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Easy Allies Podcast #253 - February 12, 2021

🕑 Added 2021-02-12 19:01:01 +0000 UTC

Comments

The Velvet Underground & Niko Bellic

These are good insights, particularly about the Apple v. Epic case, but also slightly too sweeping and general. Big Tech patent portfolios are not "purely defensive." How would you countersue an NPE/patent troll? They don't practice any infringing activities. Patents are just legal ammunition--much of questionable efficacy--and having many of them means you are a threat: to retaliate as in your example, to impede disruptive technologies, etc. Ultimately, someone packing so much heat will be given a wide berth by competitors. ...until you start acting crazy with your guns and ammo, so someone calls the cops on you (the FTC in this analogy).

Private Prinny

Great Segment from Bloodworth, appreciated, if convenient/possible do more of that please ;-)

Greg

One thing that often gets overlooked in discussions on tech patents is the idea of a defensive portfolio. First off, the tech patents system is totally broken in that it doesn't fulfil its original aim of encouraging innovation. Secondly, I can't speak to WB's motives; only my own experience. Big tech companies want to hold massive patent portfolios for purely defensive purposes. Many companies will never aggressively sue someone for patent infringement. It's generally not worth the effort. What they will do though is, any time someone else pursues legal action against them, go rummaging through their collection of patents to find some that they can countersue with and hopefully reach a settlement. As an example, I'm sure that there's a lawyer or clerk in Apple's legal department that has been tasked with going through Apple's (huge) patent portfolio to look for any patents that they think they can reasonably accuse Epic of infringing for use related to the Fortnite lawsuit. This is also one of the reasons it makes me laugh every time some wacky patent idea filed by some big games company gets reported on as a potential future product. It's almost always not the case. It'll just be that they realised noone else had a patent for that idea yet so they filed it to build their portfolio.

Aphant

Great episode guys, I really enjoyed this one! Props to Huber for the Tycho name drop, he's one of my favorite musicians and the band's live shows are absolutely worth going to. His Audio/Visual setup for shows is spectacular.

Toni Mäkinen

Can you make a version of the podcast that has the ads and also the extra L&R questions?

Raven Perez

That works!

Cruo

Just want to say I've been enjoying Blood's segments these past couple podcasts. Keep up the great work! If you are looking for more cool games check out Graven or Faith: the Unholy Trinity, both have Steam pages.

Cabbagelad

I'm sorry. But Brandon Jones is CLEARLY Ben Affleck Batfleck era.

Raven Perez

Mummy Brandon Frasier is definitely Jones. but my god Topher Grace as Kyle is fucking HILARIOUS. Brad definitely nailing his own casting with Christian Slater. Damn. Well done. Also the thought of Sean Bean yelling Hotake is crackin' me up.

Easy Allies

It's working fine on the Apple Podcasts app so it must be either an issue with your app or perhaps you'll need to remove the feed and add it again. -Bloodworth