A new target for tech patent trolls: cash-strapped American cities

&#62;"The government can't just take property from someone, they have to pay for it."<p>This made me laugh pretty hard.<p>Licensing a "concept" is ridiculous and I don't know how people can get away with it. Suppose we came up with a very abstract definition of what constitutes a table, and the next time a company wants to design one they owe the inventor of the table a fee. Would that put it in perspective just how ridiculous patent trolls are?<p>Arrival star made a device that keeps track of schedules. I can understand patenting their specific hardware, designs, etc..., but how can they claim that they invented the concept of scheduling, let alone that it is so unique that they are able to mark it as theirs?<p>Hey, Arrival Star, it's called competition. If someone makes a similar device (without "stealing" your exact designs), don't cry about it. You need to one-up them or find a cheaper way to do it.

I think there are 2 underlying problems here: 1) the patent troll; and 2) the high cost of litigation. We focus on #1 here, but not much on #2. If it was easy (cheap) to defend oneself, more people would do so. If the amount he's asking for is significantly lower than the cost of defense, it makes fiscal sense to just pay him to go away.<p>Unfortunately, I think more and more people are going to be suing entities with Deep Pockets like this in the future, as it becomes a viable business model.<p>The only solution is to counter-sue and drive up the legal costs on the other side.

&#62; <i>ArrivalStar and Jones are making a direct play for taxpayer money, something that most patent trolls have avoided until now.</i><p>Surely, surely, this must provoke change? Now it's directly affecting tax payers people won't stand for it?<p>A "find prior art for this patent" website, with various gamification style badges and points could be insanely popular. Especially if it was accessible in small chunks on smartphones (so people could do 5 minutes of noodling while on a bus for example) and it had Facebook integration.<p>EDIT:<p>&#62; <i>ArrivalStar has even taken the bold step of suing the US Postal Service</i><p>You don't fuck with the postal service.<p>Last edit:<p>The patent (I think)<p>(<a href="http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&#38;Sect2=HITOFF&#38;p=1&#38;u=/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html&#38;r=1&#38;f=G&#38;l=50&#38;d=PALL&#38;RefSrch=yes&#38;Query=PN/6714859" rel="nofollow">http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&#38;Sec...</a>)

Hallelujah. Once mayor offices have trouble funding their campaign promises because of shit like this, they'll start complaining about it to their governors and federal representatives... who, being in the same fundamental profession, will actually listen.

I kind of like this idea. If anything is going to motivate the political class to change things it's going to be when it finds itself on the receiving end of the problem.

&#62; "The government can't just take property from someone, they have to pay for it."<p>US states have some special rights wrt US patents. Cities, as creatures of states, share those rights.

<i>"The government can't just take property from someone, and if they do, they have to pay for it," said Dowell. "Just because an entity is funded with taxpayer dollars doesn't give them the right to steal property. My client now owns 34 patents that are being infringed, and what else is he to do?"</i><p>You cannot support patents and at the same time tell us, with a straight face, that somehow it is still for the common good.<p>Pirates are accused of stealing for the way they handle IP--what mental gymnastics are folks willing to go through to condemn this while condoning that?

I laughed when I read this: "The government can't just take property from someone, and if they do, they have to pay for it," said Dowell. "Just because an entity is funded with taxpayer dollars doesn't give them the right to steal property."<p>It all sounds so nice, unfortunately they fail to mention <i>who</i> sets the price -- which is: the government. In many cases, if you look how they treated people in Texas while building the Mexico-Canada corridor, they were offered prices that anyone in sound mind would straightforwardly call "stealing".

wouldn't that be an easy prior art win?