Can't Innovate? Litigate! 3Com Goes Patent Lawsuit Ballistic
from the ghosts-of-companies-past dept
Remember back when 3Com was a big innovative company coming up with interesting new products? What happened since then? Well, as we've seen over and over again, once a company runs into trouble continuing to innovate, its last ditch effort to stay in business is to start suing everyone for patent infringement. Step up to the plate, 3Com. The company set up a subsidiary specifically for suing other companies for patent infringement and just sued Acer, Apple, Asus, Dell, Fujitsu, Gateway, HP, Sony, and Toshiba. Oh, and take a guess where this "subsidiary" set up shop? East Texas... of course. All the better to file patent lawsuits apparently...
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: ethernet, innovation, patents
Companies: 3com, acer, apple, asus, dell, fujitsu, gateway, hp, sony, toshiba
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Hence the old joke:
Well, from Chicago you go west til you smell it, and south til you step in it...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Mockery
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It's kinda like "Business Tourism" the citizens and community at large are rewarded (bribed?) for rendering verdicts with ... wait for it... livestock :) As if there wasn't enough bull in that district. I'm sure there are lots of other reasons why they just get together and decide to give hundreds of millions of dollars to one company or another.. but it's beyond me.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
but doesn't most, if not all, network transmission uses buffer?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The old saying
Then you stagnate
Then you litigate
Then you fold up shop
--Mahatma Ghandi
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Actions Speak Louder than words....
CEO David A. Kennedy in the statement. “We believe that the continued aggressive enforcement of the fundamental ethernet technologies developed by 3Com against the waves of cheap, knock-off, foreign manufactured equipment is a necessary step in protecting the competitiveness of this American technology and American companies in general.”
Meanwhile we let Hawaii invest in 3com, a chinese company that had routers basically running OS based on another well known american networking company. Since bought out, but still...
Pity though, I used to really root for 3Com, from their Modems to their Palm Pilot.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Innovation & Litigation
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Innovation & Litigation
It will be tough to argue with you. That's because maximalists like you are incapable of debate. You see the issue of IP as black and white. You don't acknowledge that there are costs to IP, costs to patents, and costs to government-interference monopolies guaranteed to the first to file.
On this site, many admit to the benefits that patents might offer in terms of incentive to create, yet we think the societal costs are greater than the gains. We love to discuss it and argue the evidence. That's hard to do with extremists who write us off as "socialist morons" who just want everything for free.
For the record, your views of patents are more socialist than ours, since you are advocating government interference in the free market. If you're going to argue pro-government interference, just embrace it. Don't lie to yourself and others.
Your suggestion that Barnes and Noble should have "innovated around" the Amazon patent by coming up with a "two click" patent is almost comical. What should the next bookstore do? Naturally, you would suggest a creative three click approach! And so on, and so on, until "a method for purchasing goods online with just" 1 through n clicks are all patented. That's dumb for a variety of reasons:
- any new entrant with a web store would be discouraged to enter the market, because they would get a lawsuit (or a license 'tax') if their store used any number of clicks between 0 and n.
- one-click WAS obvious, and inevitable because of the very nature of this: The mantra in e-commerce is that you lose 50% of sales on each click. That market pressure would naturally drive all e-commerce vendors towards reduced clicks, eventually landing at the greatest non-zero integer.
- it is a waste of government resources, business resources, and time to focus on patenting click numbers that does nothing good for society. All these resources you suggest should be spent at the USPTO should actually be spend building better products and competing in the marketplace.
Calling B&N "lazy" for not "inventing" two clicks is the kind of twisted conclusion one might come to if they were capable of kidding themselves that 1-click was creative.
Do you really want to argue the benefits of the patent system over the subject of the 1-click patent? Seems like a big gamble on your part to pick one of the most famous bad patents. What made this patent such a slam-dunk discussion point for IP-minimalists was that any American not involved in the IP discussion could use their common sense, and see that something was wrong with the system. If your policy choices offend the common sense of the vast majority of your countrymen, you should at least consider alternate policies.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Innovation & Litigation
First, there is no "stealing" going on. There may be copying, but that's not stealing.
And I have a serious question: why do you "have" to enforce your rights? What if you can do better by innovating instead?
TI used this strategy in the 80s when the Japanese semiconductor manufacturers were free loading on its technology.
And by "free loading" you mean... "competing." And by "used this strategy" you mean "went running to the gov't to stop competition."
The alternative occurred in the 70s when FTC required that Xerox license all its technology for next to nothing. The copier market is now dominated by companies that did not have to pay to develop the technology and Xerox almost went bankrupt in the 80s.
Heh. Yes, because Xerox failed to compete and innovate, while others did a better job. That's called capitalism, and we generally LIKE that. There's no rule that the first to market gets to keep the market.
For more on the detrimental effects of intellectual property socialism see
Wow. You don't know what socialism is, do you? You are calling the free market "socialism" and you are calling gov't protectionism "capitalism." Up is down, black is white. No offense, Dale, but it's tough to take you seriously.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I love it when people throw words around that they don't know a meaning of. The actual existence of patent system is socialist in nature. Any use of it beyond that is just that, use of socialist system.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It is theft on a grand scale, as in BILLIONS $$$$
Patents are a PROPERTY RIGHT which have economic value. When someone take the value away from those who own the rights it is stealing. The only difference between patent property rights and other tangible property is that with patents we only have the right to seek damages while in the latter case their tails would go to jail. Maybe it is time to criminalize theft of patent property rights.
Ronald J. Riley,
I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President - www.PIAUSA.org - RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director - www.InventorEd.org - RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow - www.PatentPolicy.org
President - Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (810) 597-0194 / (202) 318-1595 - 9 am to 8 pm EST.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]