Don’t Feed the Troll!

Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please!

Good news! After 3.5 years of legal battles with patent trolls we have finally won a resounding victory! This was our first patent litigation battle in the US and we won! // Well, we needed to make up somehow for Russia’s poor display at Euro 2012 :)

Here’s a recap.

Four years ago the patent trolls suddenly came on the scene trying to prove that we were using technology that had been patented by somebody else.

Because we were expecting this sort of thing, and knew all about patent trolls – albeit in theory – our very own patent department had for a number of years been quietly working away preparing our patent firepower in readiness for a showdown with all types of various patent trolls and black hats.

And then this story began, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. By the look of things, the situation was only going to get worse for us, but we had absolutely no intention of just giving in. Even if we lost, we were going to go down fighting and make it as brutal and bloody as possible for them.

And just a few days ago came the final denouncement.

The Court for the Eastern District of Texas announced its verdict in the case brought by IPAT and completely dismissed all the charges against us. What’s more, it did so WITH PREJUDICE, i.e. IPAT can’t bring any more claims regarding those patents!

Court Filing

But this is not just some ordinary legal victory.

For a start, an IT company beat a US patent troll on its home turf, playing by the rules. Secondly, we were the only company out of a total of 35 that didn’t cave in to the trolls and fought them every inch of the way. Third, we won a court case against a very powerful multilevel troll system that has successfully bullied lots of the “big guys” for a number of years now. Basically, we sent out a strong message that you can and must fight the patent trolls. Any out-of-court settlement is just going to make them greedier, encourage them to initiate new lawsuits and generally have a negative effect on the development of the IT industry.

And now for everything in chronological order.

In 2008-2009 trolls from IPAT filed two claims against us and 34 other companies, accusing of infringing two patents (this one, and this one). You see, there’s this national sport business in the US that’s based on the peculiarities of the country’s patent system. You can patent creations that are not yet ready, or even patent an idea in its broadest sense – it doesn’t matter if you actually go ahead and implement it or not. In the 1990s these “peculiarities” resulted in a significant number of patents being granted for various “technologies” that were formulated in such a way as to cover virtually any kind of innovation. For example, there was the case of emoticons, upgrading characters in online games, automated completion of web forms, activating products with an activation code, online purchases in 1-click…. Indeed, there are lots of other interesting stories around. Indeed, there are lots of other interesting stories around. It’s just as well nobody patented the Internet. Although you never know – it’s probably just a case of finding a defendant :)

US Patent Sketch

In other words, nature abhors a vacuum.

Numerous parasites trolls came out of the woodwork as soon as they scented the potential for making money. Lots of money. In fact, very big, safe and easy money. Take the example of one of the most active patent trolls that goes by the respectable name of Acacia Research Corporation. In Q1 2012 it reported earnings of $99 million, of which $50 million was pure profit. RPX, a company related to our “old friend” IPAT, reported revenues of $44 million for the same period and $8.6 million in profit. Many patent trolls even successfully trade their shares on stack exchanges. Not bad, eh? Forget arms dealing, drug trafficking and cybercrime! Everything here is legal, squeaky clean, with an air of respectability! Our estimates put the overall volume of assets on this “market” at tens of billions of dollars, and it’s still growing. In 2011 the number of patent litigations rose by almost 100% compared to 2010, and in a period of 5 years the licensing contributions to the trolls have increased a staggering 650 times!

Growth in the number of patent litigations involving NPEs

Patent Litigation Chart

Source: PatentFreedom

It wouldn’t be so bad if that money went to the developers and creators and they defended the interests of genuine software vendors. However, trolls can be classed as an NPE (Non Practicing Entity), which don’t actually produce anything, do not risk anything and own nothing except patents. They also enjoy a level of lobbying support in the corridors of power. As a result, it’s difficult to fight them – you can’t hit them with counterclaims that they have no products and no patents are being infringed. This last point, by the way, is key to the patent equilibrium that exists between high-tech companies. Generally speaking: just try filing some empty claim against your neighbor and you’ll immediately be slapped with a counterclaim.

