05.28.13
Gemini version available ♊︎US Congress Should Stop Targeting Symptoms and Instead Tackle the Real Problem, Patent Scope
And Schumer Should Focus on the Correct Target (Software Patents), Not Trolls
Summary: Alluding to the fact that politicians pursue a corporate ‘reform’ (benefiting large companies) rather than the obvious reform which the USPTO needs
Somebody called Steph Kennedy contacted me a few days ago. I had an amicable exchange with this person who runs the IP Troll Tracker site — a site which like us seems to realise that the Schumer 'reform' once again got derailed. He now speaks primarily about trolls rather than software patents/scope, which he focused on before. As Steph put it in her unique style, “I suppose on the one hand this is good news…all those software patents people don’t want issued? Well, they’ll languish forever now with the patent office reviewing cases for a living. It’s kind of like when Congress gets deadlocked: that’s a good thing because if they can’t agree? They can’t make more stupid laws.
“Throwing crazy-stupid legislation together so that you can tell your corporate constituents that you are trying to solve their problem? That’s what politicians do.”
“Motorola is a defence mechanism, not an offence mechanism to Google, but EU regulators are too misguided to see this.”She is throwing a wobbly Schumer’s way. He no longer proposes a good reform. Here is another misdirected reform coming from the US government. And another. Why the sudden focus only on trolls? As Masnick’s site puts it: “Of course, even before the law was officially on the books, it looks like Vermont’s Attorney General has already sued a patent troll under existing consumer protection laws (raising questions as to why the new law is necessary). In this case, the troll is one we’ve written about a few times. Remember the series of rotating shell companies that had
claimed that businesses who had a networked scanner need to pay $1,000 per employee? Yeah, that one.”
Here is another report about Congress targeting trolls in isolation. Politicians serve corporate interests, only going after trolls, the side effect of a rogue system. Trolls are, on occasions, a proxy for large corporations, but this is the exception rather than the norm. Microsoft seems to be doing it, Apple hardly ever does (there are a few examples where Apple does this, e.g. MPEG-LA). Google won’t use proxies like Microsoft and Apple do and it states this clearly, upfront.
Motorola is a defence mechanism, not an offence mechanism to Google, but EU regulators are too misguided to see this. completely missing the source of this issue and instead going after the victim which is trying to defend itself by expensive deterrence plan.
It is worth noting that Steph misunderstood some of the points I had made prior to the post in question, based on her response to me (posted some hours ago). Patent Troll Tracker was a lawyer, not her. The point I was making is that refocusing on trolls is often something that lawyers, politicians and lobbyists do, whereas bloggers often fall right into the same trap and lose sight of patent scope as the principal issue. The one point I disagree with Steph is that she says some companies are “actually selling off some of their patents to the trolls themselves (possibly and potentially Google and definitely Ericsson).”
Actually, while Ericsson is a good example which we covered before [1, 2, 3], she should mention Apple and Microsoft, not Google. Name even one troll which was fed by Google. None, right?
“Throwing crazy-stupid legislation together so that you can tell your corporate constituents that you are trying to solve their problem? That’s what politicians do.”
–Steph KennedyA good example of an Apple- and Microsoft-backed patent troll is Intellectual Ventures, the world’s biggest patent troll. How come Congress does not tackle this extortion operation? Too big to jail or even address. As Steph put it a few weeks ago, this troll makes nothing except propaganda. She wrote: “What long-term positive PR that IV thought they were going to accomplish with this survey is anybody’s guess.”
As long as the USPTO is controlled by giants like software patents booster IBM, nothing will change for the better without a real fight.
Irving Wladawsky-Berger, an IBM veteran who endorses software patents, continues to post his pro-patents dross. These are the people who, sadly enough, control the politicians. A politicians who works for common interests is not a politicia but an activist. Strong action is needed to fix patent scope; Congress just isn’t doing it, █
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