Red Hat and Rackspace face down a patent troll

[Posted March 28, 2013 by corbet]

Red Hat and Rackspace Hosting have announced that they have won the dismissal of a patent suit by Uniloc USA. Uniloc was asserting patent #5,892,697, which relates to the handling of floating-point numbers. "In dismissing the case, Chief Judge Leonard Davis found that Uniloc's claim was unpatentable under Supreme Court case law that prohibits the patenting of mathematical algorithms. This is the first reported instance in which the Eastern District of Texas has granted an early motion to dismiss finding a patent invalid because it claimed unpatentable subject matter."

Update: see Groklaw for analysis and the text of the decision.

Red Hat and Rackspace face down a patent troll

Posted Mar 28, 2013 14:23 UTC (Thu) by marduk (subscriber, #3831) [Link] (4 responses)

I'm so cynical as to think the main reason this particular patent suit was dismissed so quickly by the Eastern District of Texas was not based on the (lack of) merit of the claims, but instead on the fact that the defendent is a company based in Texas.

Red Hat and Rackspace face down a patent troll

Posted Mar 28, 2013 16:04 UTC (Thu) by jke (guest, #88998) [Link] (1 responses)

Part of me wants to say "a win is a win" but you've appealed to my cynical side... oh bother.

Red Hat and Rackspace face down a patent troll

Posted Mar 28, 2013 16:38 UTC (Thu) by klbrun (subscriber, #45083) [Link]

A good lawyer knows the law; a great lawyer knows the judge. In this case, the Supreme Court decision made it easy for the judge to do what he wanted to do. Since this is the first time this decision has been used this way, it makes one wonder if other judges have NOT wanted to rule against patent trolls.

Red Hat and Rackspace face down a patent troll

Posted Mar 28, 2013 16:55 UTC (Thu) by rahvin (guest, #16953) [Link] (1 responses)

Considering more than half the West Texas patent trials focus almost 90% of their time on arguing in front of the jury the location of the company (whether it's a Texas company) rather than the merits of the case your concerns are valid.

The town holding the courthouse where these West Texas cases take place employees almost 1/3 of their population working for the legal system with almost 100% of the citizenry either working for or having relatives working for the law firms that prosecute these cases, IMO the jury pools are tainted resulting in lawyers spending all their time discussing whether the company is a Texas based company or not.

Red Hat and Rackspace face down a patent troll

Posted Mar 29, 2013 22:24 UTC (Fri) by kjhambrick (guest, #23704) [Link]

Hmmmm ....

What town is it in WEST Texas that hosts the courthouse for the U.S. District Court for the EASTERN District of Texas ?

Just wondering ...

-- kjh

Red Hat and Rackspace face down a patent troll

Posted Apr 4, 2013 16:23 UTC (Thu) by ejr (subscriber, #51652) [Link]

Does anyone know what part of the kernel rounds operands before operating and then truncates the result? That's the patent method as I read it... and it's a horrible method. I'd could this as bug report via lawsuit.