalism, which opposes the perceived nepotism in government due to a saturation of rich individuals and leverage afforded by wealth.
That's not saying I agree or disagree with the view, I'm just neutrally defining it.
I'm not saying he is a member or even ideologically agrees. That's just the position implied in that statement.
>The party implied is democratic liberalism, which opposes the perceived nepotism in government due to a saturation of rich individuals and leverage afforded by wealth.
Is it? "The government is corrupt and incompetent so they should stay out of it" is a basic conservative/libertarian position.
I think a lot more people would agree with conservatives in principle if they weren't so hypocritical and corrupt in practice. You hear the occasional lip service regarding the poor or power imbalances reinforced by government policies, but they never seriously advance policies that would do anything about it, and any time they actually propose or enact anything specific the result is usually the complete opposite of that. Cue the old saw about Republicans believing the government is corrupt and incompetent and proving it every time they're elected.
That party is only implied if you bring a lot of biases to your judgement that I do not share.
Why do I not share it? The same statement, with the same reasoning, could be made about tort reform. And yet now when you look at voting records, Republicans are the ones you'd associate the issue with.
Ah, but you say that the statement as provided implicitly mentions large corporations as a problem? Yet concern about the power of large corporations is not a uniquely Democratic issue. For instance Rand Paul has taken a pretty strong stance on the issue.
d
As a generality, most Americans are happy to say that most politicians are corrupt and reflect the vested interests of those who brought them to power. And this unanimity lasts exactly until you ask them about the politicians that they voted for.
You read way more into that comment than I put. I, in no way, implied (nor even thought) of any party. I'm still trying to understand the worldview that turned my statement into "Liberal democrats are the source of all that is wrong." I can only think of one, and it is so heavily biased against everything not liberal Democrat that I hope I'm wrong.
Is it partisan to point out that pretty much anyone in politics is in a different economic class than 98% of the country? I'm pretty sure he meant that when he said group, not Dem vs Rep.
No, that isn't. But that's also being much more specific and is closer to citing something substantial. You provided numbers, and that's the first step to relevance.
It is racketeering. The only catch here is that the broken legal system made this racket hardly challengeable through courts and allowed such racket to exist to begin with. The fact that the legal system has too many holes doesn't make racket a non racket.
This kind of stuff will go on, all the way down the slippery slope of craziness, until Congress acts and does the only logical thing - ban software/methodology/business process patents in their entirety. Meanwhile the patent trolls will continue to enrich themselves to the tune of billions of dollars. (Around $20B in 2012 by the way - that last comment isn't hyperbole).
Not necessarily. If you amend the way in which patents are granted, tighten the criteria for a grantable patent, and change the ways patents are enforced, you have a chance to reform the system.
What you say could be true, but don't throw the baby out with the bath water until you've tried other ways first.
EDIT: This is also a technology issue. If patent offices had a better understanding of Wi-Fi and practical applications of public internet, a patent wouldn't be granted to Innovatio that would give them a legal position, and this circumstance wouldn't arise.
Keep the patent system, but educate the system on rapid technology advances. It's stale, but amendable.
I personally now believe the patent system deserves to die in its entirety. It is not producing any value, it is not resulting in any innovation, it just strikes fear into the hearts of those of us who would dare attempt to make something meaningful.
I agree with this last part. Pharmaceutical patents for example come to mind. Those are clearly not software/methodology/business process patents though - I don't think recognizing them would be difficult.
I have a different take on pharmaceutical patents: the research costs could largely be covered with NIH grants, and the pharmaceutical companies should only be in the position of producing the drugs that grant-funded research discovers. Why should the public have to pay absurdly high prices for medication because of the special treatment big pharma gets from the government? Let the pharmaceutical companies compete, and we can get our medications at a fraction of the price (and maybe not have to rely on the notoriously abusive health insurance companies just to do what our doctors tell us to do).
While we are at it, let's disband the DEA and stop protecting the pharmaceutical companies' market from drugs we could be growing in our backyards.
> "While we are at it, let's disband the DEA and stop protecting the pharmaceutical companies' market from drugs we could be growing in our backyards."
Drugs != marijuana - the DEA's mandate extends well beyond that of policing pot use. There are plenty of chemical substances of substantial and extreme harm that are currently under the umbrella of the DEA and shouldn't leave it.
