Alice Ruling Kills Another Patent Dead, As Lumen View Patent Troll Drops Appeal
from the making-it-easy dept
We recently noted that a bunch of courts had been killing off bad software patents thanks to the Supreme Court's ruling in Alice v. CLS Bank. And now, that ruling is even leading the trolls themselves to give up. Notorious patent troll Lumen View recently dropped its appeal in its case against the website FindTheBest, saying that the ruling in Alice made it clear it wouldn't win:Appellant Lumen View Technology, LLC respectfully moves to dismiss voluntarily the appeal under Fed. Cir. R. 42(b). The United States Supreme Court in Alice Corporation Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank International, 573 U. S. ____ (2014) (No. 13-298), has provided greater clarity on patentability in light of 35 U.S. C. §101. The parties respectfully make a request for dismissal as an efficient resolution of the instant appeal and to conserve judicial resources.If you don't recall, Lumen View holds a patent (US Patent 8,069,073) (now officially and finally decided as invalid) for a "system and method for facilitating bilateral and multilateral decision making." Don't ask what that means because it doesn't mean much. Even before the Alice ruling, the district court had said the patent was invalid as merely being an "abstract idea" and thus unpatentable subject matter.
Throughout the case, Lumen View (and its lawyers) had done some astounding things, including claiming that FindTheBest's CEO committed a hate crime for calling Lumen View a patent troll. Lumen View's lawyers later sought a gag order against FindTheBest's Kevin O'Connor, demanding that he remove from the internet his discussions about Lumen View and his willingness to fight back against the troll rather than give in.
For a company like that to finally give up -- before the appeal was even heard -- shows just how powerful that ruling in Alice is. The legal fight is not totally over. FindTheBest is still arguing that Lumen View is guilty of racketeering (which is unlikely to go anywhere), and the two sides are still fighting over Lumen View having to pay FindTheBest's legal fees -- but the main event is now concluded, and the patent is officially and totally invalid.
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Filed Under: kevin o'connor, obviousness, patents
Companies: alice, cls bank, findthebest, lumen view
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Software patents do not promote science or useful art. They stifle progress. The supreme law of the land requires that patents/copyrights promote progress. Anything not promoting progress is therefore illegal.
Based on everything I've read from Mike here, he only dislikes software and business method patents. I agree with that viewpoint.
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I think it shows the patent examiners for the incompetent scammers they are.
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Re: antidirt
With every post you make, you're hoping to get back at the people you've come to blame and hate for any and all perceived misfortunes. And as each and every post fails to hit the mark, you rage at being stymied at every turn as post after post is easily refuted by the others commenter's here.
This only serves to anger you even more and increases you're resolve and belief that your next post just has to be the one where you convince everyone that you're right and thusly you "win". Because you just know deep down that you're right and everyone else is wrong no matter what anyone says, even though nothing could be further from the truth.
Everyone is laughing at you. Everyone is ridiculing you. Everyone sees right through you, because everyone can see you for what you really are in spite of all you believe. You tell yourself they keep doing this only because they're all immoral pirates who just want everything for free and should know better just like you do, but deep down you know it's really because your own words reveal any number of truths about you, chief among them being that you'll say and do anything to get your way, just like any spoiled rotten brat.
But you've come this far and there is simply no going back. Even though there is that tiny niggling thought clawing at the back of your mind, whispering that you're the one whose wrong and know it, you ignore it and soldier on because you refuse to admit that everyone else really was right and it was you who were wrong the whole time.
To give in is to give up the fight, the all important fight you've grown so attached to and can no longer live without. You're obsession is like being wrapped in a blanket, warm and secure despite it being only an illusion, blinding you to all reason and logic. But the illusion has become preferable to the alternative, the blanket a noose in reality, fear and hate your bedfellows.
It's all in you're head, you see. Everything you hate, everything you believe has hurt you, willingly and on purpose because they're all out to get you. Due to your enormous ego, pervasive sense of entitlement and over-inflated sense of self worth, you take it all very personally and have chosen to lay the blame entirely on those damn dirty pirates. "Everything is their fault!" you shout as you stamp your feet.
Your life will only be complete once victory is yours and you're standing over the strewn, decaying bodies of every single pirate righteously slain. Nothing would make you happier, only now that little voice in the back of your mind is telling you you'll never win, that it's impossible. And it's right. No matter what you do, no matter what you say, no matter what laws are passed or how severe the punishments are, file sharing will continue unabated.
Even if there was no internet tomorrow, it would still continue. You lost before you even began your self righteous copyright war. Why? Because you weren't fighting piracy or protecting copyright, you were fighting against human nature itself. The indomitable human spirit. No matter what limits you try to put on it, no matter how much you try to stifle it, our spirit, much like knowledge and culture, wants to be free. And it always will be.
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and I think that's one of the problems with the patent system.
A: no one is entitled to a monopoly
B: Patents are monopolies and monopolies are known to cause economic harm
C: Advancement will happen without patents. Patents can hinder advancement and patenting everything or granting bad patents will hinder advancement.
So the burden is on patent holders to provide that there is such a thing as a good patent and to provide objective criteria that can be used to reasonably distinguish a good patent from a bad one. If they can't provide such criteria then we can't reasonably make these distinctions and so they haven't meet the burden required to justify their existence.
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Now think hard.
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