Will Bogus Patent Lawsuits Lead Entrepreneurs To Leave The US?
from the not-a-good-thing dept
At a time when we're supposed to be looking to entrepreneurs to bring us out of today's financial crisis, it's too bad to hear that our draconian intellectual property laws are driving people elsewhere. You may have noticed that the original file sharing success stories were in the US -- Napster, Grokster, Streamcast. But following the legal attacks, the more recent success stories have all been foreign: The Pirate Bay, Mininova, isoHunt. That's not a coincidence.Will the same thing start happening due to over-aggressive patent litigation, as well? We recently covered how enforcement of some very basic patents against tons of small photo hosting sites was threatening to put a bunch of small businesses out of business. Joe Mullin has now revisited the subject and noted that at least one of those companies is considering relocating outside of the United States because of all of this. This is a guy who came from Russia, because the US represented opportunity and freedom from crazy Russian bureaucracy and monopolies. And, here he finds himself in a similar mess -- dealing with patent infringement lawsuits for things his company had on the market well before these patents were even filed. Yet, to defend against such an attack it so costly that it's easier to just leave the country. Driving entrepreneurs out of the country isn't exactly "promoting the progress" now, is it?
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Filed Under: entrepreneurs, patents, us innovation
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Photo Hosting (especially those sites that regroup the material and offer it up in any other format than the original) run the risk of losing their island of safety as a host, because they aren't acting only as a host. Rather than hang around the US and become the Jammie Thomas of hosting, they head off shore, to where they can infringe with impunity.
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I re-read the post and almost LOL - "Success" in the Masnick world is mostly enabling others to violate copyright. WTG team!
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Pshhh, I know! Doesn't that guy know that REAL success is a corporatocracy that drives innovators out of the country and is lawsuit happy?
Dumbass.
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Glorifying pirate sites isn't exactly setting a great model - but it certainly does reveal a whole bunch more about where Mike's affiliations lie.
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Yeah that is a great way to build a great business here in the states, open a new business only to spend any and all earnings in court as some asshat decides you are infringing on an idea they like and patented but did nothing with or patented your idea after they found you did not.
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If the US spent more time encouraging and rewarding math and science education, we would be able to apply our work ethic and productivity gains to compete effectively. Getting reform on the IP side of things would then help grease the wheels as it were...
JMHO
Mike
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Masnick has ZERO respect for other people's intellectual property, unless of course it's his own property
Hey, Mikey, I want to use your domain name techdirt.com
Why did you lock it for yourself ? I wanna use it too...
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Re: Angry Dude
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Re: Re: Angry Dude
T-shirts, punky !!! Start selling T-shirts asap
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indeed this is true, Mike is as bad as a anti-gay crusader explaining the slippery slope from gay to bestiality, yet another lame argument in favor of turfing intellectual property laws
Mike you're a broken record.
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Oh look, I can play the make-completely-unrelated-and-irrelevant-similes game, too!
He mentioned file sharing success. Those are most of the most popular--and hence successful--file sharing utilities. You don't have to agree with his IP paradigm(only be ignorant) to agree that those are the "success" stories. Although, since Masnick believes that most current copyright law is overbearing and defeats its original purpose, then obviously there are a lot of beneficial activities that would be a violation of copyright as it exists today. Violating copyright is not in itself a harm.
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Easy answer to stupid problem
I'm not talking about putting things that you do not own the copyright to. I'm talking about morons who upload high-def pics an then cry that someone copied it.
If you AC's bother to reply to this, try to make a coherent argument. I'm sick of legislation fanboys.
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Re: Easy answer to stupid problem
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Re: Re: Easy answer to stupid problem
You have one car. If you leave your keys in a public place, and someone else takes the keys and subsequently drives off in the car, you have lost (1) a physical good - the car, and (2) the use of that physical good.
If you post a picture on the internet, and someone makes a digital copy, you have not lost anything. The picture/file/song is still there; it now may be found in more than one place.
At worst, you may not realize a possible future income from the "sale" of that file; but that possible income may not have been realized anyway - the person who is using the copy may not have valued the original sufficiently to have paid for it, if paying were the only option. Your assignment of "price" may not match his/her perception of "value."
Anytime y'all can get together in sufficient wattage and come up with an example that does not involve equating finite physical items with infinitely copyable digital files, feel free to come on back and join the discussion. 'Till then, stop stretching the analogy - it doesn't deserve the mistreatment.
