Respectfully Mel, the patent with Blackbird may well have been that - my reading of the past case agrees with yours for the most part - but the current case is Sable Networks suing Cloudflare over a patent involving routers. Given the patent involved and the choice of Cloudflare as a target, this well could snowball into a situation where ANYONE using a router would be considered to be infringing, and I submit that such a broad possible hit against the operator community in general is most certainly a danger that operators should be aware of, and if possible assist with defeating.
I'm well aware you said you were folding, but I think you were accidentally looking at only the original case from a couple of years ago, not the current case that is what brought this up - which is why a number of us feel it meets the letter of the rules, as well as the spirit. George On Wed, Apr 28, 2021 at 2:26 PM Mel Beckman <m...@beckman.org> wrote: > > Bill, > > Blackbird chooses its victims based on whether any of a couple dozen vague > patents they hold can plausibly be used to extort money out of a victim > company. BB doesn’t go after service providers in particular, it just happens > to have chosen a service provider (unwisely, it turns out) in this case. > > There are no operational issues here. No individual Internet protocol or > technology “many of us use” was named. The patent was invalid on its face, > as it only described an abstract idea — “Providing an internet third party > data channel” — in the most general terms possible, not as an invention, as > required by U.S. patent law. > > The only difference between Cloudfare and BB’s other victims was that, rather > than compute the instant cost-benefit analysis most companies do (“It will > cost us tens of thousands to fight this, but only a few thousand to settle” > ), Cloudfare valiantly chose to stand on principle, rather than mathematics, > and fought the claim. By that simple act, the case by BB was thrown out > virtually instantaneously. > > Judge Vince Chhabria held that “abstract ideas are not patentable” and > Blackbird’s assertion of the patent “attempts to monopolize the abstract idea > of monitoring a preexisting data stream between a server and a client” was > not an invention. The case was rejected before it started because the court > found Blackbird’s patent to be invalid. > > The choice to fold or fight in a patent troll battle is clearly a > philosophical one, not a network operational decision. Now, rather than > lengthen this out-of-policy thread further, I will take the non-valiant > “fold” path, and leave the rest of you to your perpetual arguments. > > -mel > > On Apr 28, 2021, at 10:41 AM, William Herrin <b...@herrin.us> wrote: > > On Wed, Apr 28, 2021 at 10:20 AM Mel Beckman <m...@beckman.org> wrote: > > This dispute is no different than if they had gotten into an argument > > over a copier toner scammer. > > > Hi Mel, > > If the patents at issue pertained to copier toner I might agree with > you. They're networking patents purporting to govern technologies many > if not most of us use. > > Regards, > Bill Herrin > > > -- > William Herrin > b...@herrin.us > https://bill.herrin.us/
