Bonum Certa Men Certa

With Important Supreme Court Decisions Looming, Mainstream Media Tackles Patent Trolls



Summary: The US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) will soon rule on TC Heartland and Lexmark, potentially restricting abusive patent behaviour even further (making room for freedom to innovate and for competition)

THE TROLLS-funded IAM is busy softening the image of patent trolls (nice opportunity for the trolls to link to positive coverage about themselves), but trolls cannot just buy the entire media. Sure, some of them became multi-millionaires using one single bogus (invalided) patent, but how much longer can these parasites carry on? SCOTUS might soon take away from them their biggest 'weapon', which is biased courts.



The EFF wrote: "The @TODAYshow spotlights how patent trolls cherry-pick venue—an issue before the Supreme Court today." It's video (see above) which is summarised as follows:

Marshall, Texas, has become America’s unlikely capital for patent lawsuits. Companies spend weeks at a time there fighting over hundreds of millions of dollars – and giving a boost to the local economy. NBC’s Stephanie Gosk has the story for Sunday TODAY.


Currently, the EPO's management does everything it can to attract patent trolls to Europe (UPC, poor patent scope etc.) and the trolls are already expanding in China, where patent litigation has soared. The US seems to be the only country right now where this epidemic is properly understood and thus combated fiercely. Here is another new article about it: (from yesterday)

A senior counsel for J.C. Penney & Co. has all but given up waiting on the federal cavalry to arrive and protect her client from patent trolls. Instead, she and others have joined a community of patent-protectionist businesses in an effort to ward off what they say is a growing problem.

In a blog article titled Retailers Need to Join Forces to Solve Patent Troll Problem posted on the Chain Store Age website on March 13, attorney Diane K. Lettelleir discussed how trolls were targeting her client.


Watchtroll, another spokesman for patent trolls (just like IAM), is meanwhile bemoaning the deprivation of trolls by means of taking away their software patents. To quote:

...the Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International 2014 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court has introduced patent eligibility challenges under 35 U.S.C. 101 of the United States Code that applicants may need to overcome to patent their digital health inventions, and those related to software, in particular. 134 S. Ct. 2347 (2014).


And rightly so. Very soon, the Justices of SCOTUS might take it a step further by tackling the Lexmark case in the same way Breyer tackled Alice v CLS Bank (Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by Sotomayor, Ginsburg, Breyer and others). Professor Tomás Gómez-Arostegui, writing on the subject yesterday at Patently-O speaks of "cases [which] considered many of the same arguments that Lexmark and Kirtsaeng raise, such as the territoriality of patent rights; free trade among countries; the potential benefit to consumers of competition from imported gray-market goods; the potential harm to consumers who purchase goods in one country without any notice of their inability to bring those goods into another country; and the potential negative effect that gray-market imports could have on a domestic licensee."

Lexmark is basically trying to restrict competition using patents, denying people control over devices they supposedly bought to own. We wrote about this many times before and we certainly hope that SCOTUS will rule in favour of average people rather than few millionaires and billionaires.

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
 
GNOME GUADEC 2022 & Debian Albanian women trafficked to Mexico?
Reprinted with permission from the Free Software Fellowship
Sainsbury's: It Takes Us Up to Two Days to Respond to Customers Upon Escalation (and Sometimes Even More Than Two Days)
It not only does groceries but also many other things, even banking
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
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
[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