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The EFF's Daniel Nazer Demonstrates That the US Patent Office Continues to Provide Ammunition in the Form of Fake Patents

Enabling extortion

Daniel Nazer



Summary: In its campaign against "Stupid" patents, notably software patents, the EFF shows a ridiculous software patent from JP Morgan

THE USPTO has not stopped granting software patents. Sure, these are pretty worthless patents (courts repeatedly reject them), but the Office makes money 'selling' (granting) these 'products' (monopolies).



Ever heard of "lawtech patents"?

"Sure, these are pretty worthless patents (courts repeatedly reject them), but the Office makes money 'selling' (granting) these 'products' (monopolies)."We have not. A new buzzword? Like "fintech patents"?

No such thing exists, except in the minds of patent law firms trying to get a monopoly on thought processes or business methods. Watch this new article which says: "According to recent figures produced by Thomson Reuters Legal, there has been an astonishing increase of nearly 500% in the number of lawtech patents filed since 2012. The rate of growth slowed last year to a more modest 33%, rising from 436 to 579."

Ridiculous. Throw these down the trash. It's a bubble.

We're not yet able to understand why the USPTO wants to grant so many patents. It makes the value of the whole lot lower, not higher.

Why is the USPTO still granting software patents that are obviously a farce? Like those which any undergraduate student can come up with in a matter of minutes? The EFF's Daniel Nazer gave one such example the other day, taking one patent from JP Morgan and breaking it down to bits [1, 2, 3]. To quote part of his analysis of this patent:

We have often criticized the Patent Office for issuing broad software patents that cover obvious processes. Instead of promoting innovation in software, the patent system places landmines for developers who wish to use basic and fundamental tools. This month’s stupid patent, which covers user permissions for mobile applications, is a classic example.

[...]

That’s it. The claim simply covers having an app check to see if another app is on the phone, getting the user’s permission to access data from the second app, then accessing that data.


JP Morgan is one of those very wealthy corporations that pursue "fintech patents" (either business methods or software patents), sometimes even on Blockchain/Bitcoin as we showed earlier this year and last year. We published about half a dozen articles about that.

"JP Morgan is one of those very wealthy corporations that pursue "fintech patents" (either business methods or software patents), sometimes even on Blockchain/Bitcoin as we showed earlier this year and last year."Daniel Nazer's analysis is thankfully receiving some attention from financial press and also Mr. Mullin, who said that "if JP Morgan Chase wanted to, it could actually accuse those developers of infringing its new patent. The developers could defend themselves and win, but only at enormous cost."

Yes, hence the great danger of granting bogus patents. When will the USPTO stop equipping monopolists and trolls with such legal 'weapons'?

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