Red Hat Settles Patent Case 76
darthcamaro writes "Red Hat has settled another patent case with patent holding firm Acacia. This time the patent is US Patent #6,163,776, 'System and method for exchanging data and commands between an object oriented system and relational system.' While it's great that Red Hat has ended this particular patent threat, it's not yet clear how they've settled this case. The last time Red Hat tangled with Acacia they won in an Texas jury trial. 'Red Hat routinely addresses attempts to impede the innovative forces of open source via allegations of patent infringement,' Red Hat said in a statement. 'We can confirm that Red Hat, Inc and Software Tree LLC have settled patent litigation that was pending in federal court in the Eastern District of Texas.'"
they caved and paid (Score:2, Informative)
It's obvious how this was settled... (Score:4, Funny)
Lock and Load.
Ah (Score:1, Flamebait)
"Eastern District of Texas". Need one say more?
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Must someone make that same dumb observation every time a patent story is posted to Slashdot?
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What's so dumb about it?
That you don't like that texas is the best place in the US for patent trolls?
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No it's like saying that there's something wrong with a particular banks security because it's the 5th most robbed bank in the country with robbers choosing it again and again and again.
What have drug dealers to do with anything?
Settlements (Score:3, Insightful)
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Probably Red Hat gets a perpetual free license and Acacia does not get their patent tested so they can pursue targets with fewer resources to protect themselves.
I find that outcome unlikely unless red hat found something to threaten them with. For a patent troll giving someone a free license with no court results is tantamount to defeat, they either want licensing revenue or a court result giving them precident to file more suits.
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I find that outcome unlikely unless red hat found something to threaten them with
I just glanced at the patent and it looks like NeXT's Enterprise Object Framework (now owned by Apple and distributed with the XCode tools as part of the WebObjects optional install) implements precisely what the patent describes and did it about a decade before the patent was filed. EOF, in turn, was heavily inspired by stuff that Gemstone was doing in the '80s, based on earlier research at (as I recall) PARC.
There is absolutely no way that the patent should have been granted. It describes a technique
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Probably Red Hat gets a perpetual free license and Acacia does not get their patent tested so they can pursue targets with fewer resources to protect themselves.
Nope. If for some reason Software Tree thought that Red Hat would be able to get the patent invalidated, Software Tree would simply withdraw the suit. There would not be any kind of settlement.
Consider the fact that IBM has licensed this patent from Software Tree, and Oracle has settled last year when Software Tree sued them, and it is much more likely Red Hat decided that either they would not win, or the cost of litigation would be more than the cost of a license.
add another layer (Score:1, Funny)
convert object data to foobar data
convert foobar data to relational data
fire lawyers.
profit
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CSV, dude!
Re:Let's talk about... (Score:4, Informative)
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But given that the case settled, there's little chance those judges had much to do with it. Also, the reputation is that the court is extremely plaintiff-favorable - so it would not simply be that the judges are well versed in patent law. The implication is prejudice.
The judge had plenty to do with it. A lot happens involving the judge before an actual trial occurs. In particular, the parties argue claims construction, and then the judge rules on the meaning of the claims. That ruling came down on June 1, 2010 in this case. You can get a copy of that ruling here [justia.com] if you are curious.
The claims construction ruling can be a major turning point in a patent case, as that is when the parties find out what they are actually dealing with. Cases can be won or lost on claims const
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The comment by arth1 [slashdot.org] sheds more light on the prejudice issue.
It didn't seem that formulation was a big deal this time. Do you think otherwise?
I've HAD it with East Texas (Score:4, Interesting)
that was pending in federal court in the Eastern District of Texas.'"
Enough is enough, with their cochamany legal antics and patent trolls.
I want to add a clause to the GPL forbidding use of software in the State of Texas, until they clear this up, and boycott the state -- with all software products, so Texas will not benefit from the software or technology until they clean up their act, and stop allowing 21st-century robbers to loot the treasuries of successful technlogy firms. Who's with me???
Re:I've HAD it with East Texas (Score:5, Informative)
The Eastern District of Texas is not the most patentee-favorable district in the country. Recent research by Mark Lemley [ssrn.com] found that it had the 6th highest patentee win rate of districts with a significant number of patent infringement cases. The Northern District of Texas, Middle District of Florida, District of Nevada, District of Delaware, and District of Oregon are all more favorable to the patentee.
The Texas Eastern patentee win rate was 40.3%, compared to a high of 55.1% in Texas Northern. The lowest rate was Georgia Northern at 11.5%. There's a wide range in win rates, and the rates are affected by a lot of factors.
Furthermore, blaming the Eastern District of Texas is a tremendous case of confusing correlation with causation. Litigants select Texas Eastern for a lot of reasons. For example, it's a fairly fast docket (though not the fastest), and the judges are experienced and have a reputation for not suffering fools gladly. Further, while the Federal Circuit controls patent law, there are lots of other issues that are based on 5th Circuit law, which may be attractive for various reasons.
Re:I've HAD it with East Texas (Score:5, Interesting)
That fails to take into account the selection bias. The filers aren't random, but get to select where to go, so the statistics are comparing apples to oranges.