It's somewhat funny that this is in the same thread as "a small segment of patents are bad, specifically the patents I deal with personally, so let's dismantle the whole system", since your stance seems to break down to "some drugs are wrongly regulated, specifically the drugs I deal with personally, so let's dismantle the whole system".
Sorry, but I'll have to disagree. The DEA operates in the criminal realm and doesn't care about health (it only cares about itself, really).
The only drug enforcement we need is an FDA that ensures that what is on the label matches what is in the product itself, and that standards are set for guidance in their use.
If you want to worry about dangerous drugs being available on the streets you should start with alcohol and tobacco.
Do you really think that marijuana is the only drug you can grow in your backyard? Do you think it is the only drug that can easily be grown that also has medical uses? The drugs described in the article could be grown and purified at home.
"There are plenty of chemical substances of substantial and extreme harm"
Care to actually name any?
Really, you are approaching drug policy from entirely the wrong angle. The DEA is a paramilitary agency, one that has the power to declare drugs to be illegal without any democratic process at all, and which has the legal authority to seize property and then use the proceeds from the sale of that property in its own budget. Thousands of innocent people have been killed by DEA assaults on civilian homes, for being in the wrong place at the wrong time or just because of bad information from informants. Health and safety are, in practice, completely irrelevant to the DEA.
That the DEA works for the benefit of the pharmaceutical industry is not in question anymore. The Obama administration released emails related to the healthcare bill that paint a clear quid-pro-quo picture: stronger DEA action against illegal drug imports and medical marijuana programs in exchange for pharmaceutical lobbyists supporting the bill.
"some drugs are wrongly regulated"
Almost all useful drugs are wrongly regulated. There is no recognition of the reality that recreational drugs will be used regardless of the law. This has not only led to a steady source of income for criminals, but also to terrible tragedies in the past. In the 1980s, several people who wanted to use heroine developed Parkinson's disease after a drug dealer attempted to sell a legal alternative, MPPP, but so accidentally produced poisonous MPTP, a Parkinson's-inducing agent (ironically, MPPP is now illegal; MPTP is not illegal, despite being one of the most dangerous substances a person can ingest). Recreational drug users have no way to know what dose or purity they are buying, nor even if they are actually buying the drug they expect, with only two exceptions: alcohol and tobacco.
So when a drug user goes to the doctor, what can they say? "I have been ingesting a white powder some criminal sold me. I think it is cocaine." That does not promote public health by any stretch of the imagination; by contrast, an tobacco user can tell their doctor about their habit in a way that is useful: "I smoke a pack of cigarettes each week," or perhaps, "I smoke a cigar once every 4-5 months." When some guy is found nude in the woods after having used something labeled "bath salts," we really have no way to know what happened -- did he overdose on MDPV, or was it just a lot of caffeine, or perhaps some drug that we have never seen before?
"let's dismantle the whole system"
You make it sound as though the system established by the controlled substances act has some merit or utility. In reality, it is a system without any constructive purpose at all, which serves only to inflate the profits of certain well-connected corporations, to serve the interests of police and prison guard unions, and to give the government a way to continue to oppress certain minorities despite clear laws protecting people from such oppression. The controlled substances act also gives the executive branch tremendous power, allowing the creation of new prohibition law without an act of congress; this power was recently used to ban several synthetic cannibinoids and MDPV. The executive branch can also overrule the DHHS and FDA recommendations on drug scheduling, having famously done so for MDMA.
So unless you can point to something useful the DEA and the controlled substances act have accomplished, I see no reason to assume that disbanding a combination law enforcement agency, intelligence agency, and paramilitary force would be a bad thing. Repeal the CSA and replace it with sensible regulations on drugs and constructive policies that promote human health, and you'll have pushed society forward.
Patents are supposed to be an exchange. "You tell us how your invention works so other people can take advantage, and in return we'll give you the ability to make money from people using it for a while."
I don't think it's software versus non-software, but really just a matter of how high the bar is set to actually obtain a patent. If you can obtain a patent for any random thing a competent person could come up with in an hour, then there's no utility to be had in making the invention public.
When patents work well (and I'm sure they do in many cases), people will want to search for patents that cover what they're trying to do, because if they find anything good, it'll save them a lot of effort to license the patent rather than invent things from scratch.
