College Student/Developer Gives Up, Pays Lodsys
from the exactly-what-lodsys-wanted dept
Lodsys, the Texas-based shell company (with some connection to Intellectual Ventures) that has threatened tons of developers for daring to offer in-app payments for mobile apps using either Apple's or Google's app store payment system, is apparently getting some developers to pay up. Paid Content has the unfortunate story of Michael Karr, a college sophomore and app developer, who says he simply can't afford to move forward and can't wait to see if Apple steps in and protects developers. So he's agreed to pay up. Of course, because this is the way most patent trolls work, he can't say what kind of agreement he came to with the company. This is pretty ridiculous, and if the situation doesn't make you angry, you're not paying enough attention to what's going on here. Basically a company that does absolutely nothing is shaking down tons of companies and individuals for using Apple's and Google's own payment mechanisms. First, there shouldn't be anything patentable here. Second, through deals with IV, both Apple and Google have technically "licensed" the tech already, so under basic patent exhaustion concepts, the developers should be immune from such suits. But Lodsys and the trolls like it abuse the system, knowing that the cost of fighting them greatly exceeds how much they'll settle for. It's a pure loss. Money that was going to innovation now goes into the dirty pockets of some innovation-killing patent lawyers. Sickening.
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Filed Under: apps, developers, patents
Companies: intellectual ventures, lodsys
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Patent Trolls
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Re: Patent Trolls
When an entity (claims to) use the government (ie: patents) as a means of acquiring revenue from others, any claims of privacy should be thrown out the window. The public has a right to know how our laws are being used.
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Re: Re: Patent Trolls
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HTML5
How will this change the payment process? Will scum-suckers be able to leach off of code for browsers?
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Re: HTML5
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Re: Patent Trolls
How bad people want jobs back?
It ain't happening until the monopolies are broken and that means cutting down IP laws to size.
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Re: Patent Trolls
These are lawyers, and litigious ones at that. Defamation suit with a preliminary injunction to have the page taken down in 5 ... 4 ... 3 ...
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Re: Patent Trolls
End IP monopoly now!
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Loser Pays
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Re: Re: Patent Trolls
Maybe the high paying jobs referred to was lawyering. Did you ever think of that?
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Re: Re: Patent Trolls
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Re: Re: Re: Patent Trolls
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent Trolls
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Actually, since the patent lawyers are using the money they get to buy more patents, they are in essence fueling innovation.
Sickening that you can't see that they money comes back into the economy. I guess when you dislike something, it's like the money is shoved into a furnace and burned, but when you like something (such as declining sales for the RIAA types), then it's just money making another cycle in the econonmy.
That really is sickening.
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Re:
Is that what you believe patents are? Pokemon cards?
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Re:
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Re:
How?
"they (sic) money comes back into the economy."
How?
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Re: Re:
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Re: Re: Patent Trolls
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Re:
If nobody can use it how that fuels development and innovation?
It doesn't it creates a few rich people who hold everything at the expense of everybody else.
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Re: Re:
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Re: Re: Re:
As for "which is more", it would depend on the patent, how it was used, etc. You can't look only at the short window of this week to see. Perhaps the patent in question was once used as the basis of a million dollar business. We don't know.
The point isn't to judge the merit of one over the other, only to point out that the money doesn't just evaporate. It goes back into the economy at some point, and keeps cycling. It isn't lost money.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
Are you dense or just being deliberately obtuse?
The entire problem with "patent trolls" is that they DON'T pay inventors and developers. They don't have products in the marketplace, they simply sue those who do.
If you disagree, please point out which products developed by those inventors at Lodsys are anywhere near the marketplace, and how this developer's (and others') real products being shut down benefits anyone except Lodsys.
"It goes back into the economy at some point, and keeps cycling. It isn't lost money."
Only if you assume that the money is being used to create something other than numbers in Dan Abelow's bank account. There's no evidence of that, unless you wish to point out some I may have missed?
