06.06.16
Posted in Europe, Patents at 7:34 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Boards of Appeals fighting for truth regarding Team Battistelli and its attack on truth-tellers
Summary: New claims that on the 14th of June in room 131 there will be oral proceedings which can be viewed — by extension — as a smackdown between Team Battistelli and the Enlarged Board of Appeals that’s Battistelli's Nemesis
THE legitimacy of the EPO‘s management has come under attack both from the Administrative Council (especially large nations’ representatives) and the boards which are increasingly furious.
Battistelli may be 'buying' the votes of small nations (later this week he will suck up to Portugal), but that cannot cover up the fact which was pointed out earlier today in IP Kat, namely:
What should really worry the members of the Council is that Battistelli is simply mocking them, not doing anything of what he is told to do. Whatever the reason for his behavior, he is leading the Office in a direction which is not what the Council wants. Eventually, they will have to show him who is the boss or they will have to accept that the power is not in their hands.
Meanwhile, a subsequent comment (in the form of an ode) drops hints about an upcoming milestone. Battistelli may be defaming the judge who is alleged to have spoken about the background of the Vice-President from Croatia and there could be criminal charges on the way (not against the judge but against the management of the European Patent Office). To quote the ode:
P eople at a loose end next week
U can consider taking a peek
B enny’s fifedom hosts the trial of the year
L et the fun begin,you can’t bring beer
I n room 131,14th June,prepare to queue
C os The Sun King doesn’t really want you!
There was something curious about the above date, but soon thereafter a clarification came (less poetic and more informative). Yes, more details about the reference to Room 131 were then posted as follows:
If it was true that in the pending disciplinary case concerning a member of the Boards, the EBA has decided that the oral proceedings on 14th of June shall be public, as suggested by Bringbackalib, this would be a quite extraordinary development. It would indicate that the President is actually loosing the control in the campaign he launched against the Boards as a reaction to decision R19/12. Public exposure, shortly before the next meeting of the Administrative Council, of his behavior and of the doubtful actions of his investigative services might turn into a disaster for him.
Two previous decisions in this disciplinary case, both favorable to the accused judge, have never been officially published despite express orders of the EBA to this effect. This time the truth will come out and it might be somewhat different from what had been propagated by complacent newspapers.
Room 131 might not be large enough to accommodate all those interested, from both inside and outside the EPO.
If this is true, then we hope that some outsiders — maybe even reporters from Munich — can attend (this probably would not be allowed). Battistelli’s war on dissent cannot fool everyone. It’s not hard to see what’s going on. Instead of acknowledge cronyism and abuse at the top-level management there’s an effort to gag/silence/punish/dismiss anyone who dares to bring up the subject. This is a ticking time bomb far greater than FIFA or Volkswagen. █
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Posted in America, Deception, Patents at 4:36 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Selective media coverage as a biasing strategy
Summary: Sites of patent lawyers continue to tell only a fraction of the whole story, focusing on one single old case involving Microsoft (which supports software patents) rather than the full picture (Alice and PTAB crushing software patents in the United States)
PATENTS on software are worse than inessential. They’re extremely harmful, especially but not only to software developers (irrespective of the type of software and whether it’s proprietary or not). They are being promoted for (self) gain by billionaires and patent lawyers, as we noted in our previous post. So why are we still hearing software patents advocacy? Well, for one thing, patent lawyers have a grip on the media. They even have their own media sites and these often look like news sites (basically marketing/sales disguised as analysis or reporting). This post presents some of the latest propaganda on these matters.
According to this recent post from a patent lawyers’ site: “A court was easily able to analogize claims of two patents directed to electronic messaging to manual communications processes; the court consequently granted a motion for summary judgment of invalidity under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Mobile Telecommunications Technologies LLC v. Blackberry Corp., No. 3:12-cv-1652-M (N.D. Texas May 12, 2016).”
“They’re extremely harmful, especially but not only to software developers (irrespective of the type of software and whether it’s proprietary or not).”Notice the “invalidity under 35 U.S.C. § 101″ part. We’re seeing lots of that today, but patent lawyers would rather de-emphasise or ignore such things. “US Pat 8,545,575,” wrote Patent Buddy the other day. “This is the patent a UT Judge held invalid under 101/Alice” (the SCOTUS ruling on Alice in 2014).
There’s more of that, e.g. Patent Buddy’s “Portable Data Storage Device Patent Unpatentable Under 35 U.S.C. § 101″ (same grounds).