Imagine having a really hard software problem, and searching the patent database for something that could help. In an ideal world, you might run across something useful, contact the patent holder, and work out a licensing arrangement. In our world, you're unlikely to find anything good, and if you do, the holder is unlikely to be willing to license it to you fairly. Meanwhile, there's a good chance of coming across a stupid patent that applies to what you're doing, that doesn't tell you anything you couldn't come up with on your own, but that you now would owe triple damages for if you used it, because it's willful infringement now that you know about the patent.
In short, the patent system can be useful, but the system must ensure that patents are only awarded for inventions that deserve it. If you can somehow pull that off, I think the whole question of whether it should be possible to patent software would more or less go away.
I think that reforming the system would be harder, more precarious, and not worth the bother. It would be a lot of fuss and hard to interest reformers in, while easily arousing lobbying pushback from trolls. There would be continual pressure to compromise the purity of a well tuned working system into something that still has room for the trolls to continue their trolling. And when the spotlight was off it, it would start to slip back towards the way it was, with extension bills being nodded through.
Honestly it'd be both simpler to rouse interest for, and simpler to argue for, a total repeal. The squawking would be louder, but the final result would throw the ball back into the troll's court - to sneakily extend something is a lot easier than to re-implement it when it has been scrapped entirely.
Can anyone offer advice on the best response from a small business that is sent a letter from a troll like this? Particularly since in this case it sounds like the patents themselves are valid, but have been licensed by the tech provider - how should end users protect themselves?
I realize there are plenty of rants against these practices available to read in many forums, but given the progression of this case, what options are available to the defendants?
You should probably consult a lawyer who deals with defense against such patent racket. But one practical approach could be to pool resources with others who were threatened by them. Most racket victims don't have enough resources to fight on their own, but if they unite - it can be easier to fight back. Trolls usually threaten many parties, so you should research who else is affected and contact them to build your common course of action.
Validity of patents requires research, even if you think they are "valid" it doesn't mean they are really valid. If prior art exists - the patent can be busted. But research requires time and resources, and that's where pooling can help if you have many interested parties united.
Ignore it. They send thousands of letters for the same reasons e-mail spammers do, they anticipate a huge percentage of people to ignore them, lose the letter, have no money, etc. Be a part of that group.
This doesn't help the societal problem, but unless you're a well known company and/or have very deep pockets, your best bet is to just ignore the letters.
That really depends on what kind of letter you get. If you ignore an actual lawsuit, you may find a judge ruling in default against you, which is what the article mentions at the bottom.
> A few days after Holderman's order came out, Innovatio lawyers filed a lengthy series of notices regarding the dozens of hotels it is preparing to ask for a "default judgment" against, which suggests those hotels haven't yet defended themselves against the infringement allegations. Now there's a hearing approaching next week, on February 21, and Innovatio has put the hotels on notice that it intends to ask for judgments against them of $5,000 each.
The manufacturers were the ones who brought up the RICO case. They lost in court. The judge effectively ruled that users are liable for patent infringement.
As I understand it, the implication of the judge's ruling is simply that the users must defend the individual suits on the merits of the patent claim itself. There are still many defences available to the users, and the manufacturers have an interest in assisting the users in mounting those defences.
Agreed. Crazy judge. Imagine you buy a new laptop and then get served by a dozen patent trolls requiring your presence in courts in a dozen different states.
You would contact your Wifi product manufacturer about the lawsuit threat. If you are sued by the troll, you would then implead said manufacturer as a co-defendant or third-party defendant to the lawsuit.
I'm reminded of this awesome scene in the novel Daemon. The Daemon recognizes spammers as a threat to its existence. It hires, via proxies, criminals and mob members to assassinate identified spammers all within the span of a few hours. Global spam drops to almost nothing within a few days.
Many manufacturers claim to have licensed the relevant patents from Broadcom, in which case their customers are not infringing by "exhaustion". Presumably there are some manufacturers that didn't license, so parties who purchased equipment from those would not have that defense. Does the troll in this case have any reason to think that the hotels it's targeting have unlicensed and thus infringing equipment? Or is this just an RIAA-style dragnet, in which you're guilty until you prove all your equipment is licensed? Is there really no means by which courts can rein in this type of abuse?
Very good point but how does one determine if the manufacturer of one's wifi equipment has licensed the relevant patents? I assume you can ask them after you get sued.
This sort of stuff makes me feel approximately pure despair. I'm no lawyer, but I would think that the prevalence of patent trolls would be enough of an indicator to a judge to shut this sort of thing down hard.
