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Patents IT Technology

Cloudflare Defeats Patent Troll (cloudflare.com) 63

Posted by msmash from the major-victory dept.
Cloudflare has emerged victorious in a patent infringement lawsuit against Sable Networks, securing a $225,000 settlement and forcing the patent holder to dedicate its entire portfolio to the public domain. The case, which began in March 2021 with Sable asserting nearly 100 claims across four patents, concluded after a Texas jury found Cloudflare not guilty of infringement in February 2024.

Sable, described by Cloudflare as a "patent troll," had previously sued several tech companies, including Cisco and Juniper Networks, who settled out of court. Cloudflare's aggressive defense strategy included launching Project Jengo, a crowd-sourced initiative to invalidate Sable's patents. The settlement prevents Sable from asserting these patents against any other company in the future, marking a significant blow to patent trolling practices in the tech industry. In a blog post, Cloudflare adds: While this $225,000 can't fully compensate us for the time, energy and frustration of having to deal with this litigation for nearly three years, it does help to even the score a bit. And we hope that it sends an important message to patent trolls everywhere to beware before taking on Cloudflare.
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Cloudflare Defeats Patent Troll More

Cloudflare Defeats Patent Troll

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  • Well done, Cloudflare! (Score:5, Informative)

    by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Friday October 04, 2024 @08:06AM (#64839145)
    If only this kind of thing were more commonplace. We need collective solidarity against arseholes.

    • and they still had to pay more then $225,000 for legal bills

      • Patent trolling & rent-seeking have become commonplace business models in the USA & elsewhere. These are issues that fundamentally affect everyone, stifle cultural & economic development, & increase the cost of living for everyone while rewarding an exploitative few. Rule of law is supposed to be about what is fair & just & for the good of all, not a minority of opportunists.

        Dichotomy: Do you wanna live in a fair & just society or do you wanna be exploited?

        • Re:and they still had to pay more then $225,000 fo (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Archangel Michael ( 180766 ) on Friday October 04, 2024 @09:46AM (#64839373) Journal

          I want to live in a fair and just society. The problem is my idea of fair and just and yours may not and probably aren't the same.

          The problem is, we want to protect the "minority" with the rule of law (tyranny of the majority) , but that same rule of law can be abused by the very people it is supposed to protect (tyranny of the minority).

          The only person that can prevent you (me/us) from being exploited is you (me/us). The government isn't going to do this. There are whole YouTube channels dedicated to the abuses of government that do not know the laws that constrain it.

          • It isn't tyranny when a minority gets civil & human rights protections, no matter how much the supremacist people on the telly tell you it is.

            • THE smallest minority is the individual. Any single right that does not apply to each individual isn't really a right, and is in fact, a form of tyranny. Human rights apply to all humans.

              Filed under: "All animals are equal, some animals are more equal than others" - George Orwell, Animal Farm

      • cloudflare spent 3 or 4 times that

        • That is probably correct. However the true cost savings is passed on to the rest of us.

          While it seems like it is cheaper to settle, it really isn't. It is cheaper, almost always, to fight the trolls, but most of those savings are found elsewhere. See IBM vs SCO for a fine example of fighting to win costing a lot, but being cheaper in the end.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by sconeu ( 64226 )

            While it seems like it is cheaper to settle, it really isn't.

            As Kipling said,

            That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
                  You never get rid of the Dane.

      • Re:and they still had to pay more then $225,000 fo (Score:5, Insightful)

        by taustin ( 171655 ) on Friday October 04, 2024 @08:34AM (#64839233) Homepage Journal

        I'm certain they did - on this case. But the most often they win a fight like this, the less often they'll need to in the future. And every case they don't have to defend is a win.

  • Since Cloudflare proved the patents weren't valid, the next step should be to sue the PTO and examiners for wasting the public's taxes on their fraud (to which the scam called 'qualified immunity' shouldn't apply since they didn't do their job properly in the first place).

    • Re:Next step: sue the PTO examiners (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Retired Chemist ( 5039029 ) on Friday October 04, 2024 @08:16AM (#64839163)
      The examiners are protected by sovereign immunity. Anyway, it is hardly their fault. The government has been failing to adequately fund the patent office for a long time. The typical examiner does not have the time or resources to properly examine a patent. What we need is a system, like that in several other countries, which allows interested parties to challenge a patent before it is approved.
      • My understanding is that the patent office's funding is based on the number of patents that it approves. There is no funding for rejecting a patent. This really needs to be fixed: provide funding for processing patent applications, whatever the final outcome. In fact, it might be good for rejected patents to be slightly more lucrative than approved patents, just to give an incentive to be careful.

        • Re:Wrong incentive for the PTO? (Score:4, Informative)

          by bradley13 ( 1118935 ) on Friday October 04, 2024 @08:25AM (#64839211) Homepage
          Reply to myself - apparently I am somewhat wrong. Funding is provided by fees. Successful patents do generate more fees (maintenance fees must be paid). However, the application fee remains the same whether a patent is granted or not.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Sebby ( 238625 )

            Then the examiners' salaries should be tied how airtight the patents they approve are - anything that gets thrown out results in them being on the hook for the costs of reversing it (including fees paid by Cloudflare in this case, and costs to the taxpayers from all resulting court costs).

        • there is the application fee which is non-refundable, whether or not it's approved

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Sebby ( 238625 )

        The examiners are protected by sovereign immunity.

        Thanks for the correction (vs. 'qualified immunity').

        Still complete bullshit/scam they can end up wasting taxpayers' money (their salary, then the court cases) for issuing bogus patents by being shit at their job in a fashion that would get anyone else fired for that same level of incompetence, all without any repercussions to them.