The cited decision is described as follows: “In a final written decision, the Board found claims of a patent directed to a portable data storage device unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 101.”
And from the decision: “The underlying concept of claims 13 and 14, particularly when viewed in light of the ’720 patent specification, is conditioning and controlling access to content based upon payment. This is a fundamental economic practice long in existence in commerce. We are, thus, persuaded, based on the ’720 patent specification and the claim language, that each of claims 13 and 14 is directed to an abstract idea.”
“They even have their own media sites and these often look like news sites (basically marketing/sales disguised as analysis or reporting).”Looking at the site best known for software patents advocacy, they now have an article titled “Avoiding Alice Rejections with Predictive Analytics” (trying to find loopholes around the law). “Having affirmed the claim construction,” says another such site, “the Federal Circuit likewise affirmed summary judgment of noninfringement, adding that disclaimer applied to both literal infringement and to infringement under the doctrine of equivalents.”
This is actually about CAFC, not SCOTUS. CAFC is responsible for bringing software patents to the United States in the first place.
3 days ago Ping Hu and Michael McNamara of Mintz Levin tried hard to cherry-pick cases to bring back software patents, in spite of SCOTUS. Their ‘article’ was titled “A New Hope for Software Patents?” It looks like an analysis, but it’s shameless self-promotion, as usual. Mintz Levin wasn’t alone here. Patent lawyers are so desperate to spread one single case (Enfish v Microsoft) to the appeals folks in order to save software patents. See “The PTAB Applies Enfish” (the case everyone leans on for legitimisation of software patents). It says: “However, relying on the recent Enfish decision, the PTAB found that the claimed method did not recite an abstract idea. Id. at 15. In so finding the PTAB faulted Petitioner’s argument for failing to analyze the claims as a whole. Id. at 15. The PTAB went on to analyze the claimed method under the second step of the Alice test and found that it too was not met. Id. at 16. The PTAB found that, like the claims in DDR Holdings, the challenged claims are necessarily rooted in computer technology. Id. at 17.”
“CAFC is responsible for bringing software patents to the United States in the first place.”PTAB is not stupid (or corruptible or greedy like the USPTO), so almost every software patent that comes there will end up dead. The blog post “Corelogic, Inc. v. Boundary Solutions, Inc. (PTAB 2016)” says: “On May 24, 2016, the U.S. Patent Office Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issued a decision denying institution of covered business method (CBM) patent review of U.S. Patent No. 7,092,957 owned by Boundary Solutions.”
That’s more of the same, obviously. Even Apple is now running to the PTAB, having found itself on the receiving end of abuses it's now so renowned for. To quote IAM: “Shortly after Smartflash won a $533 million infringement decision against Apple early last year this blog pointed out that the NPE [troll] was still unlikely to ultimately receive such a big payout. For one thing the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) has shown its predilection for over-ruling big district court awards, particularly from the Eastern District of Texas and particularly damages awarded to NPEs.”
What’s noteworthy here is that Apple, which uses software patents against Android (and by extension Linux) suddenly does not like them (because they’re used against Apple) and resorts/retreats to PTAB for reprieve. How pathetic is this? Double standards all over this…
“What’s noteworthy here is that Apple, which uses software patents against Android (and by extension Linux) suddenly does not like them (because they’re used against Apple) and resorts/retreats to PTAB for reprieve.”Regarding PTAB, also see MCM v HP Briefs. To quote Patently-O: “MCM-Petition-and-Appendix: (1) Whether inter partes review (IPR) violates Article III of the Constitution; and (2) whether IPR violates the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution. Response Due June 30, 2016.”
The inter partes reviews are carried out by PTAB, which we need a lot more of (the EPO equivalent, E/BoA, is being crushed by Battistelli these days).
Going back to Enfish v Microsoft, 3 weeks later patent lawyers still try to prop up this one single pro-software patents ruling. CoffyLaw published this promotional piece and Bastian Best is cherry-picking cases again, citing Michael Best who latches onto CAFC. Fish & Richardson PC, which we mentioned here many times before, also joins the opportunists with a so-called ‘analysis’ or comparison between Enfish and TLI (a case which soon after Enfish crushed software patents at the same court). Meanwhile, a Microsoft-connected patent lawyers firm (Shook Hardy and Bacon LLP) is trying to expand patent scope with a so-called ‘analysis’. The common thing (or theme) here is that they only pay attention to what suits their agenda. It’s not analysis, it’s propaganda.
