[HN Gopher] BlackBerry sells mobile patents to patent troll for ...
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BlackBerry sells mobile patents to patent troll for $600M
Author : hanche
Score : 247 points
Date : 2022-02-01 13:46 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (appleinsider.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (appleinsider.com)
| dqpb wrote:
| Patent trolls should be treated as a threat to national security.
| olivermarks wrote:
| Patent trolls are like the herpes of the innovation world - they
| will infect smaller players and inhibit their ability to develop
| without flare ups of litigation
| 83dk20sldkl wrote:
| Tsarbomb wrote:
| I'd love to know if they floated any of these patents to Google,
| Apple, etc... and if those companies did the math and decided
| that litigation against a patent troll would cost less than what
| Blackberry was asking for.
| dzonga wrote:
| it should be criminal to destroy an organization such as Research
| In Motion. the executives are still living off the bonuses + fat
| checks to this day. Yet Blackberry the company is dead. A crime
| like this would be Criminal Negligence of an Ongoing Business
| Enterprise - punishable by up to 30 years with a minimum of 10 in
| Prison and forfeiture of all assets by executives.
| paxys wrote:
| While we are at it, let's also jail all consumers who don't buy
| Blackberry products.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| ...their crime is not being Apple in 2007?
| dzonga wrote:
| they didn't need to be apple ? they didn't even need to be #1
| yet now they don't exist. same as the nokia folks. one thing
| though I won't blame them for is short-terminism instilled in
| business schools.
| mrkramer wrote:
| Patent trolls buy patents for $600m?! How the hell trolls amassed
| so much money? Are there investment banks and VCs which invest in
| patent trolls?
| gpvos wrote:
| It's in TFA: _> The company is funded by a $450 million senior
| secure loan, which includes $400 million of "conditional
| commitments from a lending syndicate" led by Third Eye
| Capital._
| mrkramer wrote:
| So basically by patent trolling and investing in patent
| trolls investors are encouraging patent trolls to de facto
| legally harass people and companies and cause distress on
| multiple levels(affected company, lawyers and court) which
| all costs time, money and energy.
| sbarre wrote:
| Yes there are. Plenty of folks out there who want to make money
| from their money and don't care how. So funds get raised for
| this kind of venture pretty easily.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| The ability to make money without contributing towards
| improving something is a cancer. If we don't cut it out
| things will get worse.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| Rent seeking is bad, yes.
| andrei_says_ wrote:
| More like bridge trolling.
| fartcannon wrote:
| I'm gonna start referring to my landlord as a bridge
| troll.
| tasha0663 wrote:
| Confound your lousy toll, troll!
| samhw wrote:
| Eh, there are upsides to this. Litigation funds (which
| invest to buy speculative chunks of 'promising' lawsuits)
| do enable people to sue large companies when they otherwise
| wouldn't have had the wherewithal. That said, it's likely a
| net negative, I agree.
| dvtrn wrote:
| How long before greed is literally evolved out of our
| brains?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| We're humans. We can dis-incentivize greed through legal
| frameworks - taxes on speculative assets or on patents
| that are not used or fairly licensed by the owners, for
| example.
| sbarre wrote:
| This is probably more complicated than it sounds.
|
| What consists of "not used" or "fairly licensed"? Who
| decides this, and how do those definitions evolve over
| time? Like most legal frameworks they would likely lag
| behind the reality of the times they are applied to...
|
| I'm all for trying to prevent abuses and patent trolls
| and the like, but it's not as easy to solve as it might
| seem.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Sure, but we could set at least some basic parameters,
| e.g. "not used" = "has not been used in an actually
| available product in the last five years" and "fairly
| licensed" = "the patent holder has listed a process and
| conditions under which the patent can be licensed, there
| exists a mediation process in case an applicant deems the
| fees/conditions to be excessive, and there are no
| complaints filed at the regulatory agency about unfair
| treatment".
| tasha0663 wrote:
| > taxes
|
| You've just moved the greed from one place to another.
| pqb wrote:
| It sounds like a perfect way to wash money. I am surprised any
| mafia or cartel have not taken part in this business yet.
| aliswe wrote:
| > How the hell trolls amassed so much money?
