Bonum Certa Men Certa

White House Should Identify USPTO as the Problem, Not Patent Trolls

David Kappos
USPTO's most recent head and software patents apologist, IBM's David Kappos



Summary: Continued analysis, accompanied by new stories, of the patent situation and what is needed to address the increasingly recognised harms of patents

Patent trolls are a major source of harm, but they are not the principal source, never mind what the White House is trying to tell us [1, 2, 3]. The corporations-leaning USPTO, with its ludicrous monopolies on algorithms constantly and endlessly (without boundaries) being granted to companies large and small, is the real problem. According to this post, even dining businesses are seriously affected by USPTO stupidity, To quote: "Innovative Wireless Solutions LLC, a non-practicing entity [....] filed 40+ lawsuits in the Eastern District of Texas against a variety of hotels, hotel chains, and restaurants/coffee shops/delis" (over patents).



Even the ITC is playing a role in this problem. It gives 'teeth' to the USPTO.

Watch the moronic arguments of this man who defend patent trolls getting dismantled one by one:

Former Sen. John E. Sununu has an op-ed in the Boston Globe today that perfectly encapsulates the talking points of those who oppose efforts to clamp down on patent trolls.

[...]

Of course, former Sen. Sununu said that, although to be fair he was talking about banks, not inventors.

But this isn’t about pointing out hypocrisy. It’s about examining incentives. What kind of incentive is it if a person can make a fortune simply by getting a patent, instead of having to develop the patent into a business? We won’t get more innovation; we’ll just get more patents and more lawsuits, which is exactly what’s happened.

As the Obama Administration’s recent study showed, for every dollar a patent troll makes, the defendants who paid them lose ten dollars. That’s a net loss to the economy. Clearly, the incentives are wrong. We should be incentivizing entrepreneurship, not patent lottery tickets.


The Troll Tracker has its own take. Trolls are not the sole issue though.

An international team produced this paper (from Hall el al.) in which it recently explained why patents won't help Europe. It's a continent where small by businesses are abundant and trolls hardly exist. To quote the abstract:

A surprisingly small number of innovative firms use the patent system. In the UK, the share of firms patenting among those reporting that they have innovated is about 4%. Survey data from the same firms support the idea that they do not consider patents or other forms of registered IP as important as informal IP for protecting inventions. We show that there are a number of explanations for these findings: most firms are SMEs, many innovations are new to the firm, but not to the market, and many sectors are not patent active. We find evidence pointing to a positive association between patenting and innovative performance measured as turnover due to innovation, but not between patenting and subsequent employment growth. The analysis relies on a new integrated dataset for the UK that combines a range of data sources into a panel at the enterprise level.


The patents boosters, in the mean time, are confirming that UPC (unitary patent) would aid trolls in Europe and turn British lawyers into trolls. Jack Ellis writes:

Experts suggested that patent litigators based in England could be the counsel of choice for many Unified Patent Court (UPC) plaintiffs at a debate on litigation finance held in London last week.

Panellists at the discussion, held at the offices of litigation finance and insurance broker The Judge, suggested that recent civil litigation costs reforms in the United Kingdom and the increasing sophistication of the country’s litigation funding market could make the services of British practitioners especially attractive to patent owners seeking to assert their rights in the UPC.

Once established, the UPC will cover at least 13 countries, including France, Germany and the United Kingdom; at most it could hold jurisdiction over all 25 signatory states, with the prospect that Poland and Spain – which have opted out of the UPC for the time being – and any future European Union members could come on board at a later stage. “Either way you look at [the UPC jurisdiction], it will at least be comparable to the United States in terms of GDP and population,” said panellist Alan Johnson, partner at Bristows. “Around about 600,000 patents will suddenly be able to be litigated on a pan-European basis. In addition to a wider injunction being available, higher damages will also be possible. Almost as certainly as night follows day, you can see a group of patentees thinking right now about where they can enforce [in the UPC].”


Nazer [1, 2], who recently focused on trolls more than on software patents, finally returns to talking about patent scope in relation to this ruling on a SAP case. He says:

The long-running patent battle between Versata and SAP saw a lot of action this week. Back in 2007, Versata filed a lawsuit claiming SAP infringed a patent on a method “for pricing products in multi-level product and organizational groups.” This dispute – which raises important issues about patents and software – is proceeding both in the courts and at the Patent Office. Yesterday, EFF joined an amicus brief supporting SAP at the Federal Circuit, where SAP is arguing that it does not infringe. Meanwhile, at the Patent Office, SAP won a landmark ruling finding that the invention was not patentable because it merely covers an abstract idea.