Easter Texas attracts trolls, many of which will fail. The failure rate is higher in Eastern Texas than in, say, Oregon, because the failure risk for each individual case is lower, which attracts more trolls, many of which will fail.
Or, to put it another way, if you know you'll win the case no matter what court you go to, you don't gain anything by going to Eastern Texas. If you're unsure, and want to maximize your chances, you do. That doesn't make it a certainty that you'll win in Eastern Texas, just more likely than if filing elsewhere. Take the same case to, say, Oregon, and the risk of losing that case is lower, despite the overall statistics is higher there. Cause the Oregon statistics isn't for patent trolls, but people who feel confident enough that they'll win even in Oregon because they actually have a case.
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But, as I explained, that's not true. There are lots of advantages to Texas Eastern that apply to all kinds of patentees (e.g., the docket moves quickly and the judges are experienced).
For example, Ericsson [ericsson.com] and LG recently filed suits in Texas Eastern, and they're hardly examples of trolls.
Anyway, the courts have gotten wise to the abuse of venues like Texas Eastern b
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I want to add a clause to the GPL forbidding use of software in the State of Texas, until they clear this up, and boycott the state -- with all software products, so Texas will not benefit from the software or technology until they clean up their act, and stop allowing 21st-century robbers to loot the treasuries of successful technlogy firms. Who's with me???
Punish the whole of Texas because you dislike something happening in east Texas?
How about we boycott California because some asshole put ice in his snowballs.
Boycott New York because a bear attacked my uncle?
Sorry, uhh.. roll the music!
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Punish the whole of Texas because you dislike something happening in east Texas?
The point is not to punish Texas really, there is some collateral damage (which could also provide some pressure for residents there to reform or address the issue with the court), but the point is to avoid personal jurisdiction [wikipedia.org] within the district court located in the state of Texas.
A consequence of not distributing to or conducting business with anyone in the state of Texas, is the court lacks jurisdiction, therefore, ma
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I want to add a clause to the GPL forbidding use of software in the State of Texas
The GPL doesn't allow that.
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The GPL doesn't allow that.
The GPL has a clause that specifically does allow geographic restrictions to be added, if distribution and/or use of the program is restricted by patents or copyright interfaces.
This is not a problem. Invariably, something in the program will be patented in the US, protected by an "invalid" patent on obvious methods.
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>> I want to add a clause to the GPL forbidding use of software in the State of Texas
So, people like me who contribute to GPL software no longer get to help the cause. id Software, and a ton of other tech companies, will no longer supports Linux since they're headquartered in Texas. Meanwhile, the vast majority of Texans who are paying Microsoft for everything don't even notice.
Great plan. Ever think about getting the patent system changed instead?
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So, people like me who contribute to GPL software no longer get to help the cause.
Since the GPL cannot govern use of the software, or prevent you from transporting your copy of it you already have access to across state lines (as long as you are not redistributing it in doing so), you can still obtain and work on the software.
You just may need to take your laptop to a different state, download the source code, work on it.... travel out of state, upload, etc, etc...
How many clear cases of stifled innovation? (Score:4, Insightful)
How many clear cases of stifled innovation do we need before we have a major overhaul of copyright? Western government is traditionally quite good about their public attitude to corruption. However, if there's one area of corruption that is visible to Joe average and rampant it's IP law. You can't even make a toy model of a real aircraft or car without paying royalties. (As if this is what the manufacturer's first motivation is. What a joke!). Music and film royalties predominately go to middle men and both industries whine on and on about lost profit. Now we have a situation where coming up with a new idea isn't lucrative because you might just step into some obscure patent.It's become a game of which company can sue the other into oblivion. How is that suppose to encourage invention and innovation? Is it any wonder the western world's going backwards in these areas?
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How many clear cases of stifled innovation do we need before we have a major overhaul of copyright?
This was a patent case, not a copyright case. The two have very little to do with each other.
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How many clear cases of stifled innovation do we need before we have a major overhaul of copyright?
This was a patent case, not a copyright case. The two have very little to do with each other.
If you bother to read further I address patents too. Don't let that stop you from swooping down and labeling the whole post as trash though. Excellent troll.
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Where does he do that? Literally the only thing he said was: "This was a patent case, not a copyright case. The two have very little to do with each other.", which certainly seems to me to be an entirely factually correct (and rather polite by slashdot standards) correction.
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Correct if the issue at hand is hair splitting over what's really the issue.
Intellectual property being used as a weapon.
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Corporations still abuse them up the wazoo to stamp out competition from small fry that are too broke to defend themselves against a lawsuit.
It's just another weapon in SLAPP.
Red Hat Lost. You did too. (Score:2, Insightful)
Connect this with Red Hat's recent statement to the U.S. Patent Office [redhat.com] telling them to stop granting software patents, although the result in the Bilski case gives them no reason to do so.
Red Hat lost. They caved and paid for their own license, and everybody else has to negotiate separately.
It was obvious that if Acacia went after them again, they would not do so in a way that would allow the same outcome as their first case.