|
| ... by patent trolling
| errantmind wrote:
| The patent system needs to go. Soon.
| haxorito wrote:
| Nah just need overhaul and better control, start with taking
| legal actions against patent trolls on federal level. People
| will always look for ways to make money with very little effort
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| > start with taking legal actions against patent trolls on
| federal level
|
| How would that work? So you are allowed to acquire legal
| rights, but if you try to enforce those rights, the federal
| government will take action against _you_? Seems like a
| bizarre and unnecessary trap to set.
|
| If you really want to stop this kind of thing surely the more
| logical thing to do would just be to say that patent rights
| are personal, ie, they cannot be sold to third parties. Of
| course, that would lead to a significant devaluation of
| intellectual property, which (so the theory goes) would
| result in less innovation.
| assbuttbuttass wrote:
| Yes, it's interesting that although patents were intended to
| allow huge corporations to suppress competition, now these huge
| corporations have to spend endless legal fees fighting patent
| trolls.
|
| Will it be enough to kill patents? Maybe
| toyg wrote:
| _> patents were intended to allow huge corporations to
| suppress competition_
|
| Afaik, there weren't any "huge corporations" around when the
| patent system was first devised, only what today would look
| like mid-size national companies. There is a good chance the
| initial legislators thought they were actually protecting the
| little guys. Alas, good intentions tend to pave roads to very
| hot places...
| gdsdfe wrote:
| patents do serve a purpose ... but I would reduce their
| 'impact' say a patent is only valid for 10 years and same
| patent can't be refiled twice.
| nradov wrote:
| Inventors are already prohibited from refiling the same
| patent twice.
| JohnWhigham wrote:
| The problem is that companies just lobby to extend how long
| they're valid for e.g. Disney. The entire system is fucked. I
| wish a bomb would just wipe out Congress sometimes.
| ford_o wrote:
| Why not just limit patents to 3 years before they expire. In
| today's world this should be all you need to pay for the
| research and go from startup to established company.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Some products take much longer to develop. A drug or medical
| device can easily take 10 years from concept/ip filing to hit
| market.
|
| Other products have slow uptake. If you make a novel product
| with growing users, Google shouldn't be able to clone it at 3
| years and push it to a billion of their users.
| mminer237 wrote:
| That would essentially end innovation. If you invented the new
| latest and greatest gadget/medicine/process, a mega-corporation
| with more resources than you will undercut you with the exact
| same product within the week.
|
| You can say patents relating to phones should be narrowed, but
| ending the patent system would be a hundred times more
| disastrous.
| namlem wrote:
| I don't agree that we should eliminate parents, but it most
| certainly would not end innovation. China has very weak IP
| rights but there is still plenty of innovation.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| In reality, the big corporations have huge "defensive patent"
| war chests which your innovation probably infringes on in
| some way if you were to try to bring it to market. The deck
| is stacked against the individual inventor more so now than
| in the past.
| StriverGuy wrote:
| I would say it needs to be realigned to only allow productive
| companies to hold/protect patents.
| sirwhinesalot wrote:
| Perhaps we could do something like: if a company is not
| actively using a patent themselves, they lose exclusive
| rights after a short period of time (3 years lets say). Even
| when sold, the time counts from when the patent was created,
| not bought.
|
| Should limit the extent of the damage caused by patent
| trolls.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| I think in general we should just halve the time of patent
| protection, including the lead-up time where it hasn't been
| finalized yet but still protected.
| rPlayer6554 wrote:
| This is a good idea in theory, but what stops a factory
| offering to produce one of anything for a few thousand
| dollars, just to meet the requirements of "making a
| product." If there are requirements for how many you
| produce, how does that affect small businesses or
| businesses that want to keep products exclusive?
| sirwhinesalot wrote:
| Good point, too easy to work around. Shortening to half
| time as Robotbeat said might be the way to go.
| ectospheno wrote:
| That would mean only large companies would own patents. It
| would be the death of the independent inventor. No capital to
| make what you invented? Oh well...
