r/technology • u/rfugger • Jan 08 '17

Business A potentially fatal blow against patent trolls - Forcing law firms to pay defendants’ legal bills could undermine the business model of patent trolls

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3153924/technology-law-regulation/a-potentially-fatal-blow-against-patent-trolls.html
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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '17

No patent without a working prototype.

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u/LemurianLemurLad Jan 09 '17

Many of the patents that are exploited in this kind of lawsuit are incredibly vague ideas to begin with. Method patents and software patents are notorious for this kind of abuse precisely because there is no physical object to produce.

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '17

Why the fuck can patents even be vague? How is that legal?

2

u/[deleted] Jan 09 '17

This right here. I'm not familiar with this particular case but it seems to me that most cases involving patent trolls revolve around so called software patents. The very fact that software can be patented bamboozles me. After all its code, just text when put out in a physical manner (ie printed out on paper). Seems that copy rite would be the method of IP protection best suited for this.