If you have license to patents that cover the same thing you are being sued for, you have a much stronger defense.

What defense is that? I'll note that even "practicing the prior art" is not a defense to patent infringement. Cordance Corp. v. Amazon.com, Inc., Case No. 10-1502 (Fed. Cir., Sept. 23, 2011) (Linn, J.).

Joining a pool sounds better than not having that defense, and costs less than having to get my own patents

Which is great if the patent owners don't mind free-riders. However, if all you have is a bunch of people without patents or a shallow patent pool, that's not much of a license (or defense?).

You are thinking from the point-of-view of a litigating patent lawyer, who doesn't make money unless companies are suing and counter-suing each other.

I'm actually an in-house lawyer at a software company. My whole job is about making sure we're not spending resources on "litigating patent lawyers".

I did put "better" in scare quotes. RPX has a great many flaws. Nevertheless, the idea isn't that much different than this one, but has the advantages of being able to act and make decisions that affect the collective. On the latter, it might mean "acquiring" troll's patents which in effect might be like a massive, joint settlement.

Now of course, there's no promise from RPX that the patents in its arsenal will never be used. They are quite clear that part of their strategy is to eventually sell patents from their portfolio to others. Those others are only going to buy if there's some way to license/enforce them.

I also qualified that it costs money to participate. Of course, it also costs RPX money to operate and to acquire patents.

I'm a patent attorney and I agree.

Unless I'm fundamentally misunderstanding the purpose, there's no legal judo here. It can't protect you against non-participants. It certainly can't protect you against trolls. It only seems to protect you against people/entities already inclined not to use their patents aggressively.

What would be more useful is if it worked this way (it doesn't):

Non-participating entity A sues participating entity B.
Entity B has no useful patents with which to sue Entity A.
Some other participating Entity C does have a useful patent to sue Entity A.
Entity B can use Entity C's patents against Entity A.

But, this scheme doesn't make that happen. In fact, there's basically no way to make Entity C actually use its patents against Entity A on behalf of Entity B. Neither the patent law nor this license could make Entity C's patents a weapon against A.

Even if there were a way, no one with any patents of value would sign up for the DPL since: (1) the cost of enforcing the patent is going to be expensive; (2) turning over the right to enforce the patent to Entity B would be like handing the keys to your car to someone you don't know and assuming responsibility for any damage to your car (e.g., patent is held invalid, found not infringed, etc.); and (3) a priori knowledge of the value of the patent might mean that you'd be in a better defensive position not having granted "free" licenses to every participant (something that inevitably will come up in a damage calculation).

  The DPL is a solution searching for a problem. And a foolish solution at that.

A company called RPX has created a much "better" solution for those that can afford to be part of the membership. Of course, in that case, RPX is the point person and has an ability to make things happen and has their own patents that they've acquired.

That's not the way things work, usually. If he cultivated his followers and created content using company resources (time, equipment, etc.) then the company probably has some right to it. But, it may partially depend on his employment agreement. His employment agreement probably says what it is they own in the context of content he created on the job.

This is the reason that smart people don't use company resources to do creative things lest they be owned by their employer.

I came here for this. TMBG is great, but the stuff they are doing for Kids music is beyond compare. My three year old son loves Here Comes Science (Meet the Elements!), Here Come the 123s and Here Come the ABCs (Alphabet of Nations!). He also likes "No!" but that's slightly different.

Question(s): Do you (John & John) have any plans to continue making educational songs? If so, what subjects are you thinking about tackling?

$1200/hr is quite steep no matter who you are. In the US, few lawyers bill more than $1000/hr. That said, it's common to see senior partners in things like IP litigation haul in 600-700/hr at the high end.

A junior partner, senior associate at a decent sized law firm might charge between $400 and 500/hr.

These rates are then blended with lower cost paralegals and associates for a lower overall cost. No one wants the senior partner review documents or sitting second chair at a deposition.