This case showed failure at the USPTO more than anything else and a European company, SAP, was affected the most. It is time to shun the USPTO, the source of many of today's problems, including impeded innovation. We don't need then USPTO to document and publish ideas anymore, we already have the Internet. The USPTO got warped into a protectionism apparatus, not a source of knowledge.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Comparing U.E.F.I. to B.I.O.S. (Bloat and Insecurity to K.I.S.S.)
By Sami Tikkanen
New 'Slides' From Stallman Support (stallmansupport.org) Site
"In celebration of RMS's birthday, we've been playing a bit. We extracted some quotes from the various articles, comments, letters, writings, etc. and put them in the form of a slideshow in the home page."
Thailand: GNU/Linux Up to 6% of Desktops/Laptops, According to statCounter
Desktop Operating System Market Share Thailand
António Campinos is Still 'The Fucking President' (in His Own Words) After a Fake 'Election' in 2022 (He Bribed All the Voters to Keep His Seat)
António Campinos and the Administrative Council, whose delegates he clearly bribed with EPO budget in exchange for votes
Adrian von Bidder, homeworking & Debian unexplained deaths
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Sainsbury’s Epic Downtime Seems to be Microsoft's Fault and Might Even Constitute a Data Breach (Legal Liability)
one of Britain's largest groceries (and beyond) chains
 
People Don't Just Kill Themselves (Same for Other Animals)
And recent reports about Boeing whistleblower John Barnett
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 18, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, March 18, 2024
Suicide Cluster Cover-up tactics & Debian exposed
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 19/03/2024: A Society That Lost Focus and Abandoning Social Control Media
Links for the day
Matthias Kirschner, FSFE: Plagiarism & Child labour in YH4F
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Linux Foundation Boasting About Being Connected to Bill Gates
Examples of boasting about the association
Alexandre Oliva's Article on Monstering Cults
"I'm told an earlier draft version of this post got published elsewhere. Please consider this IMHO improved version instead."
[Meme] 'Russian' Elections in Munich (Bavaria, Germany)
fake elections
Sainsbury's to Techrights: Yes, Our Web Site Broke Down, But We Cannot Say Which Part or Why
Windows TCO?
Plagiarism: Axel Beckert (ETH Zurich) & Debian Developer list hacking
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 18/03/2024: Putin Cements Power
Links for the day
Flashback 2003: Debian has always had a toxic culture
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
[Meme] You Know You're Winning the Argument When...
EPO management starts cursing at everybody (which is what's happening)
Catspaw With Attitude
The posts "they" complain about merely point out the facts about this harassment and doxing
'Clown Computing' Businesses Are Waning and the Same Will Happen to 'G.A.I.' Businesses (the 'Hey Hi' Fame)
decrease in "HEY HI" (AI) hype
Free Software Needs Watchdogs, Too
Gentle lapdogs prevent self-regulation and transparency
Matthias Kirschner, FSFE analogous to identity fraud
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 18/03/2024: LLM Inference and Can We Survive Technology?
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 17, 2024
IRC logs for Sunday, March 17, 2024
Links 17/03/2024: Microsoft Windows Shoves Ads Into Third-Party Software, More Countries Explore TikTok Ban
Links for the day
Molly Russell suicide & Debian Frans Pop, Lucy Wayland, social media deaths
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Our Plans for Spring
Later this year we turn 18 and a few months from now our IRC community turns 16
Open Invention Network (OIN) Fails to Explain If Linux is Safe From Microsoft's Software Patent Royalties (Charges)
Keith Bergelt has not replied to queries on this very important matter
RedHat.com, Brought to You by Microsoft Staff
This is totally normal, right?
USPTO Corruption: People Who Don't Use Microsoft Will Be Penalised ~$400 for Each Patent Filing
Not joking!
The Hobbyists of Mozilla, Where the CEO is a Bigger Liability Than All Liabilities Combined
the hobbyist in chief earns much more than colleagues, to say the least; the number quadrupled in a matter of years
Jim Zemlin Says Linux Foundation Should Combat Fraud Together With the Gates Foundation. Maybe They Should Start With Jim's Wife.
There's a class action lawsuit for securities fraud
Not About Linux at All!
nobody bothers with the site anymore; it's marketing, and now even Linux
Links 17/03/2024: Abuses Against Human Rights, Tesla Settlement (and Crash)
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 16, 2024
IRC logs for Saturday, March 16, 2024
Under Taliban, GNU/Linux Share Nearly Doubled in Afghanistan, Windows Sank From About 90% to 68.5%
Suffice to say, we're not meaning to imply Taliban is "good"
Debian aggression: woman asked about her profession
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 17/03/2024: Winter Can't Hurt Us Anymore and Playstation Plus
Links for the day