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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.พ. 2025
- http:www.ted.com Drew Curtis, the founder of fark.com, tells the story of how he fought a lawsuit from a company that had a patent, "...for the creation and distribution of news releases via email." Along the way he shares some nutty statistics about the growing legal problem of frivolous patents.
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Place a patent for being sued by a patent troll.
Profit.
alphamoonman I thought the same thing
Apple just patented multi-touch. They are also attempting to patent pinch to zoom. The CEO had stated that he didn't believe in patenting things that are essential to computer functionality, but they constantly do the opposite.
Those features aren't 'essential'
@@Prince-jb7pv umm, what?
@@ishdx9374 did i stutter?
@@Prince-jb7pv I heard a stutter
There’s an obvious reason - stop patent trolls.
...and the politicians doesn't care. Go America!
No, they do care! They are in hence not even discussing the issue.
I wonder if this is where Silicon Valley got the idea of Richard reaching out to other companies to fight the troll only to have them settle out behind his back
limp bizkit
Because many patent holders are small companies or individuals who can easily be spent into oblivion by a large company. One simple example, I used to work with a small software company that sold a product that a VERY large company wanted to integrate into a new product of theirs. Whenever a dispute arose, the big company lawyers said, 'do what we want or we will reverse engineer your product and build it ourselves." They did not fear even today's patent law. Imagine if the burden were reversed.
Well played Drew. Thank you for taking a stand. Love the new podcast "Fark and Schnitt"
Amusing, informative, and to the point. A model TEDtalk!
Just speaking as someone who writes software: patents and copyrights have needed serious reform for many decades now...
Then again, so has education, and the proponents of that have been far more outspoken and gotten just as far...
For 2 million you could hire elite professional assassins, and have every executive at the company suing you killed, and their lawyers.
The only real answer.
I haven't heard anything this eloquent, yet brilliant in quite a while.
Brilliant. You would never believe how close this story is to my own. The only difference between yours and mine is that the trolls I faced tried to cancel my Federal Trademarks. Which yes, Drew is right on the money 1-2 million dollars to defend. These freaks however did have a settlement agreement which said they could not bring litigation on my or my Federal Trademarks. In the Settlement is also clearly said that they had understood and agreed that my Federal Trademarks were clearly mine. One of them they admitted to never had ever used. Then when they filed the cancelation they decided to file it on "both" my Trademarks " making that a Federal Fraud Issue" since I have their John Doe on a document claiming they've never used it. Trademarks in our Patent and Trademark Office are also a huge issue. Because Troll try to go on the Lanham act. These low lifes had zero legal protection, they are a DBA which in fact "never even registered it in their county clerk's Office" until after they received a notification by a District Court Judge stating that they would be charged on infringment. Only then did they run to their county clerk and register it... again one more case of Fraud on them. Because to register a DBA you sign a statement claiming you are unaware of anyone using that DBA name. So now they are up on two counts of fraud and most likely know it or do not know it. The entire time they pulled all this bullshit off, I was being nice and doing nothing. One of them even emailled me a threatening email. ANyone have any advice as to what I should do about it?
Why isn't the burden of proof on the people making the accusation? That would solve the problem right there.
"Don't negotiate with terrorists." Brilliant!
I'm from Argentina, studying in the National University of La Plata. We are working on an "open and free" patent system, not to replace nor Abolish the current copyrights and Patents. We need and we WANT the possibility to choose if we want to patent in the "classical way" or in "an open way", we want to create a community, like GNU/Linux, Creative Commons licence for patents, Wikipedia, Blender, and more.
Nope. If you want a "choice", copyleft licenses don't give you any.
Good stuff. I'm going to need to remember this one!
I watch The Patent Scam today. I cried and prayed for the victims. I cannot believe that the senate wouldn't pass a policy to fix this. My God pass judgment on all those involved in the scam.
I do want to know why didn't you turn around and sue Apple or Google for making the app that caused you to get sued?
You cried?! Seriously? You need help.
