Stupid Patent Of The Month: Storing Files In Folders
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Our ongoing Reclaim Invention campaign urges universities not to sell patents to trolls. This month's stupid patent provides a good example of why. US Patent No. 8,473,532 (the '532 patent), "Method and apparatus for automatic organization for computer files," began its life with publicly-funded Louisiana Tech University. But in September last year, it was sold to a patent troll. A flurry of lawsuits quickly followed.Louisiana Tech sold the '532 patent to Micoba LLC, a company that has all the indicia of a classic patent troll. Micoba was formed on September 8, 2016, just a few days before it purchased the patent. The patent assignment agreement lists Micoba's address as an office building located in the Eastern District of Texas where virtual office services are provided. As far as we can tell, Micoba has no purpose other than to sue with this patent.So what does Micoba's newly acquired patent cover? Claim 13 reads:A computer system comprising a processor, memory, and software for automatically organizing computer files into folders, said software causing said computer system to execute the steps comprising:a. providing a directory of folders, wherein substantially each of said folders is represented by a description;b. providing a new computer file not having a location in said directory, said computer file being represented by a description;c. comparing said description of said computer file to descriptions of a plurality of said folders along a single path from a root folder to a leaf folder; andd. assigning said computer file to a folder having the most similar description. In other words, put files into folders that contain similar files. Do it on a "computer system" (in case you were worried office workers from the 1930s might have infringed this patent).For a software patent, the '532 patent is unusually free of patent jargon and pseudo-technical babble. Its specification (this is the description of the invention that comes before the claims) does describe a method for determining when the contents of a file match a folder description. The patent proposes representing folders and files as vectors (which should reflect the frequency of particular words found within). The patent suggests assessing similarity by calculating the dot product of these vectors. But, even assuming this was a new idea when the application was filed in 2003, many of the patent's claims are not limited to this method. The patent effectively captures almost any technique for automatically sorting digital files into folders.The '532 patent issued in June 2013, about a year before the Supreme Court's decision in Alice v. CLS Bank. In that case, the Supreme Court held that an abstract idea (like sorting files into folders) does not become patentable simply because it is implemented on a computer. The '532 patent should be found invalid under this standard. In our view, this patent has no value after Alice except as a litigation weapon.Louisiana Tech represents that it "seeks industrial partners to commercialize the technology developed at Louisiana Tech for the benefit of society." But it completely failed to consider this public interest mission when it sold the '532 patent to Micoba. Within two months of the sale, Micoba had filed nearly a dozen cases in the Eastern District of Texas, suing companies like SpiderOak and Dropbox, alleging they infringed at least claim 13 of the '532 patent. Instead of benefiting society, Louisiana Tech unleashed a torrent of wasteful litigation.According to RPX, Micoba is associated with IP Edge, which itself is associated with eDekka (the biggest patent troll of 2014) and Bartonfalls (the winner of our October 2016 Stupid Patent of the Month for its patent on changing the channel). Bartonfalls' trolling campaign recently collapsed when a judge ruled that its patent infringement contentions were "implausible on their face." If RPX is correct that these companies are connected, Louisiana Tech has hitched its wagon to one of the biggest trolling operations in the nation.EFF's Reclaim Invention project was launched to stop universities from feeding patent trolls like this. The project includes a Public Interest Patent Pledge for universities to sign stating that they will not sell their patents to trolls. We also drafted a model state law to help ensure that state-funded universities don't sell their inventions to patent trolls. You can ask your university to sign the pledge.Reposted from EFF's Stupid Patent of the Month series.
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Brewery Looks To Reform Trademark Practices After Its Lawyers Bully A Pub Over Its Name
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As is commonly said, mistakes happen and it's what we do about those mistakes that is important. Too often when the mistakes are concerning trademark bullying, there is nothing done to acknowledge or address that bullying. The bully will simply state the oft-repeated excuse that they must bully according to trademark law, which isn't remotely the case. And, because there is no acknowledgement that anything was done wrong, the bullying then continues.Well, after a recent dust-up over trademarks between BrewDog, a self-styled "punk brewery," and a family-owned pub, it seems that the brewery is actually going all in on reforming how it approaches trademark issues, and even intellectual property more generally.The brother-and-sister team behind the Wolf pub in Birmingham were forced to drop their original plan to name the establishment the Lone Wolf, after receiving a legal warning from BrewDog, which has launched a spirit bearing the same name. But BrewDog founder James Watt announced a change of heart on Monday after the Guardian’s report sparked a backlash that saw the firm, a vocal critic of large, faceless brewing firms, accused of acting like “just another multinational corporate machine”. Watt had initially tweeted that the brewery's lawyers got "trigger happy" and that the bar could keep using the name. That was on March 27th, although that tweet appears, as best as I can tell, to have been deleted since. In its place were assurances to Watt's followers that all had ended well.
Along with that came a blog post from BrewDog explaining that it had to enforce its trademarks, but both promising to do so more leniently and stating that the company doesn't actually take intellectual property all that seriously.In terms of the Lone Wolf Bar in Birmingham, we paid for and trademarked Lone Wolf in 2015. The Lone Wolf Bar in Birmingham opened in January of 2017. Our wider team and legal partners, acting entirely in our best interests informed them that we owned the name and they would have to stop using it. Just as we'd do if someone opened a bar called BrewDog.However, hands up, we made a mistake here in how we acted. Almost all companies always look to enforce trademarks, whereas at BrewDog we should take the view to only enforce if something really detrimental to our business is happening. And here, I do not think that was the case. As soon as I found out, I reversed the decision and offered to cover all of the costs of the bar. I also invited them up to Ellon to make their own gin with us. This is a mistake that hurt a lot; but like all mistakes, it made us better. This will not happen again. Going even further than that, the brewery has taken the somewhat extraordinary step to publicly release its brew recipes on its own website. Were a company to want to demonstrate more perfectly its commitment to not being an overbearing bully on matters of intellectual property, I'm not sure how they could do a better job of it than this. Working with the former target of the company's lawyers, publicly explaining what happened to its customers and everyone else, and releasing the recipes for its brews publicly for anyone to download: this is a commitment to being open and cool to customers and businesses.Keep in mind that BrewDog could have simply shouted the mantra of having to protect its trademarks at everyone. We here wouldn't have bought that, because we know better, but that tactic must surely work to some degree given how often it is deployed. That BrewDog went another route is a good thing that should be celebrated.
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