The Patent Scam

The U.S. Patent system lets you patent a thing

and then sue anyone that does that thing.

But what if you could patent anything.

I literally could not defend myself.

I didn't have the money.

So I heard numbers between 4 to 500,000,

all the way to a million dollars for a defense,

which may or may not succeed.

This is a game that big companies play

because they know they can outspend you.

I think that they misunderstood the language of their own patent.

So it doesn't matter if you're right,

it matters if you have enough money to defend yourself.

I ran out of money, I couldn't fight this case anymore.

And the problem is, if you walk away,

uh, they win by what's called default judgment.

All... it's all consuming, it's all you can think about,

there is unknown downsided play.

You could lose everything.

Their lawyers actually threw a fit

and told us they were going to destroy our business

and destroy everything we had worked so hard to build.

It's like being accused of a crime you didn't commit,

and not having any way to... To argue that.

So they actually, uh, will win and can take your code

and can take whatever assets your company has

if you decide to not fight anymore.

I assumed they made a mistake

because nobody can own the patent on a hyperlink,

that's just common technology used on the web.

The plaintiff added my name personally to the suit.

So by continuing to distribute my app,

I can ultimately go to jail. That's what I was afraid of.

You're basically are guilty until you're proven innocent.

It... it consumed me, 100%.

Literally, zero ideas came out of these patents

-that were of any... -It was the demise of my company.

It could be money flushed down the drain because you're going to lose...

You are stuck in a lawsuit, not of your own making,

- you did not do anything wrong. - I lost my house as well.

I have no idea who's financing the lawsuit

that I got dragged into.

The demand letter that says you have three days to pay or shut down your business.

That was a very scary moment, I felt...

I realized really quickly, talking to other business owners

that this wasn't an isolated case.

People try to extort us, again and...

It was my best option.

I didn't have an option.

You can't get out,

you have to pay this guy to go away.

If you... if you don't have the resources,

to defend yourself,

the facts from your side could potentially never be heard

and you could lose everything.

And that's the way it is.

Technically what we do... that was so bad that I would say,

"we bought a $200 scanner from office depot,

and put it on our network and plugged it in."

My name is Austin Meyer

and I'm a computer programmer, aerospace engineer, and pilot.

As well, I wrote a computer program called x-plane.

X-plane is a flight simulator

that lets pilots practice flying on their personal computers at home

so they can then fly their real airplane more safely.

As well, people that aren't pilots at all enjoy flying x-plane

because they get to enjoy all the thrill of flying

without all the cost and the risk.

About five or six years ago,

I made a special version of x-plane

for the google android operating system.

Just like any app developer would,

I uploaded my app to the google store

so anybody that wanted to could download it and fly it.

They did.

Some time went by

and then it happened:

I was working at a trade show in Wisconsin

when I got a call from a lawyer.

He told me that I was being sued for patent infringement

for putting an app on the google play store.

Who was suing me?

Google?

Well,

Actually not.

I was being sued by a company called Uniloc.

This is a company I had never even heard of before.

Uniloc claimed to own a patent that described the idea of,

looking up a name on a list on a computer.

And since the google store apparently looks up your name on a list on a computer,

to see if you paid for the app that you're launching,

Uniloc claimed to own the idea

of how the google store works.

And because of this,

they were suing myself, and a lot of other people too,

simply for using the google store

to distribute our apps.

Now, Uniloc had nothing to do with the creation of the google store.

Uniloc had nothing to do with the creation of x-plane.

I never even heard of them before.

But none of that mattered.

They were suing me

and many other people,

simply for using the google play store

to distribute our apps.

Now, at this point,

the question you should be asking is,

what's in the patent?

Does the patent really give Uniloc the right to sue people

for using an online store?

Well, here it is:

This, exactly, is the claim in the patent

that Uniloc said we infringed on.

"Computer code executable on an electronic device

to prevent unauthorized access to electronic data

stored on the electronic device."

That's it.

That's it.

These words do not include any source code,

that could be of any use to any computer programmer at all.

These words do not help me, or google,

or anyone else, design, or even use the google store.

These words just say,

that if someone else goes through the trouble

to actually write a computer program

that prevents unauthorized access to data,

that whoever has this patent

can sue them.

This isn't an invention,

this isn't a new idea,

this doesn't contribute one bit of knowledge

to the computer industry.

It certainly didn't contribute anything to me.

It just says that whoever wrote down these words,

can sue anyone

that actually makes,

or in my case uses,

an app store.

Next, I looked at the lawsuit.

"Uniloc has been damaged as a result

of defendants infringing conduct described in this count."

See, Uniloc claims they've been "damaged"

by my putting an app on the google store.

Uniloc only files lawsuits for a living,

how can they be damaged by some guy like me

putting a flight simulator on an online store?

I tried to figure out how Uniloc was damaged by looking at their lawsuit,

but, they never really seemed to specify exactly how they've been hurt.

I called a lawyer.

I told him to have the case just tossed out

because of it's obvious absurdity.

What the lawyer told me next, sobered me.

He said that I would take about three years of my life,

and $3,000,000

to defend myself,

and at the end of it all,

I'd be put on trial,

in front of a jury in the outskirts of Texas

that would decide my punishment

for putting an app on the app store.

I live in South Carolina.

How could I be put on trial in front of a jury in the outskirts of Texas,

for committing the sin of using the google store to distribute my app?

It was at this moment that I realized

that I'd entered the most terrifying mess of my life.

What I'm about to tell you is shocking.

And I'm inviting you to come with me

on my journey to uncover

the patent scam.

First thing I want to know:

Who's behind all this?

I hit the 'net to find out.

Controversial patent lawsuits?

What does this company do?

A dozen lawsuits filed just last week?

Let's check out their website.

Members only.

Maybe there's something in their source code.

Ah, there it is:

Patent commercializing?

Reap the rewards.

Who owns this company?

The Marathon Patent Group?

They're not inventors?

They just own patents?

And they're traded on the Nasdaq stock exchange?

What's a patent troll?

So what is a patent troll anyway?

My first trips were to go talk to the experts

and find out for myself.

Patent trolling is the practice of taking patents

and using them to sue

or threaten to sue others.

It's not then taking those proceeds

and using it to create the next greatest technology,

but it is basically building a business

out of suing or threatening to sue.

Unfortunately, patent trolling has become a lot more common

in the last ten years.

Uh, last year, patent trolls sued about 3,600 companies