Reddit gets a call from Nokia about patent infringement ahead of going public

Mere days from going public, Reddit is staring down a challenge from Nokia, which has accused the "front page of the internet" of infringing some of its thousands of patents. Reddit revealed in an updated SEC filing today that it received a letter from Nokia Technologies on Monday alleging the platform "infringes certain of …

[aerogems]

That seriously needs to be one of the first patent reforms implemented here in the US: If you aren't actually using a patent, you can't sue anyone over it. Then gradually extend that to where, if you don't use a patent within a period of time (say 2-years) it is considered abandoned and put in the public domain. You have to actually be selling some kind of good or service that uses the particular patent to be able to sue anyone over it, and if they "infringed" upon the patent before you started selling anything that uses it, too bad, it's considered two entities arriving at the same conclusion independently of one another.

None of which will do anything to harm patent enforcement for companies actually making and selling products/services that make use of their patents. If anything, it'll help unclog the courts so when they have a legitimate case to bring, it'll get heard and resolved faster. And as a side note, I can barely think of a worse job than being a judge who has to sit and listen to these kinds of cases all day, every day. You can't just tune out either, you have to be actively engaged for when one side's lawyer objects to something the other side's lawyer said. That just seems utterly exhausting. Like dealing with bickering adult toddlers all day long.

[Mishak]

2 years may not be long enough

It can take much longer than that to get from "I have this great idea" to something that is commercial exploitable.

However, it should be possible to show that you are working towards exploitation.

[aerogems]

Re: 2 years may not be long enough

I'm not totally against the idea of allowing "we're working on something" to qualify, but it would have to include some kind of regular check-ins. You can't just say, "Oh, we're working on Project X" and then the next day scrap the whole thing, while continuing to sue someone for infringing upon your patents. Otherwise, you just have large companies who can afford to have a few staffers working on projects that are never really intended to be developed into an actual product. Sort of like how in Hollywood, in order to maintain the rights for a particular movie franchise, they'll pay someone to slap together a real low budget film in like a week. The kind that no one other than the director will likely ever see, but studios can keep around to hold up and say, "See, we were using the IP!"

You'd have to continually show that not only are you working towards something, but have an expected release date.

[cyberdemon]

Re: 2 years may not be long enough

2 years may be a little too far the other way, but 25 years is far too long for a patent.

If all software patents were to be reduced to 10 years, it would solve a lot of problems. The tech development cycle has accelerated since the patent system was conceived (and frankly the whole system is broken) so I would welcome a gradual reduction in patent life until eventually lawyers and corporate-spies reach a new equilibrium.

[perkele]

Re: 2 years may not be long enough

No doubt the American patent/trademark system gets the best system lobbyists can buy... /s And they are still working on "improving" it...

[Dave559]

Re: 2 years may not be long enough

perkele, your username is noted, and, especially given the topic of this article, very much appreciated! :-)

«nods in Lordi-style»

[Alan Brown]

Re: 2 years may not be long enough

Both patents (techology ones, not trade dress ones - the rest of the world calls those "registered designs") and Copyrights had usefully short lifespans when first rolled out - the intent being to allow enough income to pay back the costs of inventing/writing before fallling into public domain - this encouraging and driving innovation

IP lawyers and lobyists have turned both into IMPEDIMENTS of innovation instead of drivers (I'm looking particularly at you, Disney (Eisner))

[doublelayer]

Re: 2 years may not be long enough

"if they "infringed" upon the patent before you started selling anything that uses it, too bad, it's considered two entities arriving at the same conclusion independently of one another."

That's a recipe for invalidating a patent by watching for it to be filed then quickly making something crappy that can be argued to use the patent. I don't object to the idea, but that detail is open to a lot of abuse if the patent is real, so it may need some more tuning.

[Twilight]

Of course, our wonderful Senate is trying to increase bad patents and patent trolls rather than fix the system. Take a look at the pending PERA and PREVAIL acts.

[DJO]

Just because Nokia don't make consumer phones does not mean they are not in the telecoms business. Pretty much every bit of data zipping around the internet will at some point pass through some high end Nokia networking kit.

As noticed elsewhere it takes time to get from design to market so a 2 year cut off is impractical and if a company has developed a technology and then superseded it should not mean it's then open season on the patents they are no longer fully using, they are entitled to recoup their investment by licencing their work.

Now there are some entities that just buy and hold patents and try to sue everybody who gets remotely close to the patented subject but they themselves make or develop nothing. Those companies are scum and spoil the entire system for everybody else and should probably be nuked from orbit (metaphorically).

[Alan Brown]

"Now there are some entities that just buy and hold patents and try to sue everybody who gets remotely close to the patented subject but they themselves make or develop nothing."

They take advantage of the fact that patents are transferrable - and they need to be, as the average non-corporate patent filing inventor isn't wealthy and selling a good patent+invention is often the only way of recouping costs

What's needed is a way of preventing "non-practicing entities" from causing damage

[ecofeco]

Reddit was started in 2005

So almost twenty years of operation and NOW Nokia has a problem?