They've got to work within the law, and the law hasn't caught up yet. I'm sure this sort of thing will be sorted out eventually, but in the meantime a lot of small businesses will still get hurt or destroyed.
In my country, if I remember correctly, you need to pay 5% up front to court for the money you want. Meaning If I want to sue McDonalds for 1 mil, I have to pay 5k. This keeps away nonsense cases.
If I lose, court keeps money. If I win, I can add this sum to the total amount.
What if the person is very poor and doesn't have 50k to put up for a lawsuit? Should no plaintiff ever be able to sue someone for more than 5% of the plaintiff's total net worth?
The real issue is that since corporations don't have the same responsibilities as real people, they shouldn't have the same rights.
I'm thinking the loan could be from the lawyer themselves and built into their standard payment contract (similar to that "pay nothing if we don't win!" deal perhaps), but yes, it isn't a perfect system.
Then he can't ask for 50 mil. If you are poor(as living on the streets), chances are you are not going to court anyway.
I doubt that person can go against big corporation without money(good lawyers cost). And when one can afford good lawyer who has real chance of winning, then the person usually has also money for paying.
This is only when there is claim or civil suit. You can still go to police if there has been a crime of some sort. Also you can always file complaint to government.
So no, this is not so unequal as it sounds.
In case, one is sure of its winning, he or she can always take loan from the bank. It just keeps nonsense cases away.
This is a disgusting abuse of the legal system and current patent laws. It puts innovation in jeopardy by way of stagnation - small businesses won't offer WiFi as much if they know they can be sued by a company that has no practical connection to the technology. And if it isn't used as much by as many entities, how will it improve?
I think it's a joke that Innovatio bluffed not attacking home Wi-Fi as if it's an intentional "strategic position" like that. As if a single obscure company with flimsy title deeds on technology could really take away something so integrated from the public. They would have a reaction akin to SOPA.
Patent troll insurance skirts the line of being just as bad as patent trolls themselves: "Pay us some money and maybe you won't get hit by patent trolls." It's a great idea, but when I look at it closer, it looks pretty similar to trolling: "Pay us a little bit of money and we'll go away." It's not quite that bad, because it adds on "...and we'll make other people go away," but it's still interestingly close.
One additional thought: anyone who buys patent troll insurance instantly becomes a highly-cooperative target. Why fight it? Why ignore it? Just send the contact info for your insurance company, and let them pay it.
As an interesting thought experiment, I wonder how lawyers would feel if legal "processes" could be patented and the practice of law itself was subject to claims of infringement? Particularly if relatively basic uses of basic legal principles were being patented and individual lawyers, rather than their firms, could be held liable.
Because that's the sort of nonsense being inflicted upon computer scientists.
How is it that the end consumers are being hit with a lawsuit that resulted from their equipment manufacture not being properly licensed? Is it my responsibility to vet that every piece of consumer electronics was properly licensed for the technologies that they use?
Technically, yes. Simply using an infringing technology without permission qualifies as patent infringement. You'd probably have an excellent case to sue the manufacturer for damages if this happened, but you aren't automatically shielded just because you're the end user.
Does anyone know the identification numbers of the patents that Innovatio IP are using, or even the specific claims that are being used? I'm interested to compare with some prior art that I am aware of.
The real problem with patent trolls is that this entire spectacle is completely out of the public's eye. Outside of business/startup circles, the concept of a patent troll is completely foreign. It would be amazing if Vice or someone of the like did a documentary on this modern day mafia to educate the public on this new form of crime.
Once the public is actually conscious that this issue exists, congress would be pressured to act in order to keep their voters happy.
62 comments
[ 5.8 ms ] story [ 132 ms ] threadGreedy, despicable and morally bankrupt, yes.
But why should this be surprising when the people who pass the laws are mostly members of the group that gets rich either way.
I don't intend to be mean, but you should really try to avoid seemingly partison statements like that unless you make them less vague, more relevant and add citations. It's not simply that your statement isn't true (you didn't specify enough for it to be one way or another), it's that it amounts to just spouting cynical minutia.
It gives people an excuse not to listen to your point if you tag a bland political statement on to an otherwise substantial point.
That's not saying I agree or disagree with the view, I'm just neutrally defining it.
I'm not saying he is a member or even ideologically agrees. That's just the position implied in that statement.
Is it? "The government is corrupt and incompetent so they should stay out of it" is a basic conservative/libertarian position.