| ntkachov wrote:
| Not at all, Patent is there for protection. So if you
| invent something that requires capital, but are a non-
| practicing entity, you can't enforce your patent. So lets
| say a bunch of companies start to practice your patent, all
| of them now have incentive to buy your patent because if
| any of them own it, none of their competitors can use it
| anymore.
| pionar wrote:
| If you can't make what you invented, the whole world can't
| have your invention? That seems suboptimal for society.
| tablespoon wrote:
| >>> I would say it needs to be realigned to only allow
| productive companies to hold/protect patents.
|
| >> That would mean only large companies would own
| patents. It would be the death of the independent
| inventor. No capital to make what you invented? Oh
| well...
|
| > If you can't make what you invented, the whole world
| can't have your invention? That seems suboptimal for
| society.
|
| Right now, a small independent inventor can use their
| patent rights to secure capital to produce their
| invention. If only "productive companies" can hold
| patents, instead of investing in small inventors, they'd
| just freeze them out until they lose their rights (or use
| that threat as leverage to buy the patents for less than
| they're worth).
|
| The "whole world" won't get their invention, just the
| people rich enough to profit from it, and the inventor
| gets squat.
| cecilpl2 wrote:
| > instead of investing in small inventors, they'd just
| freeze them out until they lose their rights (or use that
| threat as leverage to buy the patents for less than
| they're worth).
|
| I'm trying to understand your point but it seems like you
| are saying that all people with sufficient capital would
| band together to prevent small inventors from getting
| funding for years?
| tablespoon wrote:
| > I'm trying to understand your point but it seems like
| you are saying that all people with sufficient capital
| would band together to prevent small inventors from
| getting funding for years?
|
| Legal rights are often the only protections the little
| guy has. Take them away, and the big guys are better able
| to take advantage. The people with sufficient capital
| don't need to band together in a conspiracy, they just
| need to understand their advantage, and act accordingly.
|
| And I don't know where you're getting "for years" from.
| If a small inventor/"[un]productive company" can hold a
| patent "for years," you're basically describing the
| current patent system, and the ancestor comment becomes a
| meaningless suggestion. If the ancestor comment _isn 't_
| a meaningless suggestion, someone "with sufficient
| capital" should be able to sue an inventor's patent into
| nonexistence for being held by an "[un]productive
| company," which would be strong leverage to demand a
| lower price.
|
| One of the biggest merits of the patent system is it
| gives independent small inventors a chance at seeing some
| success. A "reform" that undermines that is not a reform
| worth pursuing.
|
| Also a lot of "reforms" proposed by internet commenters
| aren't very thought through. Often they're just narrow
| things aimed to stop some specific thing that's in the
| front of their mind, with little consideration of
| collateral damage.
| rhino369 wrote:
| They can make it; they just need to pay a reasonable
| royalty. One of the easiest fixes for patent litigation
| issues would be for congress to set some bounds on what a
| reasonable royalty is.
| nradov wrote:
| How could Congress ever do that in a reasonable way?
| There are orders of magnitude differences in the value of
| various patents.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| If you can't make what you invented, you can find someone
| who can and license the invention to them. That seems
| optimal for society.
| tim333 wrote:
| You could make an exception for the inventor.
| [deleted]
| beefield wrote:
| > That would mean only large companies would own patents.
|
| Wrong. If you applied a tax to IP that increases relatively
| fast over time (say doubles each year), you could "easily"
| select the parameters so, that it makes cheap to hold your
| patent for a while after the invention ( assuming you have
| some revenue at least on sight), while making it too
| expensive to hoard patents for nothing, and make keeping
| the patents closed unnecessarily long for even the largest
| corporations.
| mminer237 wrote:
| You could always license it out.
| onion2k wrote:
| There would be no reason to buy the license because you'd
| lose in court if you weren't using it. Companies could
| just use it with no fear of you winning a case against
| them.
|
| You can't even just accept that the originating patent
| holder should be able to sue while anyone who buys the
| patent can't. Patent trolls would just hire the person
| who registered the patent or sue on their behalf.
|
| There is no elegant solution to the patent troll problem.
| If _someone_ can sue, then trolls can sue.
| achow wrote:
| The days of garage invention and patenting those are gone.
| Patent process itself is so expensive and laborious that
| many do not do it, and upon that to keep patent 'alive'
| there is an annual expenditure.
