Patent Battles Make It That Much More Difficult To Keep People Healthy

from the what-a-shame dept

The problem with the view that patents should be given out for every little improvement (most of which would have come about naturally thanks to market demand) is that you end up with "patent thickets" where a ton of different companies all claim patents on some small part of a larger offering. This isn't just an argument about "ownership" or "rights" in some cases. It can also have direct impact on keeping people alive.

For example, just witness the patent battle going on in the medical device market concerning Boston Scientific, Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic and... famed patent hoarder Acacia. Boston Scientific, Johnson & Johnson and Medtronic have all been suing each other concerning various patents used in stent and catheter technology. Acacia has now jumped into the fray by acquiring patents from Datascope and setting up yet another shell company called Cardio Access.

In all of these cases, everyone is claiming ownership over some piece of the technology used in stents and catheters, basically suggesting that others can't use that part of the technology without paying them. The end result is that we're all put at greater risk. Either stents and catheters won't be able to be as useful as they should be because they can't use the best possible technology -- or if they do use that technology, they get priced much higher to pay for all of these licenses from everyone else. And, of course, with all of these patent lawsuits (and rewards -- since Boston Scientific has already had to pay out the two largest patent fines this year, totaling $750 million), money that could have been spent on making a better product is instead going into lawsuits.

Filed Under: catheters, health care, patent thicket, patents, stents
Companies: acacia, boston scientific, johnson & johnson, medtronic

Giving An Allowance Patented: Acacia Sues Apple

from the giving-allowance-isn't-prior-art? dept

Acacia is a well known patent hoarder, who buys up or licenses various unused patents and sets up subsidiaries who do nothing but sue companies in the market who actually make products. The latest Acacia lawsuit has been filed against Apple for the "allowance" feature in iTunes that allows someone to transfer a dollar amount of iTunes credit to someone else -- effectively allowing a parent with a credit card to issue some "allowance" for a kid to purchase iTunes. You would think that such a concept wouldn't be patentable, given the history of parents giving kids an allowance -- but apparently the folks working in the patent office never received allowances as kids. The patent itself seems rather straightforward, but it's difficult to understand why such a thing is patentable in the first place. In the Teleflex v. KSR ruling the Supreme Court noted that the patent office shouldn't just approve patents on combining obvious ideas. Mixing the internet with allowances would seem to fall into that camp, though this patent was issued prior to the Supreme Court ruling.

Filed Under: allowance, itunes, patents
Companies: acacia, apple

Acacia's Latest: You Sue Some, You Lose Some

from the still-going... dept

Acacia, one of the larger and more well known patent hoarding firms, has followed in the footsteps of other recent lawsuits where the patent holder sues a bunch of companies at once. The general reason for doing so is in order to pick the jurisdiction. The fear is that if someone sues just one or two companies, then others may look to have a more favorable district court give a declaratory judgment saying they don't infringe. In this case (which, surprisingly, does not take place in Marshall, Texas, but in Cleveland, Ohio), Acacia (or, more accurately, a subsidiary of Acacia) is using an old patent on computer-aided transcription and applying it to predictive text systems. Of course, predictive texting systems are quite common these days, making it easy to sue 23 different companies for infringement, including Microsoft, Nokia, IBM, Samsung, Sony, Qualcomm, RIM, Nintendo, Motorola, AT&T, Verizon and a bunch of others along those lines. Not surprising to see this from Acacia, but it's yet another overly broad patent being applied completely outside the space it was intended for, and being used to basically shakedown a ton of companies for offering useful products that were designed entirely independently of this patent.

In more positive Acacia news however, the company (or, again, a subsidiary) has lost one of its other patent lawsuits against Microsoft. Turns out the jury (in Marshall, Texas, yes) didn't believe Microsoft violated the patent in question. Won't stop Acacia from filing more such lawsuits, but always nice to find out that patent hoarders don't always win.

Filed Under: patents, predictive text
Companies: acacia

Acacia's Latest Target: NetFlix

from the sue,-sue,-sue dept

Acacia has become one of the most hated firms by technology companies that actually do stuff. That's because Acacia is one of the biggest (if not the biggest) firms out there in the business of buying up patents solely to sue companies. Acacia learned a while ago, though, that it was best to keep its name out of many of these suits, so it apparently tries to set up subsidiaries for many of the patents it buys (sometimes giving them silly names to make people think the companies actually do something). Now, one of those subsidiaries, named Refined Recommendation Corporation is suing Netflix over a patent it holds on optimizing interest potential. It's a patent on the idea of making recommendations or presenting specific information based on user actions. I can recall both individuals and companies working on similar things well before this patent was applied for in 2000, but that's a different issue altogether. Does anyone believe that Netflix (and plenty of other companies) wouldn't be doing content recommendations for people without this particular "breakthrough"?

Filed Under: patent trolls, patents
Companies: acacia, netflix, refined recommendation corporation

Steve Ballmer's Prophecy Comes True: Former Microsoft Execs Sue Red Hat, Novell Over Patents

from the funny-how-that-works dept

Jon writes in to let us know that a small patent holding firm, IP Innovation, has sued Red Hat and Novell over patent infringement concerning a ridiculously broad patent. As the Groklaw report outlines, the suing company is actually a subsidiary of Acacia, which is considered to be one of the more egregious firms in using bad patents to squeeze money out of companies. Groklaw also notes that Acacia has recently hired a bunch of execs from Microsoft, leading to the conspiracy theory that Steve Ballmer's recent predictions of patent lawsuits against Red Hat were more than random speculation. I'm not willing to go that far just yet, but as you can see from Ars Technica's breakdown of the patent earlier this year (when the company sued Apple), it describes very broadly the concept of workspaces in a computer user interface. This is yet another example of the worst of our patent system at work. Companies that offer innovative products getting sued using vague, overly broad patents on obvious ideas that never should have been granted in the first place.

Filed Under: linux, open source, patents
Companies: acacia, microsoft, red hat