How the patent trolls work is a completely different story that warrants an entire saga along the lines of The Godfather. Yes, namely in this style, because if you scrape away the respectable veneer, you’ll find the troll system is no better than the rotten racketeering practice.

How does the patent troll system work?

The software patent trolls have evolved over 20 years. It’s no longer a small office somewhere dealing with minor issues, but a multi-tiered, well-thought-out scheme. It goes without saying that the main asset here is patents. Unlike us and other companies rightfully applying for patents, the trolls mainly convince the owners of existing patents to sue, buy them up and, as much as their intelligence allows, obtain questionable patents of their own. They carefully study the patents, make up a list of potential victims, assess their chances, work out their position and set the wheels of litigation in motion.

This is where it starts getting interesting.

There are “militant” trolls and then there are troll aggregators. The former file lawsuits, fight it out in court, have no problem with blatant extortion, insinuations, attacks on the defendant’s partners and so on. The latter group – the aggregators – is like the “good cop” that positions itself as defending against the first type. You get the picture. When the slipknot around the neck of the unlucky victim starts to tighten, the aggregators appear on the scene offering the chance to join their patent pool for a much more reasonable sum than the aggressive patent trolls are after. It just so happens that the aggregator has a licensing agreement with the bad militant trolls for that very same patent. As far as we know, the annual “licensing rates” for the use of the patent pool can range from tens of thousands of dollars to several million. The biggest figure that we know of is $7 million. It could well be higher.

I said to our lawyers back then in 2008 that there would be no backing down – go to court and fight it out with them, to the very last bullet…their bullet :) It was our first experience of a patent shootout and we decided to stand our ground, stand up for our rights.

At the end of the day, all’s well that ends well, even if it did cost us 3.5 years of work and $2.5 million plus lots of other resources. But we are now battle-hardened, so to speak, and we’ve sent a very clear signal to the patent trolls for the future. By the way, this is not the end of the matter – we’re mulling over the idea of striking back at the trolls. But anyway, I won’t bore you with the details or give away any of our strategic secrets.

We find ourselves in an interesting position. Basically, it wasn’t so much a fight with the patent trolls as a fight with the US patent system as a whole. Yes, officially it is supposed to defend and encourage innovation, but at the same time it turns a blind eye to the activities of patent trolls! By extorting tens of billions of dollars from high-tech companies each year, the patent trolls are effectively sucking money out of innovative research!

The US patent system has a very serious bug. If the troll business continues to evolve at the current rate, then instead of stimulating innovation it will actually act as a brake on technological progress.

To be honest, the software companies themselves are also to blame.

I can understand small companies, but why do the big boys like Microsoft and Apple settle out of court with the patent trolls? How are they any different from other blackmailers, the kinds who’ll latch on to you forever once they sense the slightest weakness? And they do so with impunity, even expanding their “business”! Why not take on the patent trolls and make their business unviable? In the long term this approach would kill off the trolls altogether – their litigations would become too expensive, drawn out with unpredictable outcomes. This would be especially true if you gradually chip away at them with counterclaims of patent invalidity and allegations of them applying pressure and resorting to extortion.

Instead, our dear industry colleagues do the opposite and settle out of court with the patent trolls. And here I’m specifically talking to the guys from the other 34 defendant companies – including Symantec, McAfee, F-Secure, Sophos, ESET, CheckPoint, and AVG – that signed up to the RPX patent portfolio!

Basically, don’t feed the troll … and save technological progress!

READ COMMENTS 19
Comments 15 Leave a note

    Marilyn Ann Cutler

    It’s lovely reading about your trips and adventures. Post some pictures of yourself — I’d especially love to see some in Japan!