|
| I'm not sure whether today there are are many patents which
| are with small inventors and they are holding onto them
| till they gather enough funds to productionize them.
| dylan604 wrote:
| How about modifiying to if you can prove "prior art" on
| an invention but did not have sufficient capitol to file
| for the protection or start up a business with the patent
| so that someone else is granted the patent later, the
| prior art owner is not subject to the patent?
|
| Not a perfect idea, but an idea to kick around on
| improving rather than just the blanket statments of "kill
| all patents" that are so trendy. Also, we don't have to
| say that all garage inventors are dead.
| samhw wrote:
| That's not a terrible idea. People likely underestimate
| how much of the legal system runs on - essentially -
| sensible human discretion in applying rules like that
| one.
| nradov wrote:
| Have you ever watched Shark Tank?
| achow wrote:
| You realize that is highly dramatized and curated?
|
| Annually around 1.5-2 millions patents are granted. How
| many episodes of Shark Tank has run till now and what
| subset of the participants had patents on their
| inventions?
|
| And, how many of those inventors would not get any
| funding if there was no concept of patents.
| pionar wrote:
| With trademark, it's use it or lose it, as it should be with
| patents.
|
| EDIT: I accidentally included copyright in this. It is not.
| jtbayly wrote:
| How is copyright use it or lose it?
| pionar wrote:
| Sorry, I should've left that out. Edited.
| iggldiggl wrote:
| Although interestingly in the EU there is now a small
| use-it-or-lose-it element with sound recordings, where
| the copyright on sound recordings expires fifty years
| after the original recording, or seventy years after the
| first publication (or at least public playback) by the
| rightful owner. Cue a number of labels actually
| officially releasing a number of previously unpublished
| recordings in order to prevent the corresponding bootlegs
| of those recordings from falling into the public domain.
| [deleted]
| yread wrote:
| Is ARM productive? They're not making CPUs themselves...
| bmitc wrote:
| Do patent trolls spend billions of dollars designing CPUs
| or whatever else they hold patents on?
| marcan_42 wrote:
| They make CPU designs which they license out. That's
| copyrighted IP, and thus a product.
|
| If ARM stopped making CPU designs and decided to just live
| off of their ISA patents while doing little to no actual
| development, yeah, _then_ they certainly shouldn 't have
| the right to be milking that cow in perpetuity, in an ideal
| world.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| They shouldn't have the right to sell their existing
| designs until the patent expires?
|
| This is the current system
| jordanpg wrote:
| This criticism is as misguided as "end all regulation."
|
| The specific problem that the US patent system enables is that
| patent rights can be assigned to anyone, just like any other
| property right.
|
| That is what allows NPEs to exploit this manifest economic
| inefficiency.
|
| Ending all patents very much throws the baby out with the
| bathwater.
|
| The federal government can and should intervene to reform the
| laws that allow this.
| namlem wrote:
| What we need is a Harberger tax on patents.
| fartcannon wrote:
| Does the patent contain round corners or something?
| horns4lyfe wrote:
| Does anyone here run or work for a parent troll? Do you look at
| yourself in the mirror every day and hate what you are, or is
| money your only guidepost in life?
| blakesterz wrote:
| "BlackBerry's sale is to what could be considered a "Non-
| practicing entity," a company that doesn't earn revenue from
| product or services sales, but is more likely to do so through
| asset protection. Many refer to these sorts of entities as
| "patent trolls.""
|
| That looks pretty bad. Seems pretty obvious this is going to cost
| Apple & Google some serious money, even if it's just hiring more
| lawyers for the lawsuits from "Catapult IP Innovations".
| paxys wrote:
| Patent trolls usually go after the smaller players, not
| companies like Apple and Google who have enough money, lawyers
| and their own library of patents to defend themselves.
| prepend wrote:
| I'm guessing that it will not cost Apple and Google that much
| money or they would have just bought the patents outright.
|
| I expect that Apple and Google were already licensing any
| blackberry patents they needed/would be forced to use.
|
| This is big enough that Apple and Google's operational risk
| group would have done a calculation to buy if the exposure was
| less than the sale price.