“The common thing (or theme) here is that they only pay attention to what suits their agenda. It’s not analysis, it’s propaganda.”Owing to patent lawyers’ hype and media saturation, Enfish v Microsoft is now widely known only for reinforcing software patents in the US. “Enfish Could Not Save Patents Asserted Against Nvidia,” Patent Buddy wrote, citing this PDF. So obviously there’s not much impact to Enfish v Microsoft after all.
Why does the media keep covering it like it’s a groundbreaking decision? Here is the corporate media mentioning it almost a month later, stating: “The court wrote in Enfish, LLC v. Microsoft Corp that any “improvement to computer functionality itself” overcomes the abstract idea exception to patent eligibility that holds that what is abstract can’t be patented.” Yes, but how many similar cases were decided/ruled against software patents? Why are these being ignored? Selective attention? Or just propaganda dressed up as ‘reporting’? These are rhetorical questions really. █
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Posted in America, Asia, Deception, Europe, Patents at 3:45 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Time to bring the patent offices under control (to serve inventors, not billionaires)
Summary: In the patent microcosm — just like the Military–industrial complex — a conflict of interests has been created wherein demand is being artificially created for undesirable things, typically for the empowerment of those who are already very powerful
The previous post dealt with the role played by Shelston IP and AJ Park in the south east. They basically serve the agenda of what’s sometimes referred to as the “Empire of Corporations” (class, not geography, multinational imperialism by profit, not people). The EPO under Battistelli is pretty much the same and the EPO now relies on globalisation to drive the agenda of the super-rich (already enjoying special EPO treatment), like those whom Battistelli like to hang out with a lot (Sarkozy, Lagarde and billionaires).
“There are many legitimate reasons for staying in the EU, but UPC isn’t one of them, unless you’re IAM or a patent lawyer.”Right now there’s lots of talk here about Brexit (Britain exiting the EU), which I am personally against. IAM’s Joff Wild, who is obviously very close to the EPO, only cares about Brexit because it might jeopardise the UPC and a couple of hours ago he wrote: “For one, the opinion polls in the UK are now pointing ever-more firmly towards a win for the Leave side in the country’s upcoming referendum on its membership of the European Union. As discussed on here previously, should Brexit be the result on 23rd June that is likely to have major implications for the future of the Unified Patent Court. It will be interesting to hear what people have to say about this. My sense is that very few have registered that it could happen, but there is now a very real possibility it will. The consequences for the global patent market could be pretty negative – especially given the current uncertainties in the US, another issue that we will be focusing on over the next two days.”
Let is be clear that the UPC helps patent trolls, multinational giants, and software patents (i.e. all the things IAM loves so much). There are many legitimate reasons for staying in the EU, but UPC isn’t one of them, unless you’re IAM or a patent lawyer. The above serves to illustrate just to what degree forces associated with the EPO and with patent chaos push agenda here. It’s almost as though Europe’s patent policy totally ignores the interests of the European people and is steered directly (and usually behind closed doors) by a bunch of patent lawyers and profiteers. This is appalling, but it doesn’t just happen in Europe. It’s an international problem.
“This is appalling, but it doesn’t just happen in Europe. It’s an international problem.”Looking at the US, the patent system there is literally run by people from industry (e.g. IBM or Google, who have corrupted the very purpose of the patent system) — people who later turn into lobbyists. Is anybody surprised that US patent policy is now optimised for huge corporations (protectionism) rather than invention? Patents are now being criticised by The Scientist (US), as part of the article “Do Patents Promote or Stall Innovation?”
This does not suggest that all patents are bad, but some oughtn’t be granted and there are domains, such as the abstract or nature, which oughtn’t be covered by patents. The article, as an example, says that “a patent dispute between biotech companies Sequenom and Ariosa Diagnostics on a related theme—the analysis of naturally occurring fetal DNA” is not good. Almost everyone would agree, except perhaps the giants that are already worth billions and established a monopoly using patents on things which they did not even develop (maybe merely discovered or utilised).