The sad thing about this is the way Red Hat has screwed the Open Source develope
Re:Red Hat Lost. You did too. (Score:5, Interesting)
Red Hat lost. They caved and paid for their own license, and everybody else has to negotiate separately.
Are you sure about that? JBoss is LGPL2.1, which contains a "liberty-or-death" clause regarding software patents. If someone got sued over distributing JBoss because of this patent, they could trivially go after Red Hat. I somehow doubt that this is the case here.
Re:Red Hat Lost. You did too. (Score:4, Informative)
Red Hat, as the copyright holder, is not held to the license terms regarding their own software. If they are not the copyright holder of a substantial part of jBoss, another copyright holder could sue them.
One would think that a feature of a commercial jBoss license is indemnification. Users under the Open Source license are on their own.
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Red Hat, as the copyright holder, is not held to the license terms regarding their own software. If they are not the copyright holder of a substantial part of jBoss, another copyright holder could sue them.
From looking at the code it seems that Red Hat does not hold the copyright to all parts of it. So you basically claim that Red Hat knowingly violates the copyright of others for fending of a patent suit? That's quite a strong statement, and I'd rather see proof for that.
If I was to speculate about the reason behind Red Hat's silence on the issue, I would assume that the settlement contains some NDA, so that people like you can do Acacia a favor and spread the FUD around.
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Yes, obviously the case is sealed. But that means that Red Hat accepted the seal as one of the terms of the settlement.
Re:Red Hat Lost. You did too. (Score:4, Insightful)
Why exactly should Red Hat be the ones forced to stick their neck out? It would be nice if they did, but they are under no obligation to do so and haven't "screwed" anyone. Perhaps you've forgotten that Red Hat is a huge contributor to the community in the form of code, unlike certain other popular distributions. They made their money on the backs of their employees.
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Well, they're the guys making the money. That's the main reason why.
Much as Red Hat has sponsored employees who make copious code contributions, they are not by any means more than a fractional developer of the system they vend. Even in the case of the kernel, one of the projects in which they participate most, they are only about a 15% contributor (11.8% for 2.6.35, similar numbers for each kernel version). It is very clear that Red Hat mostly benefits from outside developers.
The community, unfortunately
Re:Red Hat Lost. You did too. (Score:4, Insightful)
For the sake of comparison, here's some other companies making money off the Linux kernel that could easily fund the lobbying and publicity efforts: Google 1.2%, Nokia 2.5%, IBM 2.9%, and many others whose contributions were too small to measure, although I'm pretty sure it will be a cold day in hell before IBM lobbies to abolish software patents.
http://lwn.net/Articles/395961/
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The difference between these folks and Red Hat is that their business is not based on Open Source software entirely. Red Hat's is. And thus, I think there is little doubt that Red Hat should do what is right for Open Source. That said, I wish those folks would help us too.
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Here's the thing... Red Hat have long claimed to be against software patents and claim a special position when it comes to the business of open source. Yet they have a fairly significant portfolio of software patents, and of business method patents, both in the US and in Europe. Their business method patents tend to cover software distribution and support, thus they are aimed at potential rivals. Definitely not 'defensive'.
Red Hat will happily claim patents on standards they are participating in, as they
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With the greatest possible respect Bruce, how on earth do they do that successfully instead of just generating a lot of noise? Hitting your head against a solid wall may impress others but it does not bring the wall down.
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The "popular wisdom" is so confident that we'd fail that nobody with the money to back up the project has tried. This is self-defeating behavior.
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How can they lobby in such a way that they can change anything?
Making noise is not enough, it has to be noise that is listened to.
Personally I see software patents as an abomination that will drive software development out of countries with such stupid IP laws (ie. job losses), let alone the other problems which legislators won't even attempt to understand. I know that, you know that, RedHat knows that, but there's no point
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We convinced you that software patents are a problem. How did we do that? We presented evidence, and political discussion, and stories told by the people whose businesses were injured, etc.
Some of us understand how to tell that story to people who aren't in Slashdot's demographics. I could do it, if I had the support to do so, and Red Hat could do it with any number of evangelists other than me. But this is not something I can do out of my pocket.
Trying again, more simply (Score:2)
That is the question I am trying to ask here.
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Nice headline (Score:1)
attempts to impede the innovative forces of open source
Thanks, I want to throw up now.
This was not a patent troll case (Score:2)
A lot of people seem to be overlooking something. Software Tree Inc is an established company that has been selling products based on their patent for a long time. Software Tree LLC is a subsidiary of Acacia that is handling licensing and enforcement of Software Tree's patent for Software Tree. Sure, Acacia also does patent troll cases (acquiring patents that aren't being used and then suing people), but that's not all they do.
One may argue that there should not be software patents in the first place, but g
Ended!? (Score:2, Insightful)
Prior art not considered (Score:5, Informative)
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This sounded like one of the most interesting comment in that thread. It's probably too late...
Feel free to contact LWN.net (they might probably write something on the topic).
Prior art is publication (Score:2)
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Patent should never have been awarded (Score:1)