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Re: Re: Re: Easy answer to stupid problem
it's where you are wrong, you have lost plenty.
First off, your scarce good (the picture) just became two pictures. Second, and just as important, you have lost control of something that belongs to you.
Part of ownership is control. Part of the problem of "infinite infringing" is that people think they can take anything they want, with impunity. How long do you think it is before someone like Mike starts calling cars "infinite transport" and makes it mentally okay for people to infringe upon that owners rights? After all, we can easily produce and infinite number of cars, certainly more than is required for the public as a whole (which is why GM, Chrysler et al are in the crapper).
I suspect it will start with public transport - infinite transportation.
I'm personally looking forward to infinite beer and infinite sexy coeds. ;)
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Easy answer to stupid problem
First off, your scarce good (the picture) just became two pictures. Second, and just as important, you have lost control of something that belongs to you.
How, by duplicating the picture, did you lose something? You still have the picture! Nothing changed in your copy. It is also not a scarce good since it can be copied infinite times at no cost to your own copy. Do you not understand the definition of scarce? Additionally, you lost no more control over your copy than you had before...
How long do you think it is before someone like Mike starts calling cars "infinite transport" and makes it mentally okay for people to infringe upon that owners rights? After all, we can easily produce and infinite number of cars, certainly more than is required for the public as a whole (which is why GM, Chrysler et al are in the crapper).
Do you not understand the definition of infinity? Have you taken a 5th grade math course? How exactly can we produce an infinite number of cars? There is a limited number of resources, producers, and space. More importantly, the marginal cost is not zero. It is not even remotely zero. The marginal cost of copying a digital artifact is zero! What about this concept do you not understand?
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/scarce
http://dictionary.reference.com/brow se/infinite
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Easy answer to stupid problem
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Re: Easy answer to stupid problem
It's important too because by nature, you have built in protection against the use of your image / likeness / product in an advertising campaign you might not approve of. It is hard to extract a certain right and leave all the other ones intact.
It sort of comes down to the standard problem: If you look at an icecube size part of an iceberg, you are missing the overall point.
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http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/30/google-china-signs-big-music-for-free-mp3-search-engin e/
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RE: Easy answer
Great point, and there ARE ways to do it. If you go to pro-artist sites (good ones that are set up properly) there are quite commonly VERY hard to edit-out watermarks or the like that make it obvious who did the initial work, etc.
However, yes, a large part of the problem is also the lawsuit-happy nature of corporate and private companies and PEOPLE who don't have enough common sense to fill a thimble.
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mikey is a tool
Yeah, all patents are bad by extension in Mikey's world
But for each story like this there is another story about an independent inventor or small startup founder struggling for decades to get fair compensation for stolen inventions from corporate America - with valid patents in hand.
Many of these ripped-off inventors come from other countries including Russia, attracted by the opportunities afforded by the US patent system among other things.
Guess Joe Mullin, being a paid corporate shill, never wants to cover one of those stories
from the article: "To me, the whole idea of America is people come here, and invent something really awesome, and then they do it—they don't just put it on paper and get their lawyers to submit it to the patent office."
Sorry to dissapoint Igor Shoifot, but if you invent something really important e.g. new semiconductor chip, all you can do is properly describe it in your patent application and hope that you can reach a favorable licensing deal with large manufacturer
fotki.com "promoting the progress" ?
What a f****** joke
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My God, angry dude GOT IT RIGHT!
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Re: My God, angry dude GOT IT RIGHT!
Yes and innovation suffers. I've had a number of 'good ideas' - but I don't bother... Patents are too expensive. Maybe not all would be 'great' ideas - one would all but eliminate the need for grocery bags and made getting groceries home a piece of cake.
But I can't afford to patent it. So oh well.
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Re: Re: My God, angry dude GOT IT RIGHT!
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And there's no bus route that goes to the office where I work, that and I do regional support, so no car is not an option.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: My God, angry dude GOT IT RIGHT!
Plan B: Bicycle, or motorcycle. At least, you can reduce your costs.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: My God, angry dude GOT IT RIGHT!
Have you ever tried, punky ?
I did...