“There are alternative routes of operation and even protection of one’s ‘secret sauce’ (or source code), for example copyright law for software.”Now, consider India’s policy on abstract patents like software that in no way promote the interests of India. In the case of drugs, secrecy is one option and sharing of knowledge across companies (collaboration) are suitable business models too, albeit today’s giants would resist these with passion, for obvious reasons, and they also have a massive lobbying budget that goes a long way in a country like India. A new article from MIP, titled “India’s first National IPR Policy maintains position on affordable drugs,” says that the “India government has unveiled the first National Intellectual Property Rights Policy that sets out seven objectives and relevant guidelines to promote the country’s IP regime, and has resisted pressure from the United States to amend the patent law regarding access to cheap drugs”
In the words of a pro-software patents Web site, “Bad Patents Can Harm A Startup Company” and to quote the opening paragraph: “One of the options for the inventor is to not to file a patent, but simply to keep their invention secret. The most common examples are the formula for Coca Cola or Colonel Sander’s secret herbs and spices. Both of these examples could have been patented, but were not. From a business standpoint, these were the right decisions.”
“The policies from India show a certain strength in the face of bullying from the likes of USTR.”It’s not always patenting that works best to promote innovation (if patents promote innovation in the first place). There are alternative routes of operation and even protection of one’s ‘secret sauce’ (or source code), for example copyright law for software.
The policies from India show a certain strength in the face of bullying from the likes of USTR. What about east asia? Will it surrender to Western demands? Well, the part of it that’s a former British colony, Hong Kong, seems to be heading in the wrong direction, just like Singapore (another former British colony). To quote MIP: “The Legislative Council (LegCo) has completed its Bills Committee stage scrutiny of the Patents (Amendment) Bill 2015. The Bill introduces several important changes, including an original grant patent system for standard patents in addition to the existing re-registration system as well as a substantive examination procedure in the short-term patent system.”
“It often boils down to one nation’s “rights” (as in “intellectual property rights”) to exercise control over many others.”China will hopefully not be fooled by these policies in Hong Kong which would hurt the Chinese economy, unless Beijing wishes to see more Chinese giants becoming victims of Microsoft blackmail (patent shakedown for NSA-leaning spyware).
A lot of the world’s patent policy and debates are imperialistic by nature. It often boils down to one nation’s “rights” (as in “intellectual property rights”) to exercise control over many others. Those many other nations have elements in them which can be viewed as “enemies within”, e.g. patent lawyers, whose goal aligns with the foreign occupier, and they are willing to lobby domestically to advance nationally-harmful policies for personal gain–a sort of loot shared by the occupier with the facilitator/collaborator. If only more people could see that… █
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Posted in Australia, Patents at 3:03 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Agents of corporate empire
Summary: Australia and New Zealand are under attack by patent lawyers who serve large multinational companies rather than Australians and Kiwis
NAMING and shaming misleading firms is not rude but necessarily. For a number of years we have mentioned the role AJ Park played in the propaganda of Microsoft and IBM (pushing software patents into New Zealand and recently we showed how Shelston IP was doing the same thing in Australia.
“They obviously want what’s bad for their country but good for themselves (law firms).”Shelston IP is at it again (reposted last night) and AJ Park, the lobbyists for software patents in New Zealand for quite some time (at least half a decade,say that the patent office (IPONZ) is granting software patents, in spite of the rules. This is a bit of wishful thinking and an effort at self-fulfilling prophecies again (inducing defeatism within the opposition). We see lots of it in the US, post-Alice. To quote AJ Park: “One of the hotly-debated topics during New Zealand’s patent law reform was the extent to which patent protection should be available for computer-implemented inventions. There is a widely held belief that we now have a ban on software patents. So how did the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand (IPONZ) issue a software patent under the new law that bans them?”
They even use the term computer-implemented inventions (CII), which is an attempt to dodge the term software patents. The EPO used to be doing that and right now it prefers using the term “ICT” to dodge the term software patents.
Watch out and be careful of propagandistic patent lawyers. They obviously want what’s bad for their country but good for themselves (law firms). They’ll cherry-pick anything which serves their selfish agenda. █
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Posted in Apple, Courtroom, Patents, Samsung at 2:42 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: A look at some of Samsung’s ongoing high-profile patent cases which involve Apple
“The Samsung case [one of several ongoing cases] is particularly interesting,” said Standard Law the other day, “because it turns on the “non-discrimination” prong of RAND. Little case law on what ND means.”
RAND (or FRAND) is an anti-Free software (FOSS) loophole. It’s how proprietary software giants like Apple and Microsoft every so often try to exclude FOSS while calling this reasonable, non-discriminatory and fair (i.e. a series of euphemisms, one longer than the other). In practice, RAND is means UnReasonable and Discriminatory, sometimes UnFair too (FRAND). It’s typically about software patents.