As a result, most places though, when computing "reasonable attorneys' fees" charge lodestar rates at the same number of hours. Those rates tend to be lower than the actual rates.

Frankly, no one should go into litigation assuming that an atty's fee award will cover the entire cost of fees.

It's also not really a choice NOT to participate in modern, American healthcare.

One of the proposed "fixes" originally was only to "require" insurance of people that partake of the healthcare system which is, at some level, everyone born in the United States. In other words, if you've never or will never use any healthcare, you'd be freed of the obligation. There are lots of practical problems with this, including, what to do with "free riders" or protestors that show up to a hospital, clinic, etc. when they're already sick or in need of healthcare.

And when people tried to posit scenarios of someone who would never need U.S. healthcare, you get politicians like Rep. Steve King citing babies discarded in dumpsters. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOrBpTdZ2tc&feature=player_embedded

The fact is, everyone participates in the current healthcare system even if they don't want to. Even those that affirmatively try to avoid the system could wind up there nevertheless via an ambulance and a 911 call. Allowing certain people to NOT participate is highly inequitable and without any rationale basis.

All of that said, this result of the ACA is largely the Republicans' and insurance companies' fault. The more sweeping, Democratic vision would not have had the same problems and would not be unconstitutional on these grounds.

Perhaps this goes without saying, but the title is misleading. The Grand Jury did not indict Mr. Swartz on any copyright infringement or acts of piracy on the high seas. There are really only four indictments: wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information form a protected computer, and recklessly damaging a protected computer.

You can read the whole indictment here: http://ia700504.us.archive.org/29/items/gov.uscourts.mad.137971/gov.uscourts.mad.137971.2.0.pdf

Criminal copyright infringement is not one of the charges.

Work at a different school or negotiate a better contract, if you can. At many universities, the inventors (typically the grad. student or principal investigator) are the owners of their own works, in the first instance, but they can always choose to let the invention be prosecuted and maintained by their TTO. The exception is for research done with Federal funds which is subject Bayh-Dole and, frankly, the terms of the sponsor agreement with the government.

Look: copyright has nothing to do with it. If you don't want the publication locked up, don't publish in journals that make you give up all your rights or negotiate a different deal. The fact is, on this point, copyright isn't necessary because the terms of the contract would just take over. If the publisher didn't want you to publish outside its pay wall it could ask you via your contract regardless of the copyright in the work.

This reflects more on the economic and business incentives of scientific journals than on copyright. The journals don't care about the copyright so much as they value the exclusivity and the first publication rights. Copyright is just a placeholder for a very simple non-publication clause and associated penalties (or liquidated damages).

I assume this is tongue and cheek, but the Eastern District of Texas (in its entirety) has 10 Federal judges and 10 magistrate judges. In Marshall Texas, where a majority of the "trolls" file, there are three judges. (http://www.txed.uscourts.gov/page1.shtml?location=info)

Notwithstanding the sometimes (frequently?) wacky jury results, an interesting thing is starting to happen though with the Eastern District of Texas: the judges are getting very good at patent cases. The judges are very good at doing "claim construction" and other technical aspects of patent cases. The result is cases tend not to languish because the judge is confused or baffled by the process or technology.

By contrast, there are districts that it is virtually impossible to litigate patent infringement cases because there is NO expertise among the judges.

... for each instance of this being implemented on another device? Seriously.

This is ridiculous. First to File does not eliminate derivation (i.e., taking someone else's invention) and does not eliminate prior art. In fact, the reform bill includes new rules regarding derivation.

Regarding prior art, prior use, prior sale, prior publication, prior patenting, etc. are all still grounds for invalidity.

Moving to a first to file system only means that everyone needs to "rush" to the patent office to file. Which, in reality, is not much different than it was in the case of two near simultaneous patent applicants since the later-filer-but-earlier-inventor has to show diligence and non-concealment in getting an application on file to overcome the earlier-filed application.