    • Re:Next step: sue the PTO examiners (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Valgrus Thunderaxe ( 8769977 ) on Friday October 04, 2024 @08:17AM (#64839173)
      Presumption of Regularity [supremecourt.gov] prevents a suit against the patent examiner(s).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Sebby ( 238625 )

      Lol nice to see we have some of those useless PTO examiners with points modding the truth down - guess that proves they're just as bad as patent trolls.... if not worse.

  • Cloudflare wears a cape (Score:3)

    by bradley13 ( 1118935 ) on Friday October 04, 2024 @08:16AM (#64839165) Homepage

    Good on Cloudflare for not just secretly paying up. Patent trolls need to suffer - far more than this, but this is a decent start.

    Watch out, though: the US is considering softening the stance against software patents. Encouraged, undoubtedly, by political donations by such companies. We need to reduce patent protection, not increase it.

  • If you own stock in Cisco or Juniper (Score:5, Insightful)

    by taustin ( 171655 ) on Friday October 04, 2024 @08:38AM (#64839247) Homepage Journal

    Or any other company that settled, you should take this up with the board of directors, who agreed to settle a case they clearly should have fought.

    They're as much to blame for the existence of patent trolls, and the damage they do, as the patent trolls themselves. If every victim (who has the money, at least, and Cisco and Juniper certainly do) fought tooth and nail, there'd be no profit even if the trolls won. And money is the only thing this is about.

    • If I had an upvote, it would be yours.

    • This exactly. Put this own social media so people know.

    • The board directors have a fiduciary duty to maximize their company's profit, not to make the world better. They can do the latter if they feel altruistic, but only if it doesn't prevent them from doing the former. And as it became clear, settling with the troll was the cheaper option, hence the management had to choose it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by taustin ( 171655 )

        It is their fiduciary responsibility that should lead them to fight tooth and nail. Fighting on bogus patent troll lawsuit to the bitter end - win or lose - will significantly reduce the number of such lawsuits in the future. By enough to cost significantly less in the long run.

        As opposed to caving in and paying off the trolls, which will encourage more lawsuits, which you will then have to pay out, lather, rinse and repeat.

        This isn't a new concept, and it's been proven to be effective in the long term.

        MBAs

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sjames ( 1099 )

        They did not HAVE to choose it, as shown by Cloudflare. They chose the smaller short term loss rather than a greater expense now to reduce losses later.

        The next dozen trolls will make a beeline for Cisco and Juniper and avoid Cloudflare.

        It might be interesting to enact a law that should a patent be invalidated, all fees thus far collected for it must be refunded.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Xenx ( 2211586 )

      Or any other company that settled, you should take this up with the board of directors, who agreed to settle a case they clearly should have fought.

      Companies settle because it often costs less than fighting it. I don't disagree with fighting patent trolls, but from a shareholder perspective fighting them isn't necessarily in their best interest.

      • Re:If you own stock in Cisco or Juniper (Score:4)

        by taustin ( 171655 ) on Friday October 04, 2024 @02:51PM (#64840275) Homepage Journal

        Or any other company that settled, you should take this up with the board of directors, who agreed to settle a case they clearly should have fought.

        Companies settle because it often costs less than fighting it. I don't disagree with fighting patent trolls, but from a shareholder perspective fighting them isn't necessarily in their best interest.

        Only if they're looking at the short term, as I explained already. The more often you settle, the more often you'll have to settle, because you have publicly declared you'll settle. The more often you fight, even if you lose, the less often you'll have to.

        As I explained.

        But it requires looking past the current fiscal quarter, which MBAs are taught not to do.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Xenx ( 2211586 )

          Only if they're looking at the short term, as I explained already.

          You didn't explain anything. You're making an assumption, and holding it to be true. I'm not saying it's necessarily wrong, but at least some evidence indicates it is.

          First, RPX’s analysis shows that companies that stayed over 370 days in suit (a proxy for a tough-target reputation) saw the number of their NPE lawsuits grow at a similar rate compared to companies that were resolving cases in less than 370 days. This seems to suggest that NPEs do not necessarily make decisions in suing companies based on their reputation. Second, after examining over 500 litigations, RPX has concluded that patent troll cases that lasted longer than one year cost five times more than cases that lasted less than one year. In addition, it has been reported that NPEs are willing to settle for the lowest price near the start of the suit.

          https://jipel.law.nyu.edu/pate... [nyu.edu]

    • Or any other company that settled, you should take this up with the board of directors, who agreed to settle a case they clearly should have fought.

      Hindsight is great, but doesn't help anyone. How "clear" is it they should have won? These companies have legal teams who provide them advice on how to handle these cases. Their own advice was to settle out of court meaning that for many people *in the know* it wasn't "clear" at all.

  • Those lowlifes should be kicked repeatedly in the mouth while they are down.

  • Can't they just create a new corporation, sell the portfolio to them, then continue trolling?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by sconeu ( 64226 )

      No. RTFS:

      forcing the patent holder to dedicate its entire portfolio to the public domain

  • Apparently Phat Cat Global (the company that apparently controls uncensored Japanese porn distribution label Caribbeancom at the moment) sued CloudFlare in June [justia.com] for copyright infringement. I don't have any more details on the case. Does anyone else know what's going on?

  • Seriously is it possible for both sides to lose? Because that should have happened between these two.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ksevio ( 865461 )

      They kind of both did as it cost Cloudflare money, but in cases against patent trolls we always want the patent trolls to lose

  • ... if the guy behind Sable will now attempt to write a cookbook.

  • almost every Cloudflare served website: please wait while we check if you are human. Then 30 seconds later, 'please verify you are human.' The bots are winning.

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