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Google owes $338.7 mln in Chromecast patent case, US jury says
(www.reuters.com)
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this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
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Technology
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Eastern District of Texas: The one-stop forum-shopping choice of patent trolls everywhere.
Quite literally the opposite of patent trolling. The company invented something. Acquired a patent. Tried to sell a license to google. Google left the negotiating table. And then not long after introduced a product that fulfilled all of the requirements to be protected by the patent licensing they hadn't paid for.
I hate patent trolls. These are not patent trolls. These are people the patent system is meant to protect. These are people who developed a product and wanted compensation for all the time and money they spent developing it. And they got it 10 years later, and probably didn't get as much total as they could have if Google hadn't fucked them over
So they 'invented' moving video from a small device to a large device in 2010? That's a dumb patent and they are trolls. I hate google, but patents like that are stupidly vague and stifle progress.
Exactly. That's not an invention, and "using" your absurdly uninnovative idea that no intelligent person could possibly consider granting a patent for doesn't make you not a patent troll.
Pinch to zoom?
Rectangular screen?
Depends on what exactly was covered in the patent. The article only says
Which is vague and an obvious bogus patent. Prior art exists in both the digital and analogue space
The full patent goes into detail (pdf): https://image-ppubs.uspto.gov/dirsearch-public/print/downloadPdf/8356251
It details a process of synchronising videos between multiple devices and a content server, as well as a few different variations of the idea - it doesn't just cover what Chromecast does.
The telling point here is that Google didn't even try to argue that they didn't use this method. Instead, they tried to argue that the patent was invalid. Apparently, they did not manage to invalidate the patent.
After looking at the patent it's clear it's way too vague, generic and obvious. It should never have been granted. (I Am Not A patent Lawyer). For one the XMBC web interface from 2009ish is prior art.
Technically the Kodi remote control app would be in violation of the patent, except it doesn't use any "back end server system".
If you replace the words "display" and "video" with "speaker" and "audio" then the Spotify app would be in violation as well, as it allows changing the playback device to any of your logged in devices.
Come to think of it, if you use Firefox on mobile to access YouTube, then "send tab to other device", and send it to a desktop computer connected to a big screen, it could be interpreted as violating the patent as it's using Mozilla's "back end server" to relay the message
XMBC web interface just streams to a different client. Here, we have a client requesting to stream to another client, and synchronised by the server. The key part is the synchronisation between multiple clients.
The patent also deals with a few other types of concurrent streams for other applications, beyond what Chromecast does.
That may well also violate the patent. It would likely depend on whether the devices are synchronised, or if the desktop is just getting a link and streaming separately.
Just because lots of people use it without paying doesn't make a patent invalid. You only have to look at what happened with the patent for WiFi.
These aren't really patent trolls, though. They made a technology, patented it and produced a product. Google met with them, but decided not to pay for the patent owner's technology and made their own instead.
"Made a technology"
Did they actually make anything, or did the CEO just patent an idea without ever putting it in production?
Because latter would be the textbook description of patent trolls. An idea is just an idea, if you can't execute it, the patent should be null and void.
On another note I have to say that such an obvious solution of "moving content from a small screen to the big screen" should hardly be patentable. It's quite literally just RPC, which has been in use in various shapes and forms for over 60 years.
A couple quick searches and a skim read, they're offering their technology under their main brand Touchstream as well as another called Shodogg. It's not the same as Chromecast of course, but as the patent holder they have a right to market the technology as they see fit.
I haven't looked at the patents themselves, but I reckon it's a bit more involved than and significantly different enough to a simple remote procedure call. It's not like a server delivering video to a client, instead it's switching from displaying on the server to the client. RCP is initiated by the client, while casting is initiated by the server.
This really seems more like Google trying to get away with not paying an inventor than an inventor sitting on their patent and denying society the fruits.
Nothing you mentioned even vaguely resembles an invention.
From Wiki:
This is a novel method and process. Sure, anyone could imagine putting something on one screen to another, but apparently no one came up with an implementation until 2011.
The patent in question (the articles suggest 3 patents, but they're all basically the same): https://patents.google.com/patent/US8356251
So it's a process that's a little more involved than just "display this video on that screen".
No, it's not unique or novel in any way.
That entire patent is technobabble that means "send content to a display". There is nothing about it that's in any way innovative or that it's even possible that they were one of the first 1000 people on the planet to think of.
The entire premise of allowing people to "invent" extremely obvious, extremely simply things is an obscenely broken system. Submitting a patent application for this shouldn't just get rejected. It should get you permanently barred from ever being able to submit or own a patent until the end of time.
The full patent can be found here (pdf): https://image-ppubs.uspto.gov/dirsearch-public/print/downloadPdf/8356251
This goes into many details about the process of synchronising the video between devices, as well as a variety of different methods which the process can be implemented (it doesn't just cover what Chromecast does).
I haven't checked the other 2 patents quoted, maybe in the full article they show some differences (the figures are all the same, though).
The figures show and the full patent describes a number of processes that define exactly how it's done. It's not technobabble, but a process. Overall it does "send content to a display", but it's the way it's done that makes it patentable.
If you were to develop a process that was different and didn't use the methods claimed in the patent, it wouldn't be patent infringement. However, apparently Google's method does use this process - they didn't even try to argue against this, instead they claimed the patent was invalid. I haven't seen Google's specific arguments on this matter so I can't really comment on it, other than to say the jury didn't agree with Google.
So you just have a bee in your bonnet about patents in general. I see.