“RAND (or FRAND) is an anti-Free software (FOSS) loophole.”“In a statement to Patently-O,” it has just been said, “Samsung argued that “If the current ruling is left to stand, it would value a single design patent over the hundreds of thousands of groundbreaking technology patents, leading to vastly overvalued design patents.” The itself brief cites Professor Rantanen’s 2015 essay for the proposition that the high damage is likely result in an “explosion of design patent assertions and lawsuits.””
In the mean time, another (new) article by Jason Rantanen explores CAFC appeals — a stage that Samsung has already been through. It will soon reach the Supreme Court (the design patent case at least).
Sharing Samsung’s Supreme Court brief, one said a few days ago that we now have access to “Samsung’s Supreme Court brief addressing the question of whether section 289 of the Patent Act requires the disgorgement of the defendant’s total profit from sales of design patent infringing products, or only the profit attributable to the infringing component.”
“For all we know, not a single case at SCOTUS will present the chance/opportunity to challenge software patents, or override Alice as a precedent.”Patently-O still keeps track of new Supreme Court patent cases and there is a new short article by Dennis Crouch which zooms in on one particular case. He wrote: “On remand from the Supreme Court vacatur, the Federal Circuit has reaffirmed its prior NuVasive decision and – in the process limited the reach of the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision of Commil USA, LLC v. Cisco Systems, Inc., 135 S. Ct. 1920 (2015).”
For all we know, not a single case at SCOTUS will present the chance/opportunity to challenge software patents, or override Alice as a precedent. The case of Samsung is about design patents and one new article says that “in the next five years the chances are this isn’t going to go away anytime soon. So what has this continuing battle demonstrated about patent law?”
“It’s going to be interesting to see which companies will oppose Apple’s ludicrous design patents (probably Google and Facebook, judging by what happened before).”The deadline for amici curiae has passed and Samsung can now wait and prepare for this important case that will hopefully determine design patents are out of line. As a bit of background on this: “More than two months ago, the Supreme Court of the United States granted Samsung’s petition for writ of certiorari (request for top-court review) regarding design patent damages, which was supported by Google, Facebook and other tech giants. Tomorrow [last week actually], Samsung has to file its opening brief. At this level of proceeding the parties’ positions, theories and arguments are largely known, but it will be very interesting to see what priorities they set, what case law they can find in support of their positions, and which amici curiae (“friends of the court”) will support them.”
We are still not aware of any information related to this, maybe because the amicis have not yet been published. It’s going to be interesting to see which companies will oppose Apple’s ludicrous design patents (probably Google and Facebook, judging by what happened before).
Speaking of certiorari, Patently-O reports that “Hospira explained that both the district court weighed the secondary indicia of non-obviousness and found them “not sufficiently strong to overcome the showing of obviousness arising from an analysis of the prior art.” To Hospira, the petition was basically a request that the Supreme Court conduct its own factual analysis.”
The very fact that the Supreme Court is not revisiting any software patents cases (so far) may serve to suggest confidence in the Alice case, much to the chagrin of Big Business lobbyists. █
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Posted in America, Europe, Patents at 2:26 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Another week of patent trolls everywhere, especially in the Eastern District of Texas
Summary: A roundup of recent news about the patent trolls with their modus operandi
PATENT trolls are without any shadow of a doubt a serious problem. What they depend on, however (typically software patents), can be tackled in order to address this problem along with other problems (like patent shakedowns by large corporations that harm innovation).
Famous Trolls Want a ‘Soft’ Image
Several troll ‘celebrities’, such as Nathan Myhrvold or Erich Spangenberg, were covered here many times over the years. IP Watch now entertains one of the world’s most notorious patent trolls, Spangenberg, just as IAM recently did. It is understandable that IAM, which is paid by patent trolls, does this, but why IP Watch? It’s nothing but a puff piece, like the one it did with Battistelli a few months back. We hope that IP Watch stays true to its original goals (it is now looking for writers, having just advertised positions for freelance authors) rather than getting tempted by the PR industry.
Stupid Patent Of This Month
“We hope that IP Watch stays true to its original goals (it is now looking for writers, having just advertised positions for freelance authors) rather than getting tempted by the PR industry.”Over at the EFF’s site, which writes quite a lot about patents these days (it usually focuses on patent trolls), there are two new articles, “It’s Time to Shut Down the Most Prolific Patent Troll in the Country” and “Stupid Patent AND Trademark of the Month: My Health®” (crossposted in TechDirt). “Since getting patent and trademark rights,” the EFF explains, “My Health has been pretty active in federal court. It has sued at least 30 companies for patent infringement and has been involved in another three lawsuits involving allegations of trademark infringement. But regardless of what type of case it is, we think both the patent and trademark are stupid.”
