Patent Troll suing coffee shops, restaurants or hotels for offering Wifi | Hacker News Reader

Patent Troll suing coffee shops, restaurants or hotels for offering Wifi

patentexaminer.org

89 pointsmikeocool20 comments

How the hell do you write an article like this without even mentioning what patent they're suing on?

From the court filing:

U.S. Patent No. 6,714,559 (“the ‘559 Patent”) titled “Redundant Radio Frequency Network Having A Roaming Terminal Communication Protocol.”

Linked: http://www.google.com/patents?id=zi8SAAAAEBAJ&printsec=a...

I am neither a lawyer nor an RF expert, but it looks pretty bogus to me.

I can see how Cisco, Motorola, or any of the 802.11 equipment providers could be infringing on this patent. It doesn't make much sense to not be suing them... Oh, wait. Motorola and Cisco are suing these bastards.

I'm also not sure why they're not suing McDonalds, since they also provide free WiFi, and are located in Oak Brook. Probably because McDonalds would crush them in court.

That's exactly the point. They pick "victims" that would potentially be able to fight off the lawsuits in court but to do so would cost more than to just settle.

A company like McDonalds keeps lawyers on retainer and are paying them regardless of whether they're battling patent trolls at the time or not so they'd be guaranteed to meet in court.

Having the "loser" of a frivolous suit in court pay the other's fees would resolve this issue in a hurry.

Here I thought patents applied to physical products or manufacturing techniques, not services. So, theoretically, if someone had a patent for "transporting goods or people from one location to another, geographically different location", they could pretty much sue every driver? What I find strangest about this is that they bought this technology off the shelf, using it for its intended (only) purpose.

> Here I thought patents applied to physical products or manufacturing techniques, not services.

Nothing wrong with patenting a method.

> So, theoretically, if someone had a patent for "transporting goods or people from one location to another, geographically different location", they could pretty much sue every driver?

You might have a prior art problem...

These people are literally selling their souls for money. It's a cliche but seriously, how do these people sleep at night?

In very comfortable, expensive beds.

But in all seriousness, humans are very good at rationalizing their circumstances. Tell yourself something often enough, and over time you will come to believe it. Even if someone introduces you to an alternative view, alternative evidence, or logic that suggests the contrary, humans are equally skilled at rationalizing away such claims. In the event you were to demonstrate some social ill resulting from the actions of this law firm, the likelihood that you would spark a change in their behavior is low.

I recall an HN post a few months back regarding the ways in which, and rates at which, people dismiss evidence that questions their views, and the ways in which they seize upon and emphasize claims that agree with them. Will edit with link if I can find it.

EDIT: After some searching, could not find the article I was searching for, but did find a number of others addressing the same issue. The best among which were these two:

1. http://whywereason.wordpress.com/2011/09/07/psychologys-trea...

2. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2010/10/1...

more importantly, at what point did a group of folks, presumably sitting around a conference table, make the conscious decision to execute this type of strategy?

Motorola and Cisco have jumped in, and expect others with vested interests (Google, Microsoft, Apple etc) to pile on in behind and absolutely crush Innovatio. So we can hope...

> at what point did a group of folks, presumably sitting around a conference table, make the conscious decision to execute this type of strategy?

Three seconds after the accountant sitting in the meeting with them hit the "=" button on his calculator.

I laughed at this comment but it also such a serious comment at the same time. Money is exactly the drive behind this movement.

I would back 100% the action to remove the "digital" patents from society. I think some patents are essential when people have a genuine reason to file one but such generic patents should not be granted. It's like Amazon's 1 click buy patent, it's pathetic. You should not be able to patent an action or a method but only inventions of a physical nature.

It's like eBay being granted the patent to be an online auction and no one else can do it, it's unreasonable.

The problem is, these people will only work on a patent law suit until the water runs dry, there are plenty of rivers out there so they just move on. By the time someone has said how stupid it is and stops it, they have already made a small fortune.

I'm not one of these guys, but I would think it's pretty easy to justify actually.

Say you're just some guy who has one brilliant idea in his life. You lack any kind of talent or resources to bring this idea to market but you came up with it so surely you should be able to benefit from it, right?

Trying to execute on it is a no-go because the idea is so good that some big company is going to catch on to what you're doing and devote vastly more resources than you could ever get access to to steal your idea out from under you.

So, instead, you patent it. After all, this is what patents are for. But now that you've done that, now what? It could take longer than the life of the patent for you to produce anything on this if you ever can at all.

Is it ok to sell your patent? Then you could get your FU money now without all the risks involved in actually trying to implement it (the big guys can just make something close enough that people will buy it without violating your patent). Everyone wins then because the thing will get made, but the little guy doesn't get left out. Except, of course, when a patent troll company is the buyer.

But the patent troll company, no doubt, see themselves as saving the little guy and then litigating to get enough money to save more little guys out there.

Literally?

I was being quite literal yes, I do not think my conscience would allow me to go through with these actions and sleep at night.

Gotcha. You believe that they are literally selling their literal souls.

Haha, good one, I needed to read back over my comment. I was in reference to sleeping at night with literals.

Yes I believe you have a soul and they are literally selling it.

> By demanding a few thousand dollars, Innovatio ensures that, for many small business owners, taking up a legal defense won’t make financial sense.

What a load of crap. By only extorting a moderate sum of dough, Innovatio ensures that, for many small business owners, taking up a legal defense won’t make financial sense.

Perhaps the legal system needs a sort of 'reverse class action', so that Innovatio would have to sue the entire class at once, and the class could pool their resources for a defense.

There is business, then there is bad business, and then there is scum. These guys fall firmly into category 3.

I think you may still be giving them too much credit.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com