@@GuamanianHarmonLoopYou replied to a 3 year old comment.. now THATS a problem
@@GuamanianHarmonLoopyour the one crying😂 no one else is on here responding to 3 year old comments. I think you might be projecting
This speakers attitude is not at all invalid! He is talking about patent trolls, not legitimate patent holders going to court, but bogus patent trolls. Thus the title of the presentation, and hell he even mentions it in the very opening. Totally TED-Worthy.
To the guy who commented "That's Capitalism for ya"
No, it is actually the antithesis of it. Capitalism is simply the assertion that the Owner of a value(product, service, or self) is the sole authority over transfer of ownership.
Patent trolling is the opposite, it is an attempt to steal the value of your product or service through corruption of a system that was intended to protect it.
to add on top of that: in 100% capitalism, you had no patents. Patents are monopolies guaranteed by the government.
Ideally, patents would be very temporary. Long enough to be conducive to innovation but short enough to not stifle upstarts.
Capitalism should be about a fair and level playing field free from predatory practice
I think it means "thank you for listening to me speak my piece about this thing."
I would argue that it isn't the patent system that is at fault. The reason the burden of proof is reversed is to ensure large corporations do not use their sway to take advantage of small companies and individuals from having their patents infringed.
The REAL issue is the attorneys that push these lawsuits as well as the scammers that exploit the system. I would target that area. Money grubbing lawyers increase costs across the board for frivilous lawsuits.
Best Ted Talk in a long time
“My offer is this, nothing.” Make al pachino play Drew in the film version of this story
I like the cut of this guy's jib. I hope he crushes paten trolls mercilessly
So basically... he didn't infringe, lost $2M fighting this, then settled for $0? Surely he should have settle for *negative* $2M, then he would have broken even.
IP law is one of my modules, it's great to see light given upon this. Vexatious claims are ridiculous sometimes
Reminds me of the Edge guy, Tim Langdell. He sued everything that had "Edge" in its name. I really hope our patent system finally gets reformed because these guys and the internet in general has really broken it.
man, i love this guy
Love the ending
fight infringement
no money, and want to fight. make it difficult to recovery.
draw it out make it very difficult to collect.
don't negotiate.
Don’t negotiate with terrorists “or psychopaths”!
That was amazing. Congrats
The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible" by University of Hawaii Economist Ken Schooland has an excellent chapter on patent trolls.
Guy that looks like Jack Bauer, fights against all odds, and wins. And says "Dont negotiate with terrorists"
WIN
I think Apollo Computer and Domain Workstations built the first touchpad in the early 80's... must have been around the time the Lisa came to market. The touchpad was integrated into their keyboards, either to the left or the right, and they worked together to incorporate one of the preliminary GUI systems. Microsoft manufacturers made a touchpad in '95 and integrated it into their first laptops. Never became popular either. Apple was working on a tablet and made a prototype in 1999.
could one solution to the patent system be that anyone who has a patent for a certain idea has to show proof of useing/producing it
Nick Boller That is actually a part of international patent law...but US law is different , so you need to brace!
@@aleksandar5323so could this be to promote and finance the patent system itself at the cost of innovation?
Drew curtis, please sue uniloc for stealing your patent
Curtis, mentions two important things here... Trolls and, gooseberries... but no mention of the small puddle, the pond, or the ocean. Still, the water pools.
Well, I don't know if you're speaking about a specific lawsuit in mind or not; the California court order was on UI for inertial scrolling and multi-touch gestures and document viewing... Samsung never paid royalty fees for these. And rounded corners isn't something natural exactly... it's obviously a copied design from the success of the iPhone. Google still thinks the patent is about geometry. As it stands though, the entire patent system infrastructure is dysfunctional and is rendering silly.
Yes, the numbers change, but so do the things described. Read the text, too.
He's wrong about one major point - under patent law, it is the Plaintiff, not the Defendant, who has burden of proving infringement. He told this crowd that the Defendant has the burden of proof to disprove infringement, which is plain wrong.
This is fantastic!
One could spam around the settlement terms before signing the NDA.
I think he misstates the law. For patent infringement, the burden of proof rests on the plaintiff to prove by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant infringed the patent.
To prove that the patent was invalid (wrongfully issued by the USPTO), the burden rests on the defendant.