Bob Kearns did
watch the movie "flash of genious" - it's all in the movie
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Re: mikey is a tool
1. What are you angry about?
2. Please don't feel like you are disappointing me :))) but are you saying that we should have patented photo-sharing? :D and "hope that you can reach a favorable licensing deal with large manufacturer" (umm, and you call someone else "a corporate shill")? :)
3. Do you have a real name so that maybe we can meet and have a more civilized discussion than throwing around a bunch of big words like "corporate shill" or calling my company a f. joke?
Have a good weekend, angry dude :))))
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Sure it is. It's promoting the progress of large corporations, which are the only businesses that matter to politicians, because they're the only ones who can donate huge sums of money to campaign funds. See how that works?
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Hit that nail right on the head. :)
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We moved our business to China
I hated to move to another country; we have much less control than we would have if it were here. We have 52 workers in China now and outsource sheet metal, circuit boards and buy components from companies in China. Only our core module comes from the US. We would have had at least 23 people employed here in Oregon, paid property and income taxes and had sheet metal and Circuit Boards done here.
Overall our per unit cost is slightly below what we could have built it in the US for, I'm not happy with the quality and reliability and the lead time and shipping/travel adds tremendously to the cost. We would have had to spend over $1M to fight them, been tied up in court for years and given the best case scenario and we won, we still would not been producing product. I didn't want the company to leave the US and truly, does any foreigner really own anything in China? It was the only way we could survive the legal attack.
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Re: We moved our business to China
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Understanding
I have finally caught on to what is happening here, before we used to debate the merits of the story and some days it spun out to other ideas... now we see Corporate Shills and paid for trolls come in to get people mad to the point the arguments do not make sense. - and now i see. The Progressives and lawyers are scared of this site and the others out there that preach the truth of common sense, free markets, and innovation. It scares the big boys (politians and ppl like the RIAA) so now they are trying to get people to shut up and drink the Kool-aid, unfortunately for them their best arguments are name calling and trying to associate us with "pirates" and "nazis"... SO THEY SCARED...
GOOD JOB MIKE, keep it up, the truth will be set free as long as you and the rest of us keep spreading it.
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Re: Understanding
The only paid corporate shill and paid for troll here is Masnick himself
Eat your dayly portion of techdirt oatmeal for retards, you, mindless and patentless techdirt lemming-punk creature
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Re: Re: Understanding
I like to read Mikes version of things, he seems to have a decent head on his shoulder and makes some good points. Does this mean I will only take his word on things? Hell no. I generally go research things myself and make my own decisions.
That being said, what proof do you have you are not a corporate shill or patent troll? Your comments never seem to indicate you aren't, since they are so poorly written and lame...
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Re: Re: Re: Understanding
but no such luck for me, punky
I AM a patent troll with one issued patent, but that hasn't paid a dime, at least so far
Now GFY
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Re: Re: Understanding
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Re: Re: Understanding
Oh and lay off the fiber granp's its obviously causing you large amounts of pain.
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perhaps somebody should educate you that patents last for 17 years after which they remain in public domain forever
F grade for you
who's your teacher, mike masnick ?
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If you are going to be an ass at least be factual.
From US patent office website:
For applications filed on or after June 8, 1995, utility and plant patents are granted for a term which begins with the date of the grant and usually ends 20 years from the date you first applied for the patent subject to the payment of appropriate maintenance fees. Design patents last 14 years from the date you are granted the patent. Note: Patents in force on June 8 and patents issued thereafter on applications filed prior to June 8, 1995 automatically have a term that is the greater of the twenty year term discussed above or seventeen years from the patent grant.
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Re:
My ex-fiancee is a German Citizen, I am a US citizen -- He has a company in Germany and was in partnership with another company here in the US during the time we were together -- we broke up later on, but were still friends at the time the idea occurred -- at any rate, he is an engineer, an entrepreneur, and while he isn't actually a physicists, studying energy, how to harness, how to manipulate it, etc. is his hobby.
During our entire relationship he was always trying to invent one thing or another in relation to energy, etc. and of course, would discuss his findings/road blocks, ponderings, etc. with me -- hence I developed a pretty thorough understanding of the different theories on energy.
Since his company develops imaging software, cameras, etc., he was also always discussing information regarding roadblocks, etc. he stumbled on within that area as well.