    Al Fulton

    Mr. Kaspersky,
    Thank you for your efforts. More than the patent system in the US that needs revision; it goes to the heart of our legal system. Settlement is a lawyer’s credo and compromising principles is their way of life. Our judges come from that same profession and are more enamored with interpretation of law as opposed to the spirit of the law. I am proud of your efforts and I think your company truly demonstrates what security means in its most profound definition. It is a privilege to observe someone with your wisdom apply it for the benefit of all mankind. Sincerely, Al

    Rohini Sonwane

    This news came as a great pleasure and was welcomed with great excitement. Hats off to you for fighting against IPAT all the way. Hope that many follow your footsteps on weakening the patent trolls who are weakening the technological progress in the US.

    nk

    I loved the carefully selected words in the post. It exactly expressed the description of such people, which other creators, most times have failed to get out completely in one article.

    Marilyn Ann Cutler

    Congrats on your victory in court!

    Panthera Pardus

    I was not aware of this and I am now happy that for private purpse we selected your product (on our home laptop), well done – I am checking the news and it seems that the news was not reported besides en.rian.ru (time of my writing)

    Catherine Jefferson

    Way to go, dude! :-)

    The U.S. Office of Patents and Copyrights has been starved of resources for so long that anybody can file any kind of nonsense they want as a patent and it will be granted. The system depends on people fighting these cases in court, and then makes the court process so long, so painful and so expensive that nobody wants to go to court. Since evolution and natural selection are facts of life in the legal system as well as in biology, we have seen the evolution of the patent troll — as well adapted to the American patent system as cockroaches are to slums. :/

    The last time I heard of anybody fighting off a patent troll in U.S. court was a small chocolate company in Ft. Wayne, Indiana (DeBrand Fine Chocolates) in the early 2000s, about a decade ago, that fought off an outfit named PanIP. Everybody else — not just small companies that can’t afford long legal fights but Microsoft and Apple — have taken the easier and usually cheaper route of paying off the scumbags instead of fighting them.

    We’ve occasionally tweeted at each other, mostly about space travel. If we happen to be at the same event (maybe the inaugural flight of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo/Enterprise from Spaceport America in Dona Ana County, New Mexico, USA), I hope you’ll let my husband and I buy you a beer or dinner. Seriously. :-)

    kaspersky addict

    Congrats. and more responses for your posts :D

    NetDevWest

    I’m pretty sure that I own the patent on patent trolling, time for some litigation!

    Panthera Pardus

    (update) I checked after some time, the google news feed searched for kaspersky reports (@27/6 13:22 GMT+2) only en.rian.ru giving the news – I am particularly disappointed that “the register” did not report this, with all their talk about “patent trolls” they show to be either biased or blind – I will remove them from my bookmarks and search another site for generic IT news… I wonder however if patent trolls are already a lobby able to steer media in given direction

    Edie Hippern

    Congratulations and proud of you! This is the very worst of capitalism and they deserve to go straight to h*^l.

    erniecordell

    Reblogged this on Ernest Phillip Henry Clay Yates Kehoe Head Cordell and commented:
    It only seems reasonable that exploits of the Legal/Judicial/Patent Systems would be prevented by those who prevent system exploits.

    Chris Neumeyer

    Great job! Congratulations and thanks for standing up to the trolls. Best of luck in the future.

    Lee Cheng

    Newegg salutes a fellow troll fighter!

    nvk_ip

    Thanks to all for your kind words and congrats!

    Trolls generate handsome profits through licensing and litigation. In fact, the number of patent lawsuits brought by trolls has increased from only 558 in 2008 to an estimated 2,414 claims in 2012 with trolls making up 70% of all plaintiffs in IT related patent cases between 2010-2011. In addition, the damage to the economy cannot be underestimated. In 2011 alone, troll activity directly or indirectly resulted in a loss of $80 billion, adding up to $400 billion over the last five years. This money could have been invested or used for much more worthwhile goals. Instead, it is lost and any benefits to the consumer or the economy at large has gone with it. Hopefully the new legislation will be the first step towards solving the troll problem once and for all.

Trackbacks 4

On The Flight Path. | Nota Bene

Kaspersky fights the trolls and wins | Kaspersky Business

网络阴暗面新闻–2014年6月24日 | Nota Bene | Eugene Kaspersky Official Blog China

暗黒面のサイバー関連ニュース – 2014年6月24日付 | Nota Bene | Eugene Kaspersky Official Blog in Japanese

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