Bonum Certa Men Certa

Trolls in a State of Denial



Summary: Patent trolls do not want to be recognised as patent trolls

Mr. Tiller, a leading figure in Red Hat's legal team, addresses the fact that patent trolls are a major issue in today's technology sector. He cites a paper and writes: "A new report titled An Overview of the "Patent Trolls" Debate [PDF] is a balanced but ultimately devastating indictment of "patent trolls." It was prepared by the Congressional Research Service for members of Congress, who could actually do something about the "troll" problem. It's a useful primer for those new to the area.



"First, apologies to any who are offended by use of the word "trolls." As the report points out, the problem is that the term is not only pejorative, but also somewhat vague. It notes the common use of the more polite term "non-practicing entities" (NPEs), but favors using instead "patent-assertion entities" (PAEs). These are entities that speculate by buying patents with a view to asserting them against parties that usually have independently invented, produced, and marketed the technology at issue. I'm fine with "PAE," which really is clearer, and also points toward an irresistible pun: all a PAE does is make you pay."

Trolls are a subject that is important to us because trolls used to attack this site and patent trolls we criticise try to discredit, using weasel words and quoting the messenger out of context. As one supporter of this site put it, "While Roy was away on his pre announced honeymoon in Cyprus, a patent troll decided to harass him. They paid for a press release to call him inaccurate, irresponsible and unresponsive. What trash bags.

"Ever heard of Pikigram? Neither has G+ as of this writing, "Sorry, we couldn't find any matches." They wrote up a psychobable press release about paradigm shifts breaking the loggjams of innovation with a photosharing app. They have no product or service but hired lawyers who are "pursuing patent protection". If that's the sum of their commercial activity, yes they are patent trolls.

"I never imagined a company (sock/troll) would pay for a press release to counter my blog posts," I wrote in response.

Interesting stuff from the aforementioned thread says: "Here is a promo for the law firm, "legalteamusa": Zeis, Widerman, & Malek [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LPAoEFOefY]

"They've been in business seven years. One of their lawyers created a webpage "IPWatchdog.com" and another called "tacticalIP.com". They have interesting legal news in their tweets: http://twitter.com/LegalTeamUSA

"Until we can see the patent number to access it and read what it claims are..."

Quoting yours truly out of context and turning out to be connected to the pro-software patents groups/lobby (behind shells) only further validates the original claims against them. Patent trolls are without ethics and all they care about is money, regardless of the means by which to gain it. This is part of a wider issue and it is not only trolls, either. As this one new report puts it: "SK Hynix Inc., the world's second-largest memory-chip maker by sales, said Sunday a U.S court imposed sanctions against Rambus Inc. in a patent dispute on dynamic random access memory chips that started in August 2000.

"A Californian court reversed its existing stance and said that Rambus illegally destroyed evidence regarding the patent-infringement case."

Microsoft and Intel also destroyed evidence.

As a side note of site news, I have been slow to post new articles after I came back because I am testing various Android text editors to replace what I was using on Palm OS. Nothing can replace a physical keyboard; it's rather horribly slow.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Brian Kernighan, "Only Third to Dennis Richie and Ken Thompson" (UNIX), Agreed With Someone Who Said Rust Was Just Hype, Should Not Replace C
17 hours ago
Reminder: Microsoft's "Secure Boot" Certificate for "Linux" Will be Expired in One Week
Many PCs won't manage to 'rotate' to another certificate
 