This is nowhere as bad as Erich Spangenberg or Intellectual Ventures’ Nathan Myhrvold. They just use more entities from which to initiate litigation. The EFF is currently focused on venue reform, discouraging filing in the Eastern District of Texas, and also “bad” patent prevention (it doesn’t say software patents). There is still no push in the ideal direction and not much is getting done at all, except perhaps by the US Supreme Court (we shall cover this in a separate article). Hardly any proposed law or bill gets passed and this so-called “Patent Reform” that a pro-software patents site speaks of this month does nothing whatsoever about software patents. It’s a waste of time and effort. It’s somewhat of a distraction.
Spending on Lawyers, Not Engineers
“The EFF is currently focused on venue reform, discouraging filing in the Eastern District of Texas, and also “bad” patent prevention (it doesn’t say software patents).”Even if patent trolls were ever to be eliminated, it would still not put an end to other forms of litigious aggression which does nothing to advance science (or “innovation”, to use a buzzword). Here is a very recent story about a case between two giants. To quote the introduction: “In a recent order in VIA Techs., Inc. v. ASUS Computer Int’l, Magistrate Judge Grewal Court found VIA’s expert disclosures insufficient under the “straightforward” claim construction process of the Northern District’s Patent Local Rules. Despite VIA’s failure to strictly comply with the rules, the Court rejected the “last resort” penalty of striking the expert’s testimony altogether, and instead granted ASUS additional deposition time to inquire into his opinions. In so ruling, the Court considered the “relative banality” of the undisclosed opinions and the weeks remaining before the claim construction hearing.”
Even if this case is not about software patents, what it does show is a lot of bickering over patents and passage of money to lawyers rather than engineers. It’s no wonder some companies now exist solely based on patents and royalties extraction rather than production of goods. Take Ericsson for example. It has become little more than a patent troll by proxy and IAM says there are billions at stake. To quote: “In late April Gustav Brismark took over one of the biggest jobs in IP. As the chief IP officer at Ericsson he not only has control of a vast patent portfolio, which is generally accepted to be one of the highest quality stockpiles in cellular communications, but is also in charge of a licensing business that generates more than $1.5 billion in annual revenues.”
“It’s no wonder some companies now exist solely based on patents and royalties extraction rather than production of goods.”Where does this money come from? Artificially inflated prices of (overpriced) phones that are manufactured by the billions of units. The public collectively pays for this and the money ends up in the coffers of a non-(or barely)producing company, According to this new article from Patently-O: “In a bench trial, the court found that a reasonable royalty was about $.83 per WiFi product sold by Cisco. On appeal, however, the Federal Circuit vacated that Judgment – holding that the royalty rate was likely too high because it internalized the lock-in value of the standardized technology.”
“Extortion” as a Business Model
Here again we see an example of products getting more expensive for the enrichment of parasitic entities, such as CSIRO in this case. It continues to be an unfair and unreasonable patent predator, as we noted here in past years, and it now uses the Eastern District of Texas for litigation. The EFF rightly calls this kind of practice “extortion” in this new press release which states: “The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a lawsuit today against a well-known patent troll that tried to shake down a small business owner for tens of thousands of dollars on bogus claims of infringement on patents that were never used and were expired or invalid.
“Well, start by fixing (limiting) patent scope as per Alice and common sense.”“Defendant Shipping & Transit LLC has filed hundreds of lawsuits asserting frivolous patent infringement claims as part of its business model to intimidate and extort money from people, EFF alleged in a complaint filed with co-counsel Julie Turner of California-based Turner Boyd and Matthew Sarelson with Miami-based Kaplan Young & Moll Parrón. Shipping & Transit sends out letters accusing businesses of patent infringement and demanding thousands of dollars to license the patents or settle the matter. It then routinely sues those who don’t pay up to extort “nuisance value” settlements.”
We mentioned these cases here before. It’s not hard to see how to put an end to them. As one person put it the other day, “Software Patents are a Cornerstone of the Patent Trolling Problem” as “Todd Moore shares his experience with patent trolls.
“It’s time to fix patents.”
Well, start by fixing (limiting) patent scope as per Alice and common sense. █
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