Unless you have some evidence, in fact, the reverse is true - money is being taken away from inventors and developers to pay a troll. Again, how is this a positive?
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immunity, host and parasite
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Re: immunity, host and parasite
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Re: Re: Re: Patent Trolls
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
Oh that seems like a successful thing to do LoL
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Appsterdam Legal Foundation
What Lodsys is doing is called extortion. You think the 0,575%, is not much, but it are the hidden conditions that may put you out of business.
Watch the video: Surviving Extortion - An app maker's guide
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/17734411
and Victims of Extortion (interview with a Lodsys victim)
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/17682287
Then get in touch with the Appsterdam Legal Foundation, attorneys are waiting to help you. You are not alone!!
http://appsterdamlegalfoundation.org/
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Re:
So the act of buying patents does not equal fueling innovation.
What it does fuel is the act of patenting, which history shows us, acts as a massive brake on innovation.
See, the delays placed by patents on improvements to the steam engine and the near demise of the Italian pharmaceutical industry.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Leaving it in the bank account might make the bank rich.
I have no doubt that this guy is actually using the money he collects, either investing it or spending it.
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Appsterdam Legal Foundation
What Lodsys is doing is called extortion. You think the 0,575%, is not much, but it are the hidden conditions that may put you out of business.
Watch the video: Surviving Extortion - An app maker's guide
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/17734411
and Victims of Extortion (interview with a Lodsys victim)
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/17682287
Then get in touch with the Appsterdam Legal Foundation, attorneys are waiting to help you. You are not alone!!
http://appsterdamlegalfoundation.org/
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Appsterdam Legal Fund
Lodsys is extorting. You think the 0,575%, is not much, but it are the hidden conditions that affect your whole business and that may put you out of business.
Watch the video: Surviving Extortion - An app maker's guide
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/17734411
and Victims of Extortion (interview with a Lodsys victim)
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/17682287
Then get in touch with the Appsterdam Legal Fund for more into.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
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Re: Loser Pays
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another biased article
Call it what you will...patent hoarder, patent troll, non-practicing entity, etc. It all means one thing: “we’re using your invention and we’re not going to pay”. This is just dissembling by large infringers to kill any inventor support system. It is purely about legalizing theft.
Prior to eBay v Mercexchange, small entities had a viable chance at commercializing their inventions. If the defendant was found guilty, an injunction was most always issued. Then the inventor small entity could enjoy the exclusive use of his invention in commercializing it. Unfortunately, injunctions are often no longer available to small entity inventors because of the Supreme Court decision so we have no fair chance to compete with much larger entities who are now free to use our inventions. Essentially, large infringers now have your gun and all the bullets. Worse yet, inability to commercialize means those same small entities will not be hiring new employees to roll out their products and services. And now some of those same parties who killed injunctions for small entities and thus blocked their chance at commercializing now complain that small entity inventors are not commercializing. They created the problem and now they want to blame small entities for it. What dissembling! If you don’t like this state of affairs (your unemployment is running out), tell your Congress member. Then maybe we can get some sense back in the patent system with injunctions fully enforceable on all infringers by all inventors, large and small.
For the truth about trolls, please see http://truereform.piausa.org/default.html#pt.
Masnick and his monkeys have an unreported conflict of interest-
https://www.insightcommunity.com/cases.php?n=10&pg=1
They sell blog filler and "insights" to major corporations including MS, HP, IBM etc. who just happen to be some of the world’s most frequent patent suit defendants. Obviously, he has failed to report his conflicts as any reputable reporter would. But then Masnick and his monkeys are not reporters. They are patent system saboteurs receiving funding from huge corporate infringers. They cannot be trusted and have no credibility. All they know about patents is they don’t have any.
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Re: another biased article
You seem rather confused as to the points being raised here. A patent troll, whatever you wish to call them, is an organisation that produces nothing. They gain patents, wait for other companies to do the work to bring the product to market, and then sue them once they're successful. You seem to be assuming that the big companies are in the wrong here, but they're the ones both doing the inventing (most of the patents cover things that are easily invented independently) and the work to create a product.