I think a lot more people would agree with conservatives in principle if they weren't so hypocritical and corrupt in practice. You hear the occasional lip service regarding the poor or power imbalances reinforced by government policies, but they never seriously advance policies that would do anything about it, and any time they actually propose or enact anything specific the result is usually the complete opposite of that. Cue the old saw about Republicans believing the government is corrupt and incompetent and proving it every time they're elected.
Why do I not share it? The same statement, with the same reasoning, could be made about tort reform. And yet now when you look at voting records, Republicans are the ones you'd associate the issue with.
Ah, but you say that the statement as provided implicitly mentions large corporations as a problem? Yet concern about the power of large corporations is not a uniquely Democratic issue. For instance Rand Paul has taken a pretty strong stance on the issue. d As a generality, most Americans are happy to say that most politicians are corrupt and reflect the vested interests of those who brought them to power. And this unanimity lasts exactly until you ask them about the politicians that they voted for.
What you say could be true, but don't throw the baby out with the bath water until you've tried other ways first.
EDIT: This is also a technology issue. If patent offices had a better understanding of Wi-Fi and practical applications of public internet, a patent wouldn't be granted to Innovatio that would give them a legal position, and this circumstance wouldn't arise.
Keep the patent system, but educate the system on rapid technology advances. It's stale, but amendable.
Software patents != all patents
There are fields where R&D costs are astronomical, and patents are a barrier that allows this enormous amount of money to be spent.
Keep in mind that software patents are only a tiny slice of the whole patent pie.
While we are at it, let's disband the DEA and stop protecting the pharmaceutical companies' market from drugs we could be growing in our backyards.
Drugs != marijuana - the DEA's mandate extends well beyond that of policing pot use. There are plenty of chemical substances of substantial and extreme harm that are currently under the umbrella of the DEA and shouldn't leave it.
It's somewhat funny that this is in the same thread as "a small segment of patents are bad, specifically the patents I deal with personally, so let's dismantle the whole system", since your stance seems to break down to "some drugs are wrongly regulated, specifically the drugs I deal with personally, so let's dismantle the whole system".
The only drug enforcement we need is an FDA that ensures that what is on the label matches what is in the product itself, and that standards are set for guidance in their use.
If you want to worry about dangerous drugs being available on the streets you should start with alcohol and tobacco.
"There are plenty of chemical substances of substantial and extreme harm"
Care to actually name any?
Really, you are approaching drug policy from entirely the wrong angle. The DEA is a paramilitary agency, one that has the power to declare drugs to be illegal without any democratic process at all, and which has the legal authority to seize property and then use the proceeds from the sale of that property in its own budget. Thousands of innocent people have been killed by DEA assaults on civilian homes, for being in the wrong place at the wrong time or just because of bad information from informants. Health and safety are, in practice, completely irrelevant to the DEA.
That the DEA works for the benefit of the pharmaceutical industry is not in question anymore. The Obama administration released emails related to the healthcare bill that paint a clear quid-pro-quo picture: stronger DEA action against illegal drug imports and medical marijuana programs in exchange for pharmaceutical lobbyists supporting the bill.
"some drugs are wrongly regulated"
Almost all useful drugs are wrongly regulated. There is no recognition of the reality that recreational drugs will be used regardless of the law. This has not only led to a steady source of income for criminals, but also to terrible tragedies in the past. In the 1980s, several people who wanted to use heroine developed Parkinson's disease after a drug dealer attempted to sell a legal alternative, MPPP, but so accidentally produced poisonous MPTP, a Parkinson's-inducing agent (ironically, MPPP is now illegal; MPTP is not illegal, despite being one of the most dangerous substances a person can ingest). Recreational drug users have no way to know what dose or purity they are buying, nor even if they are actually buying the drug they expect, with only two exceptions: alcohol and tobacco.
So when a drug user goes to the doctor, what can they say? "I have been ingesting a white powder some criminal sold me. I think it is cocaine." That does not promote public health by any stretch of the imagination; by contrast, an tobacco user can tell their doctor about their habit in a way that is useful: "I smoke a pack of cigarettes each week," or perhaps, "I smoke a cigar once every 4-5 months." When some guy is found nude in the woods after having used something labeled "bath salts," we really have no way to know what happened -- did he overdose on MDPV, or was it just a lot of caffeine, or perhaps some drug that we have never seen before?