|
| The patent trolling is likely for smaller companies who can't
| afford to fight the troll.
| kingcharles wrote:
| This is a good point. $600m is nothing for Apple or Google.
| Could they have legally bought them without getting into a
| monopoly mess, though?
| troyvit wrote:
| I'm worried about Linux phone operating systems at this
| point. They seem ripe for this sort of trolling.
| grej wrote:
| Good question. What actually happens if an open source
| permissive license product is accused of violating a
| patent? There's not exactly a company to sue.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| There is always a company, NGO or individual(s) that is
| distributing the code.
| hedora wrote:
| I'm not. There's no point suing for patent infringement
| unless (a) you want to squash competitors or (b) you think
| you'll get a bucket of money.
|
| Since they were bought up by a nonpracticing entity, (a)
| doesn't apply. There's no way they'll recoup their $600M
| investment by going after companies that sell low volume,
| low margin devices.
|
| By the time the Linux phone people have war chests to raid,
| theses patents will be expired. Rest assured they're
| targeting some subset of FAANG. The article mentions a
| patent on charging batteries.
|
| Facebook and Amazon sell stuff with batteries in them.
| Perhaps the trolls think they can extract a few hundred
| million from Oculus and Fire tablets. Come to think of it,
| Tesla probably has some cash laying around, and I think
| their cars can move and also contain batteries. Why should
| they be allowed to freeload?
|
| Similarly, ICE cars use lead acid batteries, don't they?
|
| This patent could be a gold mine, and we owe it all to RIM
| for inventing the rechargeable battery in the mid 1990's!
|
| I wonder when the current patent on charging rechargeable
| batteries expires. I wonder who the PTO will issue the next
| iteration to, and if they're publicly held...
| [deleted]
| konschubert wrote:
| If the parents are from the 90s, why have they not
| expired?
| Jiro wrote:
| >There's no way they'll recoup their $600M investment by
| going after companies that sell low volume, low margin
| devices.
|
| Patent trolls sometimes sue people without money in order
| to get precedents that can be used against people with
| money.
| linspace wrote:
| That's twice (lawfull) evil. It's like the smaller
| companies are little sacrifices to warm up the summoning.
| harles wrote:
| At $600m and most the way to being expired, I don't think it
| makes economic sense to only target small players. A patent
| troll could also find novel ways in which a court might view
| these patents as applicable that Google and Apple missed.
| culturestate wrote:
| _> A patent troll could also find novel ways in which a
| court might view these patents as applicable that Google
| and Apple missed._
|
| BlackBerry has been licensing these patents for years; all
| of the usual suspects have already either agreed to terms
| or been sued by this point.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| Maybe the patent trolls got played?
| culturestate wrote:
| Well, the new owners will continue collecting the same
| royalties that BlackBerry was getting until the patents
| expire; I'm not sure how much it is for this specific
| pool, but probably up to a few tens of millions of
| dollars per year.
|
| On top of that, they can always leverage the IP against
| smaller existing players or new entrants and use it to
| bump up rates for the rest of their portfolio.
| dmix wrote:
| There's always room for financial and legal engineering.
| I mean that's what a big chunk of Wall St does for a
| living.
| andjd wrote:
| The company buying the patents is new with no history. Do any
| of the parties involved in financing the deal have a history of
| being litigious over patents? If the patents are generating
| royalties, this could just be a boring financial move where RIM
| gets a lump-sum cash infusion in exchange for a predictable,
| but finite, revenue stream.
|
| There are many non-practicing entities that don't abuse their
| patents. ARM is an example.
| rhino369 wrote:
| You don't buy 600 million dollars of patents as an NPE
| without planning to shop around licenses with an implied
| threat of litigation. You don't have to be scumbags about it,
| but you are going to have to press your claims to make money
| back.
|
| I'd argue ARM isn't really an NPE. They actually sell useful
| designs that are actually implemented right? It's customers
| are paying for a design, architecture and software--not the
| freedom from being sued.
| The-Bus wrote:
| They may already have recurring revenue that justifies this
| price.
| [deleted]
| vmception wrote:
| What I would like to see is what does a model licensing
| agreement look like?
