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back to article US DoJ okays IEEE's patent troll ban-hammer

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has okayed new IEEE standards licensing rules designed to end some of the seemingly-endless lawsuits over standards-essential patents - and the trolls aren't happy. A key step in bringing the new rules into effect, a “Business Review Letter” from the DoJ, has been completed with the …

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  1. P. Lee

    Wifi replaced the telephone line for internet?

    That's one powerful pringles can! I can barely get mine to cover the house.

    5 0 Reply
    1. Mark 85
      Reply Icon

      Re: Wifi replaced the telephone line for internet?

      Well... If a patent troll can't believe their own logic, who can they believe? By the way, did you pay the license fee on that pringle can and the line charge for the string?

      7 0 Reply
  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    About bloody time

    Now, can we have same adopted in the 3GPP, JDEC and other key standard bodies.

    0 0 Reply
  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Interesting that Google is missing from that list

    But then they after they bought Motorola they didn't stop the effort to use these shady claims against Apple and Microsoft, so I guess its one more nail in the already overly-weighed-down-with-nails coffin of Google's "do no evil" spin.

    0 3 Reply
  4. big_D Silver badge

    Given to standards

    One thing that seems to be missing in balancing the argument is that the standards body don't trawl the patents database and say, "oh, that looks impressive, let's co-opt that into our new standard." The patent holder has to agree to their patent being used as part of the standard and that it must then be licenced accordingly (free or FRAND).

    If they refuse, then the standard will have to find a way around the patent.

    I like that it stops the "well the previous patent owner might have agreed, but we didn't" argument.

    5 0 Reply
  5. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

    Sounds like a step in the rigt direction

    Some sense being brought to (a part of) the US patent system, that is a pleasant surprise. The fact that it comes from IEEE rather than USPTO is not much of a surprise

    6 0 Reply
  6. localzuk Silver badge

    The trolls want to have their cake and eat it too

    If they want their patented technology to become part of an IEEE standard then they, of course, will have to comply with IEEE rules. If they don't want to comply with those rules, then they are free to not include their technology in the standard.

    Why should they be able to be a part of a standard and still act like dicks to anyone who then has the audacity to want to use the standard?

    Those companies are free to try and create their own competing standard, and free to manufacture their own equipment that uses it. But then, that wouldn't work with their trolling business model would it? They don't actually want to do any work with their patents.

    9 0 Reply
    1. Ashton Black
      Reply Icon

      Re: The trolls want to have their cake and eat it too

      Well said.

      0 0 Reply

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

  7. Joe Drunk
    Thumb Up

    RCWireless complains that it's only WiFi – under the old patent regime – that rescued the world from being “tethered to the Internet via … a telephone line”. It complains that the decision published by the IEEE was reached by a "non-transparent" process and punishes "creators of patented innovations".

    It doesn't punish creators of patented innovations. It punishes those whose business model revolves around the barter, sale and litigation of patents while contributing zero to the R&D of said patents.

    4 0 Reply

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