"let's dismantle the whole system"
You make it sound as though the system established by the controlled substances act has some merit or utility. In reality, it is a system without any constructive purpose at all, which serves only to inflate the profits of certain well-connected corporations, to serve the interests of police and prison guard unions, and to give the government a way to continue to oppress certain minorities despite clear laws protecting people from such oppression. The controlled substances act also gives the executive branch tremendous power, allowing the creation of new prohibition law without an act of congress; this power was recently used to ban several synthetic cannibinoids and MDPV. The executive branch can also overrule the DHHS and FDA recommendations on drug scheduling, having famously done so for MDMA.
So unless you can point to something useful the DEA and the controlled substances act have accomplished, I see no reason to assume that disbanding a combination law enforcement agency, intelligence agency, and paramilitary force would be a bad thing. Repeal the CSA and replace it with sensible regulations on drugs and constructive policies that promote human health, and you'll have pushed society forward.
http://www2.piratpartiet.se/an_alternative_to_pharmaceutical...
I don't think it's software versus non-software, but really just a matter of how high the bar is set to actually obtain a patent. If you can obtain a patent for any random thing a competent person could come up with in an hour, then there's no utility to be had in making the invention public.
When patents work well (and I'm sure they do in many cases), people will want to search for patents that cover what they're trying to do, because if they find anything good, it'll save them a lot of effort to license the patent rather than invent things from scratch.
Imagine having a really hard software problem, and searching the patent database for something that could help. In an ideal world, you might run across something useful, contact the patent holder, and work out a licensing arrangement. In our world, you're unlikely to find anything good, and if you do, the holder is unlikely to be willing to license it to you fairly. Meanwhile, there's a good chance of coming across a stupid patent that applies to what you're doing, that doesn't tell you anything you couldn't come up with on your own, but that you now would owe triple damages for if you used it, because it's willful infringement now that you know about the patent.
In short, the patent system can be useful, but the system must ensure that patents are only awarded for inventions that deserve it. If you can somehow pull that off, I think the whole question of whether it should be possible to patent software would more or less go away.
Honestly it'd be both simpler to rouse interest for, and simpler to argue for, a total repeal. The squawking would be louder, but the final result would throw the ball back into the troll's court - to sneakily extend something is a lot easier than to re-implement it when it has been scrapped entirely.
I realize there are plenty of rants against these practices available to read in many forums, but given the progression of this case, what options are available to the defendants?
Validity of patents requires research, even if you think they are "valid" it doesn't mean they are really valid. If prior art exists - the patent can be busted. But research requires time and resources, and that's where pooling can help if you have many interested parties united.
This doesn't help the societal problem, but unless you're a well known company and/or have very deep pockets, your best bet is to just ignore the letters.
> A few days after Holderman's order came out, Innovatio lawyers filed a lengthy series of notices regarding the dozens of hotels it is preparing to ask for a "default judgment" against, which suggests those hotels haven't yet defended themselves against the infringement allegations. Now there's a hearing approaching next week, on February 21, and Innovatio has put the hotels on notice that it intends to ask for judgments against them of $5,000 each.
This keeps cases real and amounts realistic.
The real issue is that since corporations don't have the same responsibilities as real people, they shouldn't have the same rights.
But it also means, I wont probably get sued for opening a door to a woman.
I doubt that person can go against big corporation without money(good lawyers cost). And when one can afford good lawyer who has real chance of winning, then the person usually has also money for paying.
This is only when there is claim or civil suit. You can still go to police if there has been a crime of some sort. Also you can always file complaint to government. So no, this is not so unequal as it sounds.
In case, one is sure of its winning, he or she can always take loan from the bank. It just keeps nonsense cases away.
This is a disgusting abuse of the legal system and current patent laws. It puts innovation in jeopardy by way of stagnation - small businesses won't offer WiFi as much if they know they can be sued by a company that has no practical connection to the technology. And if it isn't used as much by as many entities, how will it improve?
I think it's a joke that Innovatio bluffed not attacking home Wi-Fi as if it's an intentional "strategic position" like that. As if a single obscure company with flimsy title deeds on technology could really take away something so integrated from the public. They would have a reaction akin to SOPA.
Because that's the sort of nonsense being inflicted upon computer scientists.
Source: http://morrisjames.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/cisco-systems...
Once the public is actually conscious that this issue exists, congress would be pressured to act in order to keep their voters happy.