The onslaught of patent lawsuits by both company giants and trolls had taken over courts that discussion about them is usually in a negative light, the Hollywood Reporter said in a feature report. The ridiculousness is even shared by venture capitalist and panel judge for ABC's "Shark Tank." Mark Cuban's Magnolia Pictures had been recently named as one of the defendants, along with Apple Inc, Amazon and Weinstein Companies in a lawsuit filed by Red Pine Point over infringement of a patent regarding the technology of movies to mobile phones.
In his blog, Cuban explained why he viewed the lawsuit as nonsensical. He said, "If Magnolia, which distributes movies and pioneered the release of movies before they are in theaters, something we called UltraVOD and have done since 2004 , decides to make movies available for download via cellular to mobile devices, we have not violated the patent. IT IS ONLY WHEN WE DECIDE TO SHOW THAT MOVIE IN A THEATER that we have violated the Patent. Huh?"
In public comments that were filed with the US Federal Trade Commission, Apple similarly shared the same sentiments Cuban shared regarding patent trolls. Referring them the more business-like term of trolls, which is patent assertion entity, Apple wrote, "No firm has been targeted by PAEs more than Apple. Apple has litigated against PAEs 92 times in the past three years alone and has received many more demands." Ars Technica said in its report that Apple has faced 92 lawsuits regarding patent infringement in three years, of which 51 of them led to payouts.
The Hollywood Reporter stated that patents, or sets of exclusive rights granted by a state to an investor or assignee of an investor in exchnage for detailed public disclosure of an invention for a limited period of time, had been protected by Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution. It had said in its report that critics of the patent system, Cuban obviously included, are the companies that abuse the law for the sake of extracting licensing tolls.
