Cloudflare beats patent troll so badly it basically gives up
- Reference: 1727997006
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/10/03/patent_shakedown_fails_as_troll/
- Source link:
That’s a term for an individual or organization that exists solely to makes patent infringement claims in the hope of winning a settlement from defendants concerned about costly patent litigation.
"Sable sued Cloudflare back in March 2021," wrote Emily Terrell and Patrick Nemeroff, respectively Cloudflare’s senior counsel for litigation and senior associate general counsel, in a [1]write-up Wednesday.
[2]
"Sable is a patent troll. It doesn’t make, develop, innovate, or sell anything. Sable IP is merely a shell entity formed to monetize (make money from) an ancient patent portfolio acquired by Sable Networks from Caspian Networks in 2006."
[3]
[4]
Patent trolls have vexed the technology industry for years, sometimes even drawing regulatory responses as happened over a decade ago when opportunistic litigants focused on patents pertinent to the emerging smartphone market. The Obama administration responded by issuing a set of [5]executive actions to curb abuses.
Lately, these patent profiteers have targeted the open source community. The Cloud Native Computing Foundation and Linux Foundation last month [6]strengthened ties with United Patents, a company focused on defending against predatory patent claims.
[7]
Five other companies that we know of sued by Sable – Cisco, Fortinet, Check Point, SonicWall, and Juniper Networks – settled out of court. Splunk, meanwhile, fought back and managed last year to convince Sable [8]to dismiss its claim against the operation prior to its [9]takeover by, funnily enough, Cisco.
Internet services giant Cloudflare has notched up an even greater victory. Facing an initial infringement lawsuit regarding around a hundred claims related to four patents, the corporation ended up having to deal with just a single patent violation claim.
[10]Latest in WordPress war: Automattic says it wanted 8% cut of WP Engine revenue
[11]John Deere accused of being full of manure with its right-to-repair promises
[12]Sensitive data on 61K+ patients accessed in Alabama hospital cyberattack
[13]Google expands visual, audio search, lets AI handle layout
In February, [14]Cloudflare prevailed when a Texas jury found it did not infringe Sable's "micro-flow label switching" [15]patent .
The biz both convinced the jury that it did not use the "micro-flow" technology described in the US patent 7,012,919 and that the patent was invalid because of prior art.
The existence of two earlier US patents, [16]6,584,071 and [17]6,680,933 for router technology developed by Nortel Networks and Lucent in the 1990s convinced the jury that Sable's '919 patent should never have been granted.
[18]
The matter also saw Sable pledge not to pursue further actions of this sort.
"In the end, Sable agreed to pay Cloudflare $225,000, grant Cloudflare a royalty-free license to its entire patent portfolio, and to dedicate its patents to the public, ensuring that Sable can never again assert them against another company," said Terrell and Nemeroff.
The agreement means that Sable will tell the US Patent and Trademark Office that it is abandoning its patent rights and no further claims based on those patents will be possible.
The Register called Sable’s listed phone number, and it is no longer in service. The company's website is unresponsive and an attorney for the firm did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Terrell and Nemeroff said that prior art submissions for the [19]Sable case related to Project Jengo, a crowd-sourced patent invalidation initiative, will be accepted until November 2, 2024. At some point thereafter, Cloudflare, which has already given out $70,000 in awards for the case, will select final award winners.
"We're proud of our work fighting patent trolls and believe that the outcome in this case sends a strong message that Cloudflare will fight back against meritless patent cases and we will win," a spokesperson for Cloudflare told The Register . ®
Get our [20]Tech Resources
[1] https://blog.cloudflare.com/patent-troll-sable-pays-up/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Zv9oZ4p0bT2mC0zlRIclugAAAFI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Zv9oZ4p0bT2mC0zlRIclugAAAFI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Zv9oZ4p0bT2mC0zlRIclugAAAFI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2013/06/04/fact-sheet-white-house-task-force-high-tech-patent-issues
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/18/open_source_orgs_strengthen_alliance/
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Zv9oZ4p0bT2mC0zlRIclugAAAFI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.splunk.com/en_us/blog/leadership/splunk-defeats-non-practicing-entities-in-three-patent-cases.html
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/19/cisco_closes_splunk_acquisition/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/02/automattic_wp_engine_wordpress_license/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/03/john_deere_repair_restrictions_warren/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/03/alabama_hospital_cyberattack/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/03/google_expands_visual_audio_search/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/12/cloudflare_patent_troll/
[15] https://patents.google.com/patent/US7012919B1/en
[16] https://patents.google.com/patent/US6584071B1/en?oq=6584071
[17] https://patents.google.com/patent/US6680933B1/en?oq=6680933
[18] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Zv9oZ4p0bT2mC0zlRIclugAAAFI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[19] https://www.cloudflare.com/jengo/sable-rules/
[20] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
It depends on your definition
Patent Troll:
El Reg: a term for an individual or organization that exists solely to makes patent infringement claims in the hope of winning a settlement from defendants concerned about costly patent litigation.
Cloudflare: [Sable IP] doesn’t make, develop, innovate, or sell anything. Sable IP is merely a shell entity formed to monetize (make money from) an ancient patent portfolio acquired by Sable Networks from Caspian Networks in 2006."
Many companies want to monetize their IP. If it's not of use in their technical strategy, they also have the right to sell it, and the new owner can monetize it as they wish.
The red line is where the IP owner is suppressing progress with unreasonable claims or licensing fees. And only a court can rule on that, as the USPTO don't exactly help.
Re: It depends on your definition
They don't have to directly use the patent in order to make money off it.
Step 1: buy some real patents.
Step 2: Find someone who wants to build something using the IP.
Step 3: Sell them a license or negotiate an outright sale of the patent.
Did these guys do that? I'm guessing not. This suggests that they couldn't. In principle, you're correct that maybe one of those patents was valid and they have an actual infringement case. I can't disprove that just because they never used it or allowed others to. However, I consider it reasonable to doubt them when they don't offer such a thing, and the outcome in court is further reason to believe that they did not hold any justified patents.
Suer in the sewer
Finally some good news
in a week month year half-decade that could use it.
This is great! Glad to see it.
But IMO… Suing over patents is not the problem. If I invented a better mousetrap, damn skippy I’d want to be able to sue people stealing my design.
The problem is that all of these patents are total garbage. It needs to be way harder to get them, and way easier to get them invalidated.
Let us slightly rephrase this issue
From TFA:
Five other companies that we know of sued by Sable – Cisco, Fortinet, Check Point, SonicWall, and Juniper Networks – settled out of court.
Five other companies that we know of sued by Sable – Cisco, Fortinet, Check Point, SonicWall, and Juniper Networks – provided sufficient investment funds for someone to retire on
Re: Let us slightly rephrase this issue
One of the possibilities that has happened before is the early targets pay the troll a start up fee in return for a cut of later settlements from the target's competitors.
Hooray! That's what I like to see.