That seriously needs to be one of the first patent reforms implemented here in the US: If you aren't actually using a patent, you can't sue anyone over it. Then gradually extend that to where, if you don't use a patent within a period of time (say 2-years) it is considered abandoned and put in the public domain. You have to actually be selling some kind of good or service that uses the particular patent to be able to sue anyone over it, and if they "infringed" upon the patent before you started selling anything that uses it, too bad, it's considered two entities arriving at the same conclusion independently of one another.

None of which will do anything to harm patent enforcement for companies actually making and selling products/services that make use of their patents. If anything, it'll help unclog the courts so when they have a legitimate case to bring, it'll get heard and resolved faster. And as a side note, I can barely think of a worse job than being a judge who has to sit and listen to these kinds of cases all day, every day. You can't just tune out either, you have to be actively engaged for when one side's lawyer objects to something the other side's lawyer said. That just seems utterly exhausting. Like dealing with bickering adult toddlers all day long.

It can take much longer than that to get from "I have this great idea" to something that is commercial exploitable.

However, it should be possible to show that you are working towards exploitation.

I'm not totally against the idea of allowing "we're working on something" to qualify, but it would have to include some kind of regular check-ins. You can't just say, "Oh, we're working on Project X" and then the next day scrap the whole thing, while continuing to sue someone for infringing upon your patents. Otherwise, you just have large companies who can afford to have a few staffers working on projects that are never really intended to be developed into an actual product. Sort of like how in Hollywood, in order to maintain the rights for a particular movie franchise, they'll pay someone to slap together a real low budget film in like a week. The kind that no one other than the director will likely ever see, but studios can keep around to hold up and say, "See, we were using the IP!"

You'd have to continually show that not only are you working towards something, but have an expected release date.

2 years may be a little too far the other way, but 25 years is far too long for a patent.

If all software patents were to be reduced to 10 years, it would solve a lot of problems. The tech development cycle has accelerated since the patent system was conceived (and frankly the whole system is broken) so I would welcome a gradual reduction in patent life until eventually lawyers and corporate-spies reach a new equilibrium.

So almost twenty years of operation and NOW Nokia has a problem?

Hmmmmm...

Of course, that does not mean reddit was then what it is now, but the timing is obviously a money grab.

Frankly, what did you think patents are for? Their only purpose is to collect money - either by licensing to others or preventing competition to use it.

Earlier it would not have been worth it to start a case if there was no money to be had so it is possible they have been monitoring the situation.

That said, software patents are ridiculous, patents are not meant to prevent ideas to be shared but implementation, yet they are too vague and too broad and used in all the wrong ways. Software is mainly an application of mathematics and shares many concepts with it, one being that there are only so many ways to implement algorithm to get a correct result. So software patents should not be given as easily as they are currently being given. Copyright legislation already has sufficient rights protection for software.

The purpose of patents is to allow the inventor to make money from it during an exclusive period by selling a product based on it, preventing others from creating a product during that time, thus encouraging innovation because inventors were assured that no one else could just undercut them on price during that time, and then after that exclusive period the invention became public and could be used by anyone and benefit everyone at a lower cost. Licensing or selling the patent is a way to allow an inventor to get the product produced without having to actually be responsible for the process (many inventors are, one could say, less than competent in other fields, like business or finance, and just want to create, but they also need to eat). This is a different thing than simply "their only purpose is to collect money". Corporations have perverted and corrupted the system, like pretty much everything else they touch, including copyright.

We don't have details of the dispute. The alleged infringement can be about much more recent patent than something invented two decades ago.

Until we hear more about the intricacies in this case, deeming this an "obvious money grab" is showing some lack of forte in the logic department.

We don't have details of the dispute. The alleged infringement can be about much more recent patent than something invented two decades ago.

Presumably the patent would have to pre-date Reddit, or whatever Reddit is doing to allegedly infringe it. Then again, it could be related to something recent like Reddit's announcement that it'll do disguised ad posts. I guess that's one of those things that could be reformed though, ie a time limit from when infringement started to claimining infringement, not waiting to exploit a potential IPO payday.

Do you know what patent they have infringed?

It could be 12 months old for you know and related to something completely hidden from the end user (think possible load balancing or how it sends an alert out).

Just because Ford have been around a century or so, doesn't mean a patient has to be a hundred and fifty years old to infringe it.