This is not to be confused with cases where people have actually patented something they try to bring to market but for whatever reason were beaten to market by others. In those cases, there is some defensible action in patent lawsuits. But those aren't the people being criticised.
I'm all for small inventors having patent protection so that they can bring their products to market and have a reasonable chance of success. But, the companies criticised have no products. That's the problem.
"Masnick and his monkeys have an unreported conflict of interest"
Unreported... except for the links on this very site pointing toward the exact information you linked to? Are you saying that Mike should repeatedly point out any work he does on behalf of 3rd parties in every story for those too lazy to click on the link where it's all explained?
As for "monkeys", who are you referring to? The people who voluntarily and freely provide both content and comments on the site, otherwise having no connection to Mike or Techdirt? Or, are you claiming actions by people who are actually employed here?
"They cannot be trusted and have no credibility"
What reason do I have to trust your words? Who are you? Why are you credible?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
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Re: Loser Pays
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Re: Loser Pays
So when I sue a federal laboratory because they misappropriated the technology revealed to them under NDA,and they use 3 million TAX Dollars to our thirty thousand to crush us in court. It would be fair in your eyes that I would be driven into bankruptcy while they kept the technology they stole?
This is exactly what has happened to me, you know me one of the 99% and you know them one of the 1%.
Your idea of fair is the injustice of which revolutions are made.
You and Masnick pretend to care about the small guy but you clearly don't give a damn. The people who buy our creations and make the thieves pay are all that stand between us and the fate of Tesla and so many others who have died in abject poverty.
Oh by the way check out Masnick's Floor64 website - he sells opinions to Wall Street and its multi-national corporate IP abusers.
There is a term for someone who sells their soul and injures the innocent they are called MERCs or mercenaries. The shoe fits for sure.
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Re: Re: Loser Pays
That is not competent enough to stand alone and compete on a market.
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Re: another biased article
Or are you just not good enough to be in the market?
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Re: Re: Loser Pays
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Re: Re: Loser Pays
Why restaurants can compete with each other and you can't?
Why software devs can compete with each other and you can't?
The problem is that you believe you got a right to tell other what they should or not do.
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Re: Re: Re: Patent Trolls
Sufficient, but expensive.
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Re: another biased article
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Re: Re: Loser Pays
Of course, the more likely chain of events is that that isn't exactly what happened.
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Re: another biased article
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another biased article
Call it what you will...patent hoarder, patent troll, non-practicing entity, shell company, etc. It all means one thing: “we’re using your invention and we’re not going to pay”. This is just dissembling by large infringers to kill any inventor support system. It is purely about legalizing theft.
Prior to eBay v Mercexchange, small entities had a viable chance at commercializing their inventions. If the defendant was found guilty, an injunction was most always issued. Then the inventor small entity could enjoy the exclusive use of his invention in commercializing it. Unfortunately, injunctions are often no longer available to small entity inventors because of the Supreme Court decision so we have no fair chance to compete with much larger entities who are now free to use our inventions. Essentially, large infringers now have your gun and all the bullets. Worse yet, inability to commercialize means those same small entities will not be hiring new employees to roll out their products and services. And now some of those same parties who killed injunctions for small entities and thus blocked their chance at commercializing now complain that small entity inventors are not commercializing. They created the problem and now they want to blame small entities for it. What dissembling! If you don’t like this state of affairs (your unemployment is running out), tell your Congress member. Then maybe we can get some sense back in the patent system with injunctions fully enforceable on all infringers by all inventors, large and small.
For the truth about trolls, please see http://truereform.piausa.org/default.html#pt.
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Dealing in Misappropiated Goods / wwRe: Re:
The college student developer just learned a valuable lesson, not to deal in misappropriated goods.
Ronald J. Riley,
President - www.PIAUSA.org - RJR at PIAUSA.org
Other Affiliations:
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 (202) 318-1595 - 9 am to 9 pm EST.
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