Hmmmmm...

Of course, that does not mean reddit was then what it is now, but the timing is obviously a money grab.

[ilpr]

Re: Reddit was started in 2005

Frankly, what did you think patents are for? Their only purpose is to collect money - either by licensing to others or preventing competition to use it.

Earlier it would not have been worth it to start a case if there was no money to be had so it is possible they have been monitoring the situation.

That said, software patents are ridiculous, patents are not meant to prevent ideas to be shared but implementation, yet they are too vague and too broad and used in all the wrong ways. Software is mainly an application of mathematics and shares many concepts with it, one being that there are only so many ways to implement algorithm to get a correct result. So software patents should not be given as easily as they are currently being given. Copyright legislation already has sufficient rights protection for software.

[biddibiddibiddibiddi]

Re: Reddit was started in 2005

The purpose of patents is to allow the inventor to make money from it during an exclusive period by selling a product based on it, preventing others from creating a product during that time, thus encouraging innovation because inventors were assured that no one else could just undercut them on price during that time, and then after that exclusive period the invention became public and could be used by anyone and benefit everyone at a lower cost. Licensing or selling the patent is a way to allow an inventor to get the product produced without having to actually be responsible for the process (many inventors are, one could say, less than competent in other fields, like business or finance, and just want to create, but they also need to eat). This is a different thing than simply "their only purpose is to collect money". Corporations have perverted and corrupted the system, like pretty much everything else they touch, including copyright.

[ldo]

Re: The purpose of patents

Patents are a Government-granted monopoly. They date from a time when it was assumed that businesses would not succeed without some level of Government support (the era of “mercantilism”, as opposed to “free-market capitalism”).

In short, they are an anachronism.

[Richard 12]

Re: The purpose of patents

Patents were created to avoid the "trade secret" problem.

The Government offers you enforcement of a short-term monopoly in return for publishing the details of your invention.

Before patents, many inventions were kept secret by their inventors, so could not be built upon or were even lost entirely when documents were lost or people died unexpectedly.

The US system has been broken by design since the very beginning though. At the start it did what the USA currently accuses China of doing, and now it's beyond insane.

[ldo]

Re: Patents were created to avoid the "trade secret" problem.

No they were not. They came out of “Letters Patent”, which were a way for the Government to raise extra revenue without having to raise taxes. Instead, monopolies were declared on certain industries like the manufacture of gold leaf or salt, and business groups were granted the concessions to carry out those activities, in return for payment of an appropriate cut to the King (hence the term: “royalties”). And as a bonus, if anybody tried to compete with the monopolist concessionaires without authorization, the Government would send the goons cops around to beat them up.

[Bonzo_red]

Re: Patents were created to avoid the "trade secret" problem.

In the term "Letters Patent", the "patent" bit means "open" as in not secret. So by being granted a "letter patent" you are opening up your secrets to the world. Patent is derived from the Latin pateo, to lie open, exposed, accessible.

[ldo]

Re: the "patent" bit means "open" as in not secret

It means everybody knows you control the monopoly, so nobody else had better mess with it.

[Alan Brown]

Re: Patents were created to avoid the "trade secret" problem.

Yes, and such patents were abolished around the time of James 1, due to the widespread abuse and corruption associated with them

It was about 150 years before patents came back as a way to protect actual inventors, rather than as a way to reward cronies

[Just Enough]

Re: The purpose of patents

"it was assumed that businesses would not succeed without some level of Government support "

And how, without Government support, would you propose businesses stop other businesses immediately copying what they've just spent years developing? Deploy a private army to burn down the competing factory? How would small-scale innovators earn a living, without their ideas being stolen by predatory multi-nationals? Complain about it on social media?

Patents are a necessary way of preventing the small being crushed by the big, and allowing people and companies to get a fair return on their work and investment.

[ldo]

Re: would you propose businesses stop other businesses immediately copying

All they can copy is the idea, not the implementation.

Ask anybody who has had experience creating a successful business, and they will tell you which is more important.

Ideas are a dime a dozen; execution is what matters.

[Just Enough]

Re: would you propose businesses stop other businesses immediately copying

"All they can copy is the idea, not the implementation."

I can't imagine why anyone would think this. Have you not heard of reverse engineering?

[Sandtitz]

Re: Reddit was started in 2005

We don't have details of the dispute. The alleged infringement can be about much more recent patent than something invented two decades ago.

Until we hear more about the intricacies in this case, deeming this an "obvious money grab" is showing some lack of forte in the logic department.

[Jellied Eel]

Re: Reddit was started in 2005

We don't have details of the dispute. The alleged infringement can be about much more recent patent than something invented two decades ago.

Presumably the patent would have to pre-date Reddit, or whatever Reddit is doing to allegedly infringe it. Then again, it could be related to something recent like Reddit's announcement that it'll do disguised ad posts. I guess that's one of those things that could be reformed though, ie a time limit from when infringement started to claimining infringement, not waiting to exploit a potential IPO payday.

