If you have been hooked on technology for a long time, surely on more than one occasion you have heard about patent trolls, those companies that are dedicated to buying companies that are in bankruptcy with the sole purpose of obtaining patents, not to save them of bankruptcy. Once they have bought it, they sit and wait to see that a large company makes use of its patents without going through the box, to request a huge amount of money. It is not the first time that a patent troll has taken a good handful of millions from Microsoft, Apple and Google to name a few of the most important.
Fortunately for some time now, many of the companies that are part of Silicon Valley have come together to prevent this type of companies, companies that are not dedicated to research and production to be able to patent their ideas, stop filing opportunistic lawsuits requesting astronomical compensation. But while this type of company has returned to the charge, this time against Netflix, for the technology used to offer offline mode to its users, that long-awaited offline mode that allows us to enjoy our favorite series or movie without the need for have internet connection.
The patent used by Netflix and held by Blackbird Technologies, is number 7.174.362, and it deals with methods and systems for duplicating digital data. This patent that was registered in the year 2000, refers to data downloaded from a machine onto CD-R media, the most popular at that time. It is clear that little or nothing has to do with the Netflix download system, but surely the company's lawyers try to turn it around to make it appear that they have used that patent.