BASIC Predates Microsoft by Over a Decade, Microsoft-Controlled Sites Like The Register MS Don't Want You to Know This
The state of the media is really bad when it relies a lot on oligarchs' money and is appointing editors who are working for oligarchs
Analogies for "Memory Safety" in Rust
Don't worry, it's Rust! It can do anything!
"Many of the Red Hat Employees Are Still Looking for Work"
Shame on IBM's CEO
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, September 04, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, September 04, 2025
Microsoft Started With Code Literally From The Trash, Nothing Has Improved Since
The reality is, there are systems and code that are reliable. But they're not Microsoft's.
Hypothesis That New McKinsey/Microsoft Executive Inside Red Hat Will Outsource Research and Development Operations to India (Like They Do in IBM)
IBM is floundering
Slopwatch: Scams, Fake Articles About "Linux", Plagiarism, and Worse
Perhaps some time soon the LLMs or the "Big LLMs" will run out of money (to borrow) and go offline, leaving those slopfarms in a tough place
Gemini Links 04/09/2025: Means of Production and Rusting Out
Links for the day
Links 04/09/2025: Science, Hardware, and Eyes on China
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/09/2025: Digital Minimalism and Social Control Media
Links for the day
IBM's GNU/Linux Divestment, Based on Hard But Anecdotal Evidence (IBM Fails to Recognise How Much Money It Made and Can Still Make From "Linux")
Love us or hate us, a lot of what we've been saying about Red Hat under IBM turns out to be rather accurate
Links 04/09/2025: Massive Microsoft Staff Cuts (Barely Reported), "Strange Conspiracy Theory Is Reportedly Spreading Inside OpenAI"
Links for the day
Activists Can Win, But Keep an Eye on the Ball and on the Trophy
GitHub is dying, it was a loss-making trap, not free hosting
Gemini Links 04/09/2025: Katrina Remembered, Distracted Driving, and Virtual Economics
Links for the day
At This Point It's No Longer Matthew Garrett But People Who Fund Matthew Garrett (or Companies That Fund His SLAPPs Against My Wife and I)
The only thing worse than misogynists are misogynists who fail to respect other people's right to go on holiday
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 03, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, September 03, 2025
The UEFI 9/11 - Part VI - This Serious Harm Was Planned for Over a Decade, Not an Accident or Merely Some Misfortune
The term "Serious Harm" is legally meaningful here
GNOME Unfit for Diversity and Inclusion
GNOME's leadership is using "bad words"
Brodie Robertson Addressing the Recently-Discovered Comments
Most people probably knew nothing about this until he wrote a response
Red Hat QA Team "Had Shrunk by Half Over the Past Year." (After IBM Divestment)
If Red Hat's workforce is being moved to the East, then RHEL can become a national security problem
Slopwatch: "Open Source" and "Linux" News Faked, Made by Bots and Entered Into Google News
Spam combined with slop about "Linux" has entered Google News
Links 03/09/2025: Microsoft Causes Mass Layoffs Outside Microsoft Also, "Google Can Keep Paying for Firefox Search Deal"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/09/2025: calendar.txt, Alhena 5.3.1, and ROOPHLOCH
Links for the day
The Theory That the Man From McKinsey, Whom Red Hat Took From Microsoft a Month Ago as Executive, Wants 'Efficiency' (Lower Salaries)
So far... no "official" word
When Your Site's Articles Are Being 'Cheapened' by Slop as Feature Images
Dr. Farnell should become an advisor to The Register MS
Certificate Authority Let's Encrypt Drops to Only Half a Dozen Capsules and 0.2% of the Whole in Geminispace, Self-Signed is the Way to Go
It used to have hundreds, according to Lupa
Doing to Red Hat What They Already Did (and Still Do) to IBM
there seems to be a drive to hire cheaper staff, and it may be led by somebody Red Hat hired from Microsoft
Links 03/09/2025: Salesforce's Latest Mass Layoffs, 93% in Large Poll at The Register MS Say UK Government Should Dump Microsoft
Links for the day
Preparations for Our 19th Anniversary Have Already Begun
When we get back we'll probably sort out some balloons and venue for the next party
Pleased After 2 Years With team.blue
Moving from a Content Management System (CMS, dynamic) to a Static Site Generator (SSG) was a wise decision that made life so much easier
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is Being Attacked by Organisations Jealous of Its Principled Stance and Longevity
Nobody is perfect, but imperfection does not instantaneously imply sinister intent
If You Reject the Google Verdict in the US, Then You Should Also Reject the "Modern" Web (Do Something About It)
Gemini Protocol is still open; it cannot be hijacked or subverted because it's frozen by design and by intention
Open Source Initiative IRS Filing: Almost All the Money is Corporate, Stefano Maffuli (Executive Director) Takes About a Quarter of That Money for Openwashing of "AI" Ponzi Scheme
OSI is currently little but a PR/marketing agency of Microsoft
Many People Are "Leaving" Red Hat, Even High-Level Managers
Something is definitely going on at Red Hat
Techrights Has Been Subjected to Calls of Violence (and Death Threats), It Never Condoned Violence
I have no sympathy for people who call violence "free speech" and then get in trouble
Condoning Violent Behaviour and "Free Speech"
perhaps Microsoft Lunduke lost touch with what constitutes violence
Takeaway From the Google Verdict: GAFAM Has Too Much Control (Even Over the US Government and Courts With Government Appointees)
Many people feel disappointed but hardly surprised by the verdict
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 in One Month
As noted a few days ago, several times in fact, many people now recognise the importance of the FSF's mission, even if most people don't know what the FSF is
Many Microsoft "Assets" Are Fabricated Baloney (to Game the Numbers)
At times it seems like what we deal with are many weak patents (on algorithms), valuations or speculations based on hype ("hey hi"), and stocks held by Microsoft and its own staff
"Voluntary" Layoffs at Microsoft (to Game the Numbers, Sugar-Coating a Crisis)
"Employees interested have until the end of October to volunteer."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 02, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 02, 2025