Technology Liberation Front - Latest Comments in Lichtman on Patent Holdouts and Safety in Numbers

Re: Lichtman on Patent Holdouts and Safety in Numbers

Steve_R — Fri, 19 May 2006 16:44:55 -0000

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (May 18, 2006) had this quote from Justice Kennedy's on the Ebay lawsuit.

"An industry has developed in which firms use patents not as a basis for producing and selling goods but, instead, primarily for obtaining licensing fees. . . . For these firms, an injunction, and the potentially serious sanctions arising from its violation, can be employed as a bargaining tool to charge exorbitant fees to companies that seek to buy licenses to practice the patent."

Re: Lichtman on Patent Holdouts and Safety in Numbers

Tim — Thu, 18 May 2006 17:14:56 -0000

Ah, but the judge didn't shut down BlackBerry. And I suspect that--outrageous as the final settlement was--it would have been much higher if NTP really believed it had the capacity to do so.

Indeed, I suspect the size of the award was based largely on the judge's perception that RIM had acted in bad faith during previous phases of litigation. I remember reading accounts of the judge being exasperated by the subbornness demonstrated by both sides. I think the ultimate constraint on these sorts of awards is the patience of the judge(s) who would be issuing the injunction.

Re: Lichtman on Patent Holdouts and Safety in Numbers

Luis — Thu, 18 May 2006 08:53:49 -0000

The contention that no judge would stop the sales of all DVD players seems overly optimistic to me, given that it was exactly the threat of an injunction to stop operation that forced Blackberry to kowtow, despite the federal government saying that a blackberry outage would threaten the ability of the government to function- something they'd never say about DVD player sales.

Otherwise, mostly a very solid-looking analysis.