Halo as a sanctuary for patent trolls

Summary: A Supreme Court ruling on patents, its implications for software patent trolls, and how media that is promoting software patents and patent trolls covered it

THE dishonest/self-serving patent lawyers in the US might never openly admit this, but software patents are dying not only in US courts and PTAB but also, increasingly, at the USPTO. This does not necessarily solve the problem of patent trolls because trolls tend to go after small companies that have neither the will nor the budget to invalidate the asserted patents, e.g. by going to court.

"Court rulings like this," say anti-trolls lobbyists, "make it much more urgent for Congress to pass patent litigation reform legislation this year" (they probably allude to the VENUE Act or the likes of it).

"This does not necessarily solve the problem of patent trolls because trolls tend to go after small companies that have neither the will nor the budget to invalidate the asserted patents, e.g. by going to court.""Supreme Court Ruling in Halo/Stryker Case Will Lead to More Lawsuits from Patent Trolls, More Forum Shopping by Repeat Plaintiffs," says the accompanying PDF. "Ruling Gives Small Businesses Less Incentive to Fight Meritless Suits," says the second line. This is correct as it's already far too expensive and laborious. The smaller the company, the more likely it is to just pay 'protection money' (extortion) because the ratio between the 'damages' and the legal costs in a court makes it the 'correct' business choice.

Suppose for a moment that patent trolls don't get granted (or get to buy) the patents they use. The proposed reform legislation does not actually tackle software patents. The subject is not even on the agenda and that's a problem. As long as software patents can land on the lap of patent trolls, these are guaranteed to be misused. Natalie Rahhal of MIP wrote about the same decision (Halo/Stryker case) as follows: "The Supreme Court decided both Halo Electronics, Inc v Pulse Electronics, Inc, et al and Stryker Corporation, et al v Zimmer, Inc, et al on Monday, in a decision that significantly lowered the bar for the issuance of enhanced damages in a patent infringement case.

"Gene the WatchTroll (or "Watchdog" as he prefers to think of himself) is so upset that judges are doing their job and eliminating software patents (after SCOTUS Justices ruled on the matter) that he shamelessly exploits these latest developments to assert Justices are writing legislation (untrue).""Enhanced damages are set out by Section 284 of the Patent Act and allow the Court to award a patent owner up to three times the amount of the damages found, if the jury or the court determines that the infringement was wilful."

Gene the WatchTroll (or "Watchdog" as he prefers to think of himself) is so upset that judges are doing their job and eliminating software patents (after SCOTUS Justices ruled on the matter) that he shamelessly exploits these latest developments to assert Justices are writing legislation (untrue). In our previous post we showed how he had exploited the Halo/Stryker case to accuse Justices of ignorance and here he is saying that ۤ101 (Alice) is "overused":

It seems as though once the court realized the claimed invention related to software, it pulled out its ۤ101 goggles and ignored any other grounds for patent invalidity. Such an analysis, which pushes decision-making into 101, which is ill-suited to be used as such a brute force instrument, has perplexed and frustrated patent practitioners. Courts, including the Federal Circuit, simply disregard the other sections of the Patent Act in favor of ۤ101, which for them is easier and leads to decision-making without the need of discovery and without presuming the issued patent is valid.

With or without Halo/Stryker, with or without Enfish, €§101 still stands and it will continue to demolish software patents by the thousands (those that reach PTAB and the courts anyway). One can be sure that patent lawyers will keep saying "Halo" and "Enfish" any time they wish to defend trolls and software patents. Joff Wild, for a change, says the T word (“Trolls”) in his article about Halo (a case which we first mentioned here last week) and here is his opening paragraph: "There have already been plenty of articles written about the Supreme Court’s decision in Halo v Pulse, which was handed down yesterday. As is usual in cases where they review the work of the Federal Circuit, the court’s justices have decided that its practices are wrong. This time, it’s the approach that the CAFC has towards determining wilful infringement – it’s too rigid and lets too many potentially very badly behaved defendants off the hook. Instead, the Supreme Court has stated, judges should have a lot more discretion in deciding when a defendant’s behaviour has been so egregious that it deserves the sanction of triple damages."

"With or without Halo/Stryker, with or without Enfish, ۤ101 still stands and it will continue to demolish software patents by the thousands (those that reach PTAB and the courts anyway)."Expect this to be used to discredit ۤ101 and defend patent trolls. Now that Ericsson's patent trolls (in Europe) are about get 'scooped up' IAM celebrates and as another major lawsuit comes to light IAM says: "Earlier this week an entity called Global Equity Management (GEMSA) filed lawsuits against 20 separate operating companies including Spotify, Netflix and Uber over the alleged infringement of two patents. All of the suits were filed in the Eastern District of Texas."

That's just a patent troll in the Eastern District of Texas, as usual. "US Pat 6,690,400, Asserted Against Amazon Web Service Users," Patent Buddy wrote, adding some of his information about the patent. Apparently that's just fine with Wild and his colleagues, whose employer received money from patent trolls. This EPO's mouthpiece, IAM 'magazine', still treats the world's largest patent troll (and Microsoft-connected troll) like some kind of heroic entity that people ought to emulate. Last week it continued to groom this patent troll, Intellectual Ventures. They almost do public relations, having spoken directly to the company's executives last month (the editor in chief did, the trolls denialist).

"It doesn't seem to bother Congress enough. Why not? Follow the money."Perhaps the saddest thing in it all is that most voices that weighed in on the latter (and we were able to find) treated a win for patent trolls as some kind of fantastic ruling from SCOTUS, except perhaps TechDirt with this article titled "Supreme Court Just Made It Easier For Patent Trolls".

To quote TechDirt: "As we've noted over the past decade or so, the Supreme Court has been smacking down the Court of Appeals of the Federal Circuit (CAFC) over and over and over again on issues related to patent law. And on Monday, the Supreme Court did it once again -- but this time in a way that actually might not be good."

The analysis ends with: "At the very least, this seems like an argument for Congress to finally stop sitting around and doing something to fix the patent troll problem."

It doesn't seem to bother Congress enough. Why not? Follow the money. Why is IAM so soft on trolls? Again, follow the money.

We could say a lot more about IAM's sheer bias. Consider its latest coverage from Asia. IAM, as usual, misses the point. LG and Samsung are absolutely massive companies (almost part of the nation itself, including the military in fact); they are the exception, not the norm, when it comes to the number of patents. IAM says "Korean companies own some of the world’s largest patent portfolios, including of course the single biggest stockpile of US grants – by some margin – which belongs to Samsung Electronics." But IAM does not mention that this is pretty much limited to just two companies. Regarding Japan, which has a lot more than just two or three giant technology companies, IAM suggests some kind of patent liquidation. Notice how they ascribe or use the word "asset" to refer to a patent (the A in IAM is "asset"), as if it's some kind of physical object. Euphemisms are everywhere at IAM. It's lobbying disguised as news. ⬆