I frankly don't understand why a judge or jury would ever find for a company which has no revenue, other than through litigation settlements. I mean if they're not even selling a license or royalties for their patents, any cases should be dismissed.
We can call it the "use it or lose it" rule for patents.
It’s not corrupt for a jury to follow what the law says—they swear an oath to do exactly that. And the law doesn’t have a carve-out saying you can only win if you have a product you’re making. (Although under current judge-made law, it is harder for a troll to get an injunction.)
If you don’t like the law, talk to Congress. Don’t blame the juries or the judges.
He's referring to the Eastern District of Texas which is infamous for patent trolls. A small number of judges find in favor of patent trolls far more often than the rest of the nation.
As the link notes, the Eastern District of Texas forum-shopping strategy for patent lawsuits was more or less shut down by the Supreme Court in a 2017 ruling [1]. This suit against comma.ai is, probably as a result, filed in the District of Delaware, since comma.ai is a Delaware corporation.
> I frankly don't understand why a judge or jury would ever find for a company which has no revenue, other than through litigation settlements
They don't. These guys all prey on settlements, the article even mentioned this troll has lost every single court battle and is surviving off of settlements.
Most people know that lawyers are expensive, but very, very few know just how expensive it is to go to trial. Even the simplest case can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Justice is only available for extremely rich folks.
Not every company that has no revenue other than through lawsuits got there by choice. Someone can copy your invention and sell it for less (or give it out for free), and you will be screwed.
There are lots of calls for exponentially escalating fees for patents over their life, and I think that is a much better idea than "use it or lose it."
I’m not convinced there’s any value in the patent system in the 21st century. Maybe it should be abolished. Who is it now helping? Certainly not the individual inventors it was meant to encourage.
Software patents should absolutely be prohibited altogether. They help no one; they’re not useful for small inventors and they’re just a pointless tax paid to patent trolls on innovation for everyone else. (I am a named inventor on many software patents.)
Patents have maintenance fees that have to be paid periodically, otherwise the invention becomes public domain early. They are only a few thousand dollars, so it is a no-brainer to pay them.
If they were exponential, it would be reasonable to see most patents have shorter lives, as patent owners would probably decide that it is not worth it to keep the patent around if they are not using it.
Also, most software patents are invalid. See the Alice Supreme Court case.
We can call it the "use it or lose it" rule for patents.