http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack

Patent trolling. We're all familiar with it in some way. Every now and then we read an article where some super obscure tech company sues or threatens to sue tons of other companies for infringing on patents they own. Or more relevant to this community, we've seen Tim Langdell's escapades until his unfortunate run-in with EA.
This 1 hour podcast goes fairly in-depth on the subject, explaining why it's become so common, how it stifles innovation and makes life very hard for startup software businesses. It gets rather fascinating once they visit that corridor of empty offices in Texas.

Heard about this on NPR last week. Yes, I listen to NPR...sometimes.

It was by far the most hysterical report I've ever heard.

"Someone patented "Thermal Bread Refreshening"."

"So, you mean they patented "Toast"?

"No, "Thermal Bread Refreshening"."

"Right, so it was a new patent on "Toast"."

"Yes, well...no....maybe."

Did anyone misread this as "When parents attack" and was hoping for a news article about child abuse?

Yes. And then I subsequently misread it as "when patients attack". It took at least three attempts for me to figure out the title, but I'm rather hard of thinking today.

If I had a penny for every time I was hoping for a news article about child abuse...

Wait, no.

I was expecting it to be a complaint about their parents not letting them have .



edit: but yeah - this whole thing of "patent holding" companies just existing to sue over infringement of the eight billion random ideas they're sitting on is annoying.

Was thinking more along the lines of drunken parents at a little league game

Yes, then I took a quick read over the linked article and was extremely confused.

Same here.

Hey, I am into some freaky stuff :shrug:

Hell yeah! Heard about patent trolls on This American Life.

I've got nothing to say really other then that it's pretty crummy what these people do.

Me, about 3 times now. Keep being disappointed :sadvaultboy:

I think there's some irony in the way the patent system's now doing the opposite of what it was intended to do and is thoroughly stifling innovation. You'd think that terms like "prior art" being applied to inventions and such would indicate that the system is being grossly misused, but apparently not... I often read the technology newsletter http://www.theregister.co.uk/ and it seems that every day there's an article about some company or other taking a competitor to court over a supposed infringement of their vast and impenetrable patent portfolio.

Not that I'm against the patenting of actual inventions, but patenting ideas (and increasingly obvious ones at that) really isn't in anyone's interest. Well, other than the patent holders and the army of lawyers who pore over this stuff.

You couldn't patent software technologies/ideas in the past, but the laws changed in the 90's. And since then there has been a massive flood of patents which is so huge that it's virtually impossible to come up with some new software or service that isn't "infringing" on some of these patents. So people saw opportunities to exploit this for financial gain, by hoarding patents and use them to target others with lawsuits. Companies will also hoard patents for defensive purposes, not because they are actually interested in creating something from them, but rather for some weird kind of mutually assured destruction, where if they're being threatened with legal action from someone, they are very likely to be able to the same to them.

So if you're starting up your own company and don't have your own mountain of patents, you'll be easy prey for patent trolling. This has also resulted in patent-hoarding companies selling patent rights to smaller companies, essentially offering them "protection" from lawsuits.

Very, very interesting read.

Meh, I could spend a good deal of time talking about how screwed up the US patent system is, but been there, done that. I'll just throw in that I find it hilarious that even IP Lawyers (the ones that make money off of the patent system) even want to see it reformed.