This makes me think of the whole "Conjopi" issue with false flagging for popular LPers on TH-cam in the summer of 2010.
Isn't it just amazing?
Everyone NEEDS to think about that.
in modern society basic needs are provided by money> inventing something is a way to make money> protecting invention requires a patent. complexity is not stupidity. and simplicity is not necessarily wisdom.
Adam Carolla is fighting the good fight against patent trolls. Like to keep this link up to the patent troll legal fund. fundanything.com/en/campaigns/patenttroll
mydna18shark Liked. Everyone else please do the same!
We need to go deeper.
The solution is to finally change this freaking mad economic system of consumption and competition!
What you are basicly saying, is that, the state should be allowed to use force, on private individuals, to defend thoughts, ideas, and certain actions. What I feel, is totally irrelevant to what I'd do to defend my own ideas. If I make a new type of mobile phone, and have government backing to exclusively produce that type of phone, what I am essentially doing is barring every other individual's attempt to better my potentially flawed product. And if economic freedom is the goal, this is wrong.
patents, the destroyer of creativity and creation.
Presumably because when its working properly its meant to protect small one man inventors and small companies from having there patents infringed by large corporations. If the burden of proof was the other way round small patent owners would never be able to protect there inventions unless they were already rich.
he is trolling them back making his own patent for patent infringement
Uh, look into this:
burden of proof of infringement rests with plaintiff,
burden of proof of the patent's invalidity rests with defendant.
That may be why later in the talk he advised to focus on infringement, not on attacking the patent's validity.
#ThisCommentDoesNotConstitueLegalAdviceSoConsultYourAttorney
I laugh when I hear things like, "well, when patents are working properly..." The fact we have to make the distinction between working and not working really means... it's NOT working. Like holding rabbit ears over an old television and saying "my TV works, you just have to position the antenna just right." Time for a new model if you ask me. Patents have good intentions, but ultimately fail. The problem is rooted more deeply than simple legislation. It's the market system that's the problem.
"Patent troll? YOU GET NOTHING!"
I took out a patent on the idea of taking a patent on emerging technologies and using that to sue.
Samsung bought over 17000 patents, the only thing apple was trying to sue was rounded corners something that is natural and they have no right to sue over.
I tried giving this two thumbs up but youtube actually sneered at me :(
I found out you can give 2thumbs up , don't click on the main thumb first click on the replies then click the thumbs up in the replies then go back and click on the first main thumbs up that works most of the time but not all the time good luck .
it's when the video starts.
"You have to prove that you do not infringe on the patent they're suing you on." WTH!? Guilty until proven innocent? That's dumb.
A simple solution is that if you own a patent, you must have a running business that is making use of the product or idea that you have patented.
That way, these patent trolls, and many other ridiculous unused patents will become void and invalid,
and the only patents will be given to products and ideas that are being manufactured or used by a company or business.
Drew Curtis for World President
$2 million is pretty expensive when you consider that a baseball bat & a balaclava will run you less than $100.
Throw in another hundy or so for transport costs & start at the bottom of the companies org chart & work your way up.
Lew Grossman said that... "Tropic Thunder". :D
If you are a private citizen who created and patented a great product then how would you defend yourself from huge corporations violating your patent?
It's like saying someone patented the right to project your voice through mechanical means. Which means they patented the idea of the telephone. The medium is so widespread the idea of patenting it is not really sincere.
I want to know what techniques they used to annoy the trolls. I bet that is a fun story.
Actually, the burden of proof of infringement is on the patent owner.
*mentioned
How so? I've never actually heard of them doing something like this.
i see jack bauer giveing speech
i wanna be a patent troll
Nope. I studied patent law extensively in my collegiate years... Samsung never paid royalty fees for the patents from Apple; you can argue the classic rounded corners phrase, but there's no shortcoming or doubt that Samsung violates multiple Apple patents in iOS mainframe. I'm not going to defend Apple, but they invented and felt like they should protect their creation using standardized patents, so there could be competition in the industry, but as few "copycats" as possible.
