Photo by Steve Jurvetson from Menlo Park, USA

Summary: USPTO encourages litigation -- not innovation -- from people who were once productive and lost the plot, then used the patent system to fulfill their sense of entitlement

Suing over 100 companies is the type of action taken by Traul Allen, the patent troll who is also the co-founder of Microsoft; and that's just what Jay Walker is doing [1, 2, 3, 4] after serving as an actual participating member of society. From Priceline.com he moved on to this:

A group of lawsuits filed yesterday by Priceline founder Walker Digital take aim at Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and more than 100 other companies for infringing on key parts of its patent portfolio.

The 15 lawsuits, filed in U.S. District Court of Delaware, say these companies are infringing Walker Digital-owned patents covering things like e-commerce, private social-networking communications, online auctions, and a driving directions tool with visual cues.

Under the guise of "research", Walker does the same thing as Interval, which also attacks Android (Linux-powered) right now:

In a broad move, technology research and development lab Walker Digital—which most famously gave birth to Priceline.com—has filed some 15 lawsuits against more than 100 leading technology companies, alleging they infringe on a broad array of it patents. The company chairman, Jay Walker, is the founder of Priceline.com and the lead inventor on the majority of Walker Digital’s patent and patent applications, and claims a broad number of patents that apply to ecommerce, retailing, online publishing, gaming, education and other industries—and now he wants to be compensated for other companies allegedly using his work.

The reason we've brought up Walker's descent to patent-trolling is that it helps show what practices the USPTO empowers. This makes lawyers -- not scientists -- stronger.

Many implementations/execution are either inspired by others or are simultaneous realisations, which clearly lead to overlap. Should Google sue Microsoft for all its knockoffs of Google's products. How about this new example?

“Me too” Microsoft now Streetside – Have they heard of Google’s Streetview?

[...]

So its not Google Streetview then is it? Just like I saw with WP7, I believe it’s a watered down version of an already successful product - I’ll let you decide though. Watch out for a Bingmobile in a town near you!

Patents are a game waged by the losers (those who cannot compete), suggests the track record. Google does not sue Microsoft for copying many of Google's ideas (or Google-acquired ideas/companies), whereas Microsoft keeps tying to extort Android with patent lawsuits and get Google in trouble by lobbying regulators/politicians. Read this new article:

U.S. General Services Administration Associate Administrator David McClure told a Senate subcommittee Tuesday that his office hadn't pulled FISMA accreditation from Google's touted Apps for Government applications, but was in the process of recertifying a more advanced version of the software.

Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., asked McClure to respond to a company blog post from Microsoft Corporate Vice President David Howard Monday charging that recently unsealed U.S. Department of Justice documents reveal that the Google Apps for Government application had not been certified under the Federal Information Security Management Act.

The DOJ documents are from a federal court case in which Google has charged that Microsoft was unfairly awarded a contract to move the U.S. Department of the Interior email systems to the cloud. FISMA certification would allow the Google apps, which were a part of its pitch for the DOI contract, to be used by a greater number of federal employees.

Groklaw remarks: "You thought 2011 was a good year to start believing every word Microsoft says about competitors? What? Are you nuts?" ⬆