While I am not in any way shape, form or fashion a physicist, I do have an extremely high understanding of the mechanics of things -- not necessarily in fixing a toaster, but in understanding and visualizing mechanical concepts/theories (this may not be exactly the correct wording, but it's the best I can come up with at 1am) So, once I have a basic understanding of how something works, I can see it in my head, and generally -- via common sense, an uncanny insight into the working of things and whatever weird thing that happens in my brain to make me suddenly simplify the most complex thoughts -- I can come up with solutions. He was always calling me the most brilliant woman he ever met and dumb ole me pretty much thought he was just trying to make me feel good, but in hindsight, I think a resolved a lot more issues than I realized (call me idiot savant if you wish, lol) -- which was why he would bring me into his lab so much only to pound me with ?'s about what did I think he should do.
In regards to this particular incident, his issue was with an astronomy camera he was developing for mfg worldwide that he could not get the radiation levels down low enough to pass worldwide radiation laws (by the way, the camera is on the market and has made great strides on viewing stars, planets, etc. within the astronomy community) -- anyways, he explained to me his issue and asked me how I thought he might resolve it. Since I was used to this type of conversation, and knew all about the new camera, etc., it wasn't hard for me to come up with an idea that ended up not only resolving his issue with the radiation, but one that he has expanded to something so huge it is scary........but scary good for the world if it works out the way I believe it will.
So, finally, here is my question, do you think there is any way I can get credit for my part of this invention or even have a right to try to?
He has just recently patented it (I stumbled on the new patent) and the premises is based solely on my idea -- however, he had to do quite a bit of work to get the idea from just that to what it is today; yet, had I not shared my ideas with him -- he would not have anything to patent at this time........nor would his camera be working so well if at all -- so I do believe I should at least get credit; however, once I gave him this idea, and within a couple of months afterwards he abruptly ended his partnership with the other US company, left his employees high and dry (the partner company ended up having to absorb them, and did not have a clue as to why he severed ties so abruptly) - then went on to tell his children (both in college) they would be disinherited if they approached me (which was extremely extreme and very unnecessary I thought at the time)-- but all makes weird sense when you consider the potentially world changing nature of this invention.
Thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to read this note, and thanks especially to anyone who might share some insight -- like I said before, I may be royally screwed, but I feel I deserve recognition of some type. BTW, I am currently unemployed so no $$ in the coffers to hire a lawyer at this time to look into this matter.
Thanks again and sorry this is so long!
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Have not seen so many stupid comments at once!
Another one wants a techdirt.com domain (I do not know how exactly he is going to use it since the dude has obviously never heard of DNS);
It all DOES seem like a so-so organized attack of we-know-which-exactly-industry trolls actually!
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Re: Have not seen so many stupid comments at once!
And I know how to use techdirt.com domain - i'm gonna sell it to the highest bidder
And pocket the cash, DUH !
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Re: Re: Have not seen so many stupid comments at once!
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Re: Angry dud
What exactly will you be selling—the right to deny others the use of the domain? I thought you wanted a free-for-all on the techdirt.com domain—isn’t that what you asked for earlier?
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Re: Re: Angry dud
a domain name like techdirt.com has certain commercial value because there aren't many recognizable word combinations you can pick for your site or online blog
Mikey took it early for himself thus denying the rest of us the benefits of using or selling it
Why do you think it is any better than patenting some idea and keeping it for oneself ?
it is actualluy much worse becasue patents do expire and domain names do not..
Mikey is just your regular run-of-the-mill hypocrite
We have a bunch of those in US Congress
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I thought you were dead.
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of course. those foreign jurisdictions have no property rights. why do you think they call it "Pirate Bay"?
patent reform is a fraud on America...
please see http://truereform.piausa.org/ for a different/opposing view on patent reform
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an idea is not property. It doesn't get taxed like property for one thing.
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perhaps your should know that US Patent System is 200 years old
Contrary to what you might be reading on shitty blogs like this US patent system was instrumental in making USA the most powerful country in the world
Pretty much all of the significant technological advances and inventions originated in US, owing to working patent system here
"... the very first official thing I did, in my administration--and it was on the very first day of it, too--was to start a patent office; for I knew that a country without a patent office and good patent laws was just a crab, and couldn't travel any way but sideways or backways" (Twain 46).
http://fayette.k12.in.us/~cbeard/cy/patent.html
Now go back to eating yout oatmeal, you mindless and patentless lemming-punk creature
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So here we want to build a business, create US jobs, and add real value to US companies and we can't because someone with a patent on "I have an idea to start a business" will sue us for starting a business. Way to shoot your innovation economy in the foot... China here i come
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Adapt Don't Run!
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