The patent system is far from perfect, but it isn't completely broken, as you might claim. For an example of it working properly, you only have to look at your phone - chip designer ARM designed almost all the processors in your phone; they patent the designs and then license them out to manufacturers such as Samsung and Qualcomm. These other companies lack the technical ability to develop processors, while ARM lack the manufacturing capability to mass produce them. Patents allow the two groups to work together to produce the product you rely on every day.
I think you should try and focus on patents that actually aren't properly thought out, eg Apple's design patent for a rectangle inside a rectangle with rounded corners.
You already told me what the patent was. I saw it. No part of it resembles an invention in any way. It's vague enough that anything that sends content to a display will inherently violate it. Google argued it's not valid because it's not a fucking invention and has literally nothing in common with one. It's the exact same horseshit as "a shopping cart, but online" or "volume control multiple devices, but online". Almost no software can possibly justify a patent being awarded and this is an especially offensive example of it.
ARM designed a complex instruction set and explicit hardware implementations. That't not the same as owning trivial features.
"Rounded corners" is one small element of a design patent. Design patents are an entirely different, unrelated category not connected to utility patents at all and only protect against companies deliberately ripping off your entire package of branding choices. That's not the same as pretending you can own a very basic idea that thousands of people had before you did.
Utility patents for basic software features are fundamentally broken and massively detrimental to society. If the actually innovative algorithms over time had been patented and enforced, we probably wouldn't even have an OS yet, let alone the rich ecosystem modern software is, all built on the fact that you don't own basic features, only the code of your specific implementation of it.
If you read the full patent, the claims describes a complex process with multiple explicit hardware implementations. On the high level, an ARM processor has "trivial features" - eg a memory block is made up of a specific arrangement of transistors which themselves are all defined in layers of Verilog code. To us, it's just memory, something that stores 1s and 0s, but the patent specifies the exact way memory works. This is exactly what the patent does here, it defines a process in which various different hardware elements interact and synchronise to deliver a "trivial" function. It's not just "this function, but online" but a detailed way of arranging and synchronising the devices to make the function work efficiently.
I think the key part of this patent is that the server provides the stream to all devices. Another, more directly apparent implementation could involve streaming from the server to your phone, then your phone to the other screen. That would achieve the same "trivial" function, but with a different method. Their patented method is to synchronise between the controller (also maybe a moderator, if multiple devices are involved) and the server, such that the server directly connects to the screen being streamed to. This method is novel. Can you provide an example of even one idea that does this, specific process? You claim there are thousands.
"Rounded corners" is literally all there was to Apple's design patent. They drew a drawing of an iPhone, made up of solid and dashed lines, then put a note at the bottom saying "only the solid lines form this patent". The solid lines were a 2D image of the rounded rectangle of the outline of an iPhone along with the rectangle of the display itself. That was clearly a frivilous patent. This is not so clear, and I think meets the bar of a novel implementation. You keep saying it doesn't, but you haven't given any solid reasons why.
I did read it, and no, it does not describe a complex process. It's an obscenely broad general idea. None of the elements are 1 % of the way to novel or nonobvious.
It is unconditionally impossible for a system that enables this to be owned to possibly be a functional system that can benefit society in any way. The entirety of the existence of computer software is a product of iteration of millions of actually new ideas, every single one of them more novel than this ridiculous horseshit.
Design patents and utility patents are not the same thing and have no connection to each other.
I agree after seeing the patent , there's nothing groundbreaking or novel there.
Replace video for audio then there's already prior art for both control and synchronization with Sonos (2005). And a plethora of Winamp web interface plugins.
For video there was already the XMBC web interface. Sure there was no "app", but the patent is vague enough that the web-browser on the smartphone accessing the web interface can be considered the app
I am more than aware of the difference between design patents and utility patents. That doesn't make Apple's rounded corners any less of a frivilous design patent, nor does it make Touchstream's casting patent a frivilous utility patent. Just because an idea seems obvious after the fact does not mean someone can't be the first to implement and patent it.
No offense, but I think you're just being dazzled by patent-style writing. For whatever it's worth on an anonymous Internet forum, I've written patents, and litigated patents, related to analogous compression technology.
It is not difficult to write something that sounds complex and novel in a patent, but is in fact a completely obvious, generic solution that any person of skill in the art would immediately and inevitably have upon confronting a task or problem. The patent examiners are overworked, underpaid, and every patent attorney knows this. Thousands of patents are granted that should not be granted every year, because after a few office actions and responses, high-paid attorneys inevitably make it too time-consuming for the patent examiners to fight.
And while yes, sometimes tech companies steal tech, you should also be verrrry suspicious of anything coming out of EDTX by default.
No offense taken. While I get what you mean about the language, and while I am a technical person I didn't digest the full detail of what the patent describes, I do still think there is at the very least a hint of a solid invention in this patent. As I've said elsewhere, the key part that makes this novel is the synchronisation of video streams - you don't just send your video to the TV, you don't just tell the server to start playing on the TV, the server synchonises a stream between your device and the TV. In particular, this doesn't just cover basic chromecasting, but the ability to synchronise and stream between a range of client devices and in a range of different topologies, particularly where one device might control the stream for others.
I agree with your statement about EDTX and would inherently be suspicious, but even a broken clock is right twice a day. In the absence of some identical technology that predates this patent, I feel like their ruling is correct in this instance.
However this is a weird patent in that it covers such a wide variety of things. It may well be that some are valid, while others aren't, yet the nature of the patent is that all are protected as a group.
Big tech are biggest trolls out there.
Are they still trying to patent a rectangular screen? Or pinch to zoom?