Patent troll claims to own Bluetooth, scores $15.7M verdict against Samsung

[Victorious Secret]

 

Patent enforcers win in court, twice in two weeks. Will it matter for reform?

 

Apparently you can win based off patents of yours that you never knew amounted to anything, what a racket to be involved in. It seems like this opens up the rest of the industry to further lawsuits, Samsung included (again), because of this victory for the company that successfully sued.

 

Its funny, he specifically stated that the BSIG came up with the 2.0 EDR standard yet his patents can still be successfully used in this kind of scenario? Dangerous precedent indeed, and given Rembrandt being patent trolls this is just the first step is shaking down the rest of the industry for money over Bluetooth.

 

 

Gordon Bremer didn't invent Bluetooth 2.0. In fact, as he admitted on the stand last week in an East Texas federal court, he hadn't even read the specification for it until 2007—three years after it was on the market.

 

Despite that, Bremer may be getting paid a hefty royalty by Samsung, after a jury ruled that the Korean electronics company infringed Bremer's patents. He stands to get 2.5 percent of the $15.7 million verdict [PDF] won by his employer, Rembrandt IP, one of the oldest and most successful "patent trolls."

 

The jury found in Rembrandt's favor on Friday after a week-long trial, finding that Samsung's Bluetooth-enabled products, including its most popular cell phones, tablets, and televisions, infringe Bremer's patents, numbered 8,023,580 and 8,457,228. The patents relate to compatibility between different types of modems, and connect to a string of applications going back to 1997. The first version of Bluetooth was invented by Swedish cell phone company Ericsson in 1994.

 

Last week's award to Rembrandt is the second jury verdict in two weeks giving money to a patent troll, a term used for companies, like Rembrandt, that make their money from filing patent lawsuits. While the trial was only against Samsung, the same complaint [PDF] names Blackberry as an infringer. (Court records show no indication Blackberry settled, so it may have an upcoming trial date.)

 

Meanwhile, Rembrandt's lawyers have made clear they believe the Bremer patents apply to all products using Bluetooth 2.0 and later—a huge swath of products. This win against Samsung may ultimately be one small piece of Rembrandt's plan to collect from Bluetooth.

On cross-examination, he acknowledged that it was the Bluetooth Special Interest Group, or BSIG, that came up with the 2.0 version, including the Enhanced Data Rate or EDR technology.

 

"I made no contributions to the standards body," Bremer said.

 

In cross-exam, Samsung's lawyer asked if Bluetooth and EDR infringed on his patents.

 

"I’m not an attorney to answer that,” Bremer responded.

 

 

 

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/02/patent-troll-claims-to-own-bluetooth-scores-15-7m-verdict-against-samsung/

[qwertywarrior]

2.5 percent of the $15.7 million verdict =  392500

[Sauron]

WTF. You know what, I'll go out and patent devices built with atoms.

[Victorious Secret]

WTF. You know what, I'll go out and patent devices built with atoms.

 

Whoa buddy not so fast, I already have one. 

You owe me $3.50 for simply existing. 

[tedjani]

[FakezZ]

Whoa buddy not so fast, I already have one. 

You owe me $3.50 for simply existing. 

I have a patent on Evolution, so you and all of your ancestors owe me 1$ for every mutated gene since humans existed. 

[Nup]

This is not what we need, more blood boiling stuff. 

[Guest]

Whoa buddy not so fast, I already have one. 

You owe me $3.50 for simply existing. 

He owns you even more for writing that comment

[DildorTheDecent]

 

Is that cat going *pfft*

[xentric]

more patent trolls that are hold back innovation. 

[evinta]

Ge, the rate the world is going, someone is going to own the patent to "breathing" and therefore we will all owe them money.

 

This is getting out of hand.

[Trik'Stari]

I had the idea for ketchup packets like Chik-Fil-A uses when I was in high school. Wish I could have patented.

[LAwLz]

Ge, the rate the world is going, someone is going to own the patent to "breathing" and therefore we will all owe them money.

 

This is getting out of hand.

Oh silly, you can't patent breathing. That's so obvious you won't get a patent anywhere. It will never pass.

My patent for "method of extracting oxygen from air for use in biological organisms" however will probably get granted.

 

 

I think Mark Cuban has the right idea regarding patents.

[Albatross]

Easy money that guy ever made. lol

 

I had the idea for ketchup packets like Chik-Fil-A uses when I was in high school. Wish I could have patented.

 

You'd be swimming in the munnies.

 

[Kingofpants]

Patents continue to be outdated and useless.

This really old idea that serves no purpose but to monopolize an idea should be removed.

It should be that a company can only patent something granted its very specific and the vaguer/more things that come into play the price of copyright increases exponentially. 

And it can only remain patented for the extent an idea is being developed and not just sat on and used to troll with