|
| All we ever see is "threat of litigation by troll" "company
| takes stand against troll"
|
| But we have no clue how the negotiations went? We have no
| clue how many are agreed upon, we have no clue how many are
| tolerable small revenue splits or something else
|
| All we are left with are extreme positions that imagine
| _every_ patent or litigant is an extortion racket and thats
| just negligent
|
| There is room for nuance by adults
| monocasa wrote:
| I wouldn't consider ARM a non practicing entity.
| netcan wrote:
| Being litigious and earning revenue from non-practicing
| patent ownership are fairly intertwined.
|
| Being a new company with no history is, likely, strategic.
| Patent wars between practicing entities tend to be multi-
| front. Each side brings its own war chest of patents claims.
| Settlements tend to be more of a cease fire than a permanent
| end. They agree to stop suing each other.
|
| Being non practicing means that a patent war can't interfere
| with your more important interests. Being clean slate means
| that whoever you sue can't return fire by going after the
| rest of your patent portfolio.
|
| "Patent trolling" isn't black or white definitionally, but it
| has earned its bad name. It's an ugly game of dirty tricks.
| mathattack wrote:
| All good points. And if this is a new entity, it likely
| isn't bound by any "you don't sue us, and we don't sue you"
| agreements. It could be new money in play.
|
| Of course it could just be financial engineering, though I
| suspect that would look more like an asset backed loan.
| netcan wrote:
| "liability engineering" perhaps.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| The company may be new, but I guarantee you that it's the
| same old crowd of patent trolls. They will never give up
| until the patents are expired or certain East Texas judges
| retire.
| inetsee wrote:
| I thought the rules were changed to make it harder for
| litigants to shop for a venue like East Texas?
| netsharc wrote:
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Good point I wonder why they didn't just buy up Blackberry,
| they had to have seen this coming?
| yread wrote:
| At least it's not a trebuchet, that would be terrifying
| herodoturtle wrote:
| See, this right here, is the problem with HN.
|
| In my failed attempt to retort with a witty pun on Ballistas,
| I ended up spending close to half an hour exploring a rather
| deep rabbit hole on the evolution of medieval siege weapons.
| xorandor wrote:
| They're going to be going after somebody pretty soon to recoup
| that cost, probably had someone in mind before they concluded the
| deal. Hold on to your hats, incoming!
| botanical wrote:
| After generations of leadership change, can a company have the
| same values and vision of the previous leadership? I suppose on
| paper it's still BlackBerry. But selling patents of a company
| that was a leader in revolutionising the mobile sector to patent
| trolls only mean the trolls mean to aim higher in terms of
| litigation
| stuaxo wrote:
| I read this as "sues patent troll for $600M" what a disaster.
| TheMerovingian wrote:
| Does anyone know which patents? I'm curious since my name is on a
| number of them.
| haxorito wrote:
| Selling patents to trolls, what can go wrong...
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Selling patents to trolls, what can go wrong...
|
| Nothing that's Blackberry's owners' problem.
| jacquesm wrote:
| What about the QNX IP?
| xekul wrote:
| The patents that were sold had to do with BlackBerry's legacy
| non-core business (mobile devices) and don't comprise their
| entire patent portfolio. They've specifically said that the
| patent sale won't affect their existing customers (such as QNX
| licensees).
| soco wrote:
| QNX, that thing I received like 30 years ago in a magazine on a
| bootable floppy? With X Win of course...
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes, precisely, that thing. It managed to pack more on the
| floppy than most other systems of the time on 50 floppies.
| jordanpg wrote:
| A shame that Blackberry did not opt in to something like this:
| https://lotnet.com/how-we-protect-members/
|
| https://lotnet.com/members/
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Lotnet is fundamentally a poison pill agreement against members
| selling their patents to non-practicing entities. It only ever
| makes sense to join such an agreement if you are a net
| implementer of patents and don't anticipate needing to exit the
| industry any time soon.
|
| For a company like Blackberry, who hasn't designed a phone in
| years and coasted entirely on licensing and production deals
| with TCL, it makes zero sense to do this. If you own a lot of
| phone patents but aren't making any phones, you effectively
| _already are_ a patent troll.
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