Photo by Steve Jurvetson from Menlo Park, USA

Summary: Jay Walker, a patent troll, creates a Web-based trolling/'licensing' service and the corporate media helps him

"Big data is key to disrupting the U.S. patent industry," said last month's headline from the plutocrats' media (Fortune). Let's put aside the term "patent industry", which equates patenting to production. This article spoke about a patent troll named Jay Walker-- a man whom we wrote about before. To quote what it's about: "The United States Patent Utility is a newly launched web-based licensing platform offered by Parent Properties. Led by Priceline founder Jay Walker, the Utility (as it’s sometimes called) is a public company that will bring together inventors and would-be users, kind of like a match-making service."

"It's like an answer in search of a question or a solution in search of a problem, unless the target audience is patent examiners and trolls."That's the sort of vision laid out by patent hoarders who litigate rather than create anything. They treat patents as a product to be sold or rented. Notice that they call it "web-based licensing platform" (trolling sounds almost synonymous), nothing like a "match-making service." There's no love in it.

Oddly enough, this article completely neglects to mention that Walker is now a patent toll. "The company’s analytics technology," it says, "searches the two million-plus patents on file with the U.S. Patent Office, as well as its huge volume of pending patents, and matches companies with any concepts that will help them meet their business goals."

Companies don't need patents to tell them what to do and they don't need to look up patents instead of doing what they do. It's like an answer in search of a question or a solution in search of a problem, unless the target audience is patent examiners and trolls. The world's patent examiners already have expansive tools for finding prior art and/or existing patents.

The article goes on and states: "The Utility is designed to open up the world of innovation to companies of all sizes, particularly those with limited resources."

Actually, this sounds more like a patent trolls' toolbox. It makes it cheaper for trolls to acquire 'licensing' deals or acquire patents, without even a lawsuit. ⬆