04.21.15

HBO Helps Shift Debate Over Patents to ‘Trolls’ (Scale), Not Scope

Posted in Patents at 1:54 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: More of that awkward shifting of the patent debate towards small actors who are misusing patents, not large conglomerates like Apple and Microsoft which use patents to destroy competitors, crush startups, drive up prices, and so on

SEVERAL people have already contacted us regarding the new video shown above (as always, since it’s HBO, not accessible to the British audience at all). John Oliver (working for HBO), who is ironically British despite his show not being accessible to the British public online, spoke about patents, but look at all the headlines it led to. We could find only the following:

With the exception of one headline (“Most Powerful Tech Lobbyist in the Country”), it’s all about “patent trolls”, isn’t it? That sort of sums up the case about patents, right? That’s what large corporations, such as HBO, would like us to believe. If John Oliver is acting as a “lobbyist” here, he sure helps lobby politicians to tackle the wrong thing. Scale of plaintiff isn’t the principal issue, especially given the strong correlation between patent trolls’ lawsuits and software patents (the large majority of patents that they use).

“HBO’s “Last Week Tonight” with John Oliver did yesterday a piece on patents,” wrote to us a reader, but from what we can gather (without having access to the video because of HBO’s silly policies) it overemphasises “trolls” without noting that large corporations often act just like trolls but at a larger scale and the real problem is patent scope, e.g. software patents, patents on genetics, etc.

We are planning/hoping to do many articles about patents this week, time permitting. We are going to show how the corporate media has been systematically emphasising the issue of “trolls” as the only (or main) issue with the patent system. It’s only make believe — made by large corporations and their lobbyists. █

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