If there was a law that said that Goliath 1 could sue Goliath 2, but that David could seek protection from the courts on the grounds that his earnings are less than 1% of Apples gross annual earnings, that would be an improvement in the state of things. Who cares whether Apple and Samsung clash. They have billions of dollars. Let them clash.
If a patent troll sucks in 5 mill a year from companies with grosses of 20+ million, fine. If the patent trolls gross 10 million a year by going after 20+ small companies who gross less than a million each, that's predatory, vexatious, unacceptable. The practice of enforcing patents as a primary source (more than 10% of your gross revenue) should brand you "unfit" to stand before the courts seeking protection for your business activities, which are nonexistant. If your business is to be a vexatious litigant, the court should relieve you of your business.
The very fact that the courts in Texas are considered "friendly" to the patent "racket", is all you need to know about the future of America. It's hopeless. The republicans and their base like it this way. The rights and freedoms that Americans died for? Those go to the republican backing corporate racketeers.
This just goes to show patent infringement should not exist. Don't stop humanity from using brilliant ideas, stop trolls instead.
Minus one for the patent infringement lawyers.
Patents are not necessarily bad; it's the abuse of the patent system that's bad.
Legend.
Sooo, is this the entertainment aspect of TED?
As soon as he used the word terrorist, he lost it for me.
Different time scale, and economic damages vs physical damages.
im pretty sure that those were per-year numbers
Patents protect inventors and producers from having their ideas stolen. If anyone could just copy everything someone else is doing you would have no brands and no companies producing high quality products because it simply wouldn't make sense to do it.
That doesn’t mean you use these nobel laws to extort people.
IP Europe chief denounces
‘patent troll myth’
The head of a corporate alliance that includes Nokia and Ericsson has urged the EU to ignore the so-called ‘patent troll myth', which he said has “little basis in fact”.In a letter to The Financial Times, published today, January 21, IP Europe executive secretary Francisco Mingorance said that the narrative of abusive litigation by ‘patent trolls’ was a “calculated attempt to create a false rationale for weakening the patent protections of technology innovators in Europe”.
The problem with this speaker'a attitude is that he proposes to treat all infringement claims as frivolous without reference to the merits. That might have been appropriate in this case but it won't be so for all. His attitude reflects that of many executives who think that all claims filed against their firms are frivolous. This attitude is as much to blame for the inflated cost of litigation as are plaintiff attorneys and patent trolls who file truly frivolous lawsuits. Not TED-worthy.
... and create a way to fight back that should make the whole subject moot.
After the expense, damage to reputation, distraction from business activity. How about a 5 year moratorium on patent suits, even 6 months would spark a new economy!
41 people are patent trolls
Don't get me wrong, I'm just stating my opinion about what I think is wrong about it. I'm merely determining the problems I see today, so we can change tomorrow. It's not about getting payed to do something. For instance, I play in a band, as a hobby, and as much as I'd like to only live off of that, it is very unlikely. But i'm still going to produce songs, for myself regardless. The world doesn't automatically become a barren and cold place, just because there is no money involved.
MAN, ECONOMY, AND STATE by Murray Rothbard
Ch. 10 - MONOPOLY AND COMPETITION
7. Patents and Copyrights
patents = goverment granted monopoly privilege
"...Patents prevent a man from using his invention even though all the property is his and he has not stolen the invention, either explicitly or implicitly, from the first inventor.
Patents, therefore, are grants of exclusive monopoly privilege by the State and are invasive of property rights on the market."
yup
The problem is, that no one really knows what the clear definition of patenting is. Which is why countries have different laws about it. And that is also why, there is no limit to the power of patenting. Patenting, which is designed to allegedly protect the intellectual property of other people, violates the very principle of economic freedom. Patenting is state-protectionism, under the guise of "protecting property". The very idea that you can own an "idea", is fascistic.
Oh, right, the internet ...that reality.
i always get those mixed up :/
I love that spirit way to.
I think Notch saw this.
It is commercial law
What's with the number change between 5:31 and 5:33?
Well maybe that's how it works in the States, but that sure doesn't sound like Ireland to me. Maybe I'm wrong though.
How can you patent anything on the internet, considering it's not really a product?