[ldo]

Re: We don't have details of the dispute.

And maybe we never will. Nokia could be pulling a Microsoft, and only agreeing to disclose details of the patents involved under a licensing agreement which includes an NDA.

[cyberdemon]

Nokia could be pulling a Microsoft

Well, Microsoft already "embraced, extended and almost extinguished" Nokia by installing execs, crashing the company and buying half of it at a fire-sale price, so i'm not surprised

[perkele]

Re: Nokia could be pulling a Microsoft

MS tried to lowball first even that, and finally agreed for something about 5x their initial lowball.

Still, they are four letter fellows for a lot of things, including their game with Burning Oilwell Elop.

Finnish quality of management (ha) AND the board that seemed to be more interested in checking what luxury car they had and which nice hotel the next meeting would be in (slight exaggeration, I am sure they did look at some papers, provided by the quality management, often uncritically) too.

Greetings from "Nokialand"

[cyberdemon]

Re: Greetings from "Nokialand"

@perkele That sucks. You'll need one or five of these.

Cheers for the N900 btw! Best phone ever (except for that one flaw that limited its lifespan and things like the USB connector and SIM holder started coming loose from the PCB - an issue with early lead-free wave-soldering I guess?). Cheers for Maemo the debian-based mobile OS that made it what it was. (Shame when Intel and deadrat joined the party and poisoned it with their bastard Meego)

I loved that phone, from 2009-2015. Last phone ever to have a native Linux OS, X11, apps in .deb format and a C++ compiler on-device. Made a great SSH terminal with its slide-out keyboard and high-res screen. There was even an open-source WhatsApp client for it at the time called Yappari.

Now all we have is a choice of crapple or slurpzilla.

[doublelayer]

Re: We don't have details of the dispute.

That won't work for long. They can try to hide it between themselves and Reddit, but if Reddit doesn't come to an agreement with them, they'll have to make it public in a court filing which specifically lists the violations they allege.

[ldo]

Re: they'll have to make it public in a court filing

Of course. But they’re banking it won’t come to that. You have to set the payment amount at just enough to be worth your while, without being high enough to make it worth the other party taking it to court.

[IGotOut]

Re: Reddit was started in 2005

Do you know what patent they have infringed?

It could be 12 months old for you know and related to something completely hidden from the end user (think possible load balancing or how it sends an alert out).

Just because Ford have been around a century or so, doesn't mean a patient has to be a hundred and fifty years old to infringe it.

[Bonzo_red]

Re: Reddit was started in 2005

At a guess the tech concerned is some form of video codec which wasn't around in 2005.

[Blackjack]

Forums have existed for several decades, not sure whatever patent Nokia is claiming would hold in court.

The thing is patent litigation, more so in the USA, is quite costly and can take ages so most people just pay instead, that's how patent trolls make money.

That Nokia has become a patent troll is quite sad to hear.

[abend0c4]

not sure whatever patent Nokia is claiming

Perhaps Reddit allows you to enter text very slowly using a numeric keypad.

[tip pc]

The particular accusations against Reddit aren't clear

The particular accusations against Reddit aren't clear, and neither Reddit nor Nokia responded to questions asking for additional information pertaining to the nature of the patents in question.

Phishing on an industrial scale.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The particular accusations against Reddit aren't clear

Maybe that’s where they get their jumbled and incoherent content from as it’s cheaper than AI … as they certainly aren’t the "front page of the internet" … whoever proclaimed that horseshit.

[Blackjack]

Re: The particular accusations against Reddit aren't clear

Wasn't that Yahoo? Back when people actually used front/portal pages when using web browsers?

I remember using the Microsoft one, cause back then I used Internet Explorer and it went to that one by default.

Reddit is at the end of the day a forum that makes easy to find information on it and that's it.

But because patent law in the USA is insane, as in you can patent things you haven't invented or implemented and even ideas people had before you, this will either end in a long court case or Reddit setting. If they are smart they still insist on paying Nokia with shares.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Once a maker of legendarily indestructible cellular telephones"

"Once a maker of legendarily indestructible cellular telephones in the pre-iPhone era, before it spun off the handset biz and licensed its brand to HMD"

Umm, I think you kinda missed out the really rather important to the whole saga "that was set on fire by Microsith, who then swallowed up the somewhat charred remains," part from the middle of that sentence…

Without that middle part, Nokia would probably have managed to hang on just long enough for a couple more years to start making MeeGo a properly widely available successor to Symbian (and with enough brand/fan loyalty to make it a viable third player, and then probably build back from there in a hopefully somewhat humbled form), but by diverting themselves to deal with their self-inflicted conflagration they sadly effectively pulled down that treasure vault door on themselves. Not many people wanted a Windows phone and certainly hardly any Nokia fans (they were the world's number one mobile phone manufacturer, remember) wanted to taint themselves by getting even within touching distance of such a foul thing.

[Alan Brown]

Re: "Once a maker of legendarily indestructible cellular telephones"

MS phones were powered by WinCE - and most people did if they attempted to use it