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Comment by whizzkid | Hacker News Reader

So what these guys are doing is sitting on their chairs, and trying to get money from people/companies that produce something?

Not that I am a fan of Samsung or anything, but this feels really wrong. Can't this be stopped?

I would understand if these guys had their patent before bluetooth, this is just plain stupid that they can earn money from it, isn't it ?

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You could argue that companies like Rembrandt are the only way that indie patent holders can hope to compete with the likes of Samsung. Unfortunately the patent game appears to usually be one that is won by whoever has the largest legal budget.

It costs huge amounts to create, file and protect patents and any errors will mean that a patent is worthless once the opposition's lawyers get stuck into it.

Large companies in patent heavy fields all have teams of lawyers filing patents as quickly as they can and then defending them and attacking others as hard as they can. The little guy doesn't stand a chance.

Perhaps a solution could be to have government take the place of a company like Rembrandt so that independent patent filers can get the heft behind them required to support their patent.

Or how about we kill the parasitic patent industry once and for all? Declare all patents invalid, like the debt amnesties that were common thousands of years ago, and refuse to issue any new ones.

> You could argue that companies like Rembrandt are the only way that indie patent holders can hope to compete with the likes of Samsung.

That's not correct, specifically, it's not realistic for two reasons. First, patents, when related to indie developers, are beneficial only for a small subset - specifically, the google-like ones, who build a product on a single, very specific, idea. Second, an indie developer is not in the same market as Samsung.

> Perhaps a solution could be to have government take the place of a company like Rembrandt

When it comes to patents/trolling, there are a few "shocking 1-little-tricks" ;-) which are actually simple and effective - it's just that the administration is in bed with the industry, and obviously doesn't want to hurt the interests of the latter.

Reducing the term of the patent to a reasoned amount would be one; limiting the amount of allowed applications would be another.

One thing that I'm actually wondering (because I haven't seen it discussed) is what would happen if the USPTO would be accountable for the patents it grants, that is, if it could be sued for giving patents which are later proved invalid.

Taken at face value :

Bluetooth 2 is infringing - this version of the Bluetooth Core Specification was released in 2004.

> The patents relate to compatibility between different types of modems, and connect to a string of applications going back to 1997

ergo

> these guys had their patent before bluetooth [2]

From reading some of US8023580 (utter horrid thing to read). They have basically laid claim to the mechanism of any electronic device that communicates in any way. Indeed I've read a lot of patents but this one is so inscrutable one could prob use it to claim against rocket technology and a jury wouldn't blink.

Getting a jury of people to understand this stuff is ridiculous.

> He said he appreciates the fact that Rembrandt has made the effort to get the patents enforced.

>“I never could do that,” he said.

Because the old fool is being paid to shut up and do as he's told.

> Over the course of nine years consulting for Rembrandt, Bremer said he's been paid $670,000. He gets 2.5 percent of all settlements extracted using his patents.

Yea. Its a patent troll of the highest order.

> They have basically laid claim to the mechanism of any electronic device that communicates in any way.

Just so we know, could you point out the relevant portions claiming that?

Well, just read the synopsis:

>A device may be capable of communicating using at least two type types of modulation methods. The device may include a transceiver capable of acting as a master according to a master/slave relationship in which communication from a slave to a master occurs in response to communication from the master to the slave. The master transceiver may send transmissions discrete transmissions structured with a first portion and a payload portion. Information in the first portion may be modulated according to a first modulation method and indicate an impending change to a second modulation method, which is used for transmitting the payload portion.

This could be valid for any form of communication with more than one modulation system (Wifi, BT, DVB television, any recent communication system). I'm pretty sure that the modulation of the monitoring systems in a rocket will switch between transmission modes when the rocket reaches some upper layers of the atmosphere.

1. What you quoted itself a far cry from "any electronic device that communicates in any way", a statement that mischaracterizes the patent as much as the title of TFA does the actual claim. Note that it says the header may be modulated using one method whereas the payload another depending on the header. Are you sure this applies to any of those you mentioned? (Except Bluetooth of course, as it was just found to infringe :-P)

2. The synopsis does not define the scope of what a patent claims.

EE/CE here. Yeah that's a garbage patent. I'm a practitioner in the field and 20 years ago that would have been some forward-thinking stuff. But in 2009, when it was filed? Total joke.

The priority date of the patent was Dec 5, 1997. So was it forward thinking a little over 17 years ago?

Well there's something weird going on there, then, because priority dates and filing dates aren't supposed to differ by more than a year or so.

So either it was invented in 1997 and should have been patented then and would expire in 2017, or it was "invented" in 2009 and they trolled for something to give them a much, much earlier priority date so that it would seem more legitimate somehow.

Either way I'm not sure that I buy it.

EDIT:

I mean, hell, dial-up modems did the same thing basically. Connect and sync at a low baud rate, then switch to whatever the modems agreed the channel could support. How old are dial-up modems? 1980s? Acoustically coupled modems are at least as old as the 1970s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modem#Acoustic_couplers

The weirdness is due to these patents being "continuations", that is, follow-on patents that keep the priority date of the original, but file new claims on the same subject matter. This is usually done to get broader (or sometimes just different) claims than the original. On the flip side, the follow-on patents lifetime is still based on the original filing date.

Also, if there was any prior art that did "basically the same thing" you can bet Samsung would have brought it up. TFA does not give much detail about Samsung's arguments, but only mentions a non-infringement defense.

From the snippet in the OP it just seems to be a patent on in-band signalling.

>Because the old fool is being paid to shut up and do as he's told.

Without respect to Bremer, that's true for any independent patent holder, and even for most small businesses. Bringing or defending a patent infringement suit is an expensive and risky prospect. It's hard to argue that a patent is particularly useful for anyone who doesn't have a big pile of cash they feel like gambling with.

"So what these guys are doing is sitting on their chairs, and trying to get money from people/companies that produce something?"

How's this different than any other sort of capitalist?

> How's this different than any other sort of capitalist?

Other sorts of capitalists founded companies that produce something.

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