02.25.18

Allergan/Mohawk ‘Sovereign Immunity’ Patent Scam (Dodging PTAB) Backfires Spectacularly

Posted in America, Courtroom, Patents at 11:56 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

What were they thinking anyway?

Tired man

Summary: After months of scandals and very negative publicity the so-called ‘scam’ that the Mohawk tribe participated in falls over, leaving all parties bruised and their reputation tarnished

THE Allergan/Mohawk scandal is well documented. It has been covered to death all over the Web (even corporate/mainstream media) and we wrote nearly 10 articles about it (here’s one among many posts of ours). The USPTO should, in principle, be able to reassess patents it may have wrongly granted, but (mis)using tribal immunity Allergan is attempting to prevent that from happening. A crooked lawyer hired by the Mohawk tribe (speaking at events of Koch-run think tanks) seems to have taken the tribe ‘for a ride’ and for a few millions in payoff the tribe now suffers a reputation crisis. By extension, this makes tribal immunity seem like a tangent of misuse. What a disaster. What an injustice.

Right now the patent trolls are talking among themselves about the latest in the case, which is basically late Friday news and thus scarcely covered anywhere.

A troll wrote: “BIG NEWS: PTAB rules against sovereign immunity defense in Allergan “Upon consideration of the record, and for the reasons discussed below, we determine the Tribe has not established that the doctrine of tribal sovereign immunity should be applied to these proceedings.””

“Very good,” I responded, but the “Mohawk [tribe] stained its name with this patent scam…”

Shortly thereafter his employer, the troll Dominion Harbor, wrote that “Sovereign Immunity dead on arrival at the PTAB: “…proceedings can continue even without the Tribe’s participation in view of Allergan’s retained ownership interests in the challenged patents. The Tribe’s Motion is therefore denied.””

Hours ago the trolls’ apologists/proponents from Bristows wrote about it in their ‘pet’ blog (IP Kat). To quote:

On Friday, the PTAB ruled that the Tribe could not claim sovereign immunity to avoid the IPR. Although there was an interesting discussion on whether tribal immunity applied to IPRs, for the AmeriKat [Bristows] it was the finding that the deal structure meant that Allergan retained ownership interests such that the IPR could continue as Allergan being a “patent owner”. Mylan et al argued that the IPR could continue because Allergan was the “true owner of the challenged patents”.

There’s probably going to be plenty of coverage about it later today (Monday). It’s noteworthy that all coverage of this has thus far come from trolls and their advocates. Can they control the narrative? █

PTAB Continues to Enforce Section 101 and New Paper From Christopher Walker and Melissa Wasserman Has Suggestions for Agency Head Review

Posted in America, Courtroom, Patents at 11:37 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

The New World of Agency Adjudication

Summary: Despite endless attempts to undermine PTAB, its work carries on, invalidation of abstract patents continues unabated, and academics who are not patent maximalists (or in bed with the patent ‘industry’) offer constructive advice

The Patent Trial & Appeal Board (PTAB) of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) continues to improve patent quality. To say that PTAB has had an impact would an understatement. The EPO is kicking to the curb its equivalent of PTAB, whereas in the US the role of PTAB grows over time (all-time record last year).

“As one might expect, patent maximalists aren’t happy about it, to say the least.”Over the past week we’ve witnessed many new examples where PTAB and patent examiners squashed applications using Section 101 (here are three new examples with links to the corresponding decisions [1, 2, 3]).

As one might expect, patent maximalists aren’t happy about it, to say the least. Recently, when a rejection was affirmed by PTAB citing laws of nature Patently-O decided to make a big deal out of it, writing not one but several posts about it [1, 2]. To quote:

In its original decision, the PTAB affirmed an examiner rejection – finding the claim ineligible as directed toward a natural phenomenon. However, the patentee requested a rehearing – arguing that the PTAB had failed to properly identify the natural phenomenon being claimed. On reharing though, the PTAB reaffirmed the decision of no patentable subject matter.

In its analysis, the Board first noted that the claims are not directed toward any transformation of the isolated DNA, but rather simply detecting its parts. We know from prior cases that isolated DNA remains a product of nature (Myriad) and that detecting DNA sequence is also a phenomenon of nature (Ariosa).

[...]

It will be interesting to see whether the patentee pushes this case to a District Court or the Federal Circuit for review. Although those options are fun, the more likely outcome is that the patentee will narrow the claims and try again. Mark Nuell at Roberts Mlotkowski argued the case for the applicant.

Also see this article from 6 days ago, titled “Are These INOMax Therapeutic Method Claims Directed To A Natural Phenomenon?”

Natural phenomenon patents were declared not valid owing to 35 USC § 101. This makes perfect sense. To quote:

In Mallinckrodt Hospital Prods. IP Ltd. v. Praxair Distrib., Inc., Judge Sleet of the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware invalidated personalized method of treatment claims under 35 USC § 101 as being directed to a natural phenomenon. If the Federal Circuit affirms the decision, will it leave room to draw a line that spares other methods of treatment?

[...]

Conducting step 2 of the Mayo/Alice framework, the district court determined that all steps either were routine and conventional (steps (a), (b) and (d)) or did not transform the claim into patent-eligible subject matter (step (c).

[...]

Although the district court referred to the Federal Circuit decision in Cleveland Clinic, the claims invalidated in that case were diagnostic claims, not therapeutic method claims. While I would like to predict that the Federal Circuit would not invalidate a method of treatment claim under § 101, Judge Sleet’s analysis highlights the slippery slope presented by the “natural phenomenon” paradigm. The judge characterized the claimed invention as “a patient populations’ natural physiological response to 20 ppm of inhaled nitric oxide treatment.”—couldn’t the same be said about any therapeutic method of treatment?

Attention is now shifting to attempts to discredit the courts and PTAB. The anti-PTABers want the applicant to appeal (of course!) this decision. The anti-PTABers maintain their sick illusion that PTAB is not bound by law and is some out-of-control entity (simply because it keeps patent quality high). There’s a whole case about it in the Supreme Court (to be decided within months). It’s known as Oil States and blogs like Watchtroll and Patently-O keep trying to meddle in it (it’s obvious in whose favour).

“It’s known as Oil States and blogs like Watchtroll and Patently-O keep trying to meddle in it (it’s obvious in whose favour).”A short while ago, Christopher J. Walker and Melissa F. Wasserman (from Ohio State University and University of Texas at Austin) published this new paper that talks about Oil States. It’s 55 pages long and considering recent papers from Wasserman and a colleague (explaining why examiners over-grant), it might be worth a read. She said that this paper “situates PTAB in the modern agency adjudication landscape and explores one critical difference: the lack of agency head review.”

From the paper’s general tone we conclude that they offer constructive advice rather than ridicule of judges (like Patently-O does). They are “exploring alternative mechanisms to remedy the lack of agency-head review at the PTAB.”

Here is the abstract:

In 1946, the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) set forth the basics for “formal” adjudication, with the classic account requiring an administrative law judge to make the initial determination and the agency head to have the final word. Today, however, the vast majority of agency adjudications are not paradigmatic “formal” adjudications as set forth in the APA. That is the lost world. It turns out that there is great diversity in the procedures by which federal agencies adjudicate. This new world involves a variety of less-independent administrative judges, hearing officers, and other agency personnel adjudicating disputes. Like in the lost world, however, the agency head retains final decision-making authority.

In 2011, Congress created yet another novel agency tribunal—the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB)—to adjudicate disputes between private parties as to the validity of issued patents. Questions abound concerning the PTAB’s proper place in the modern administrative state, as its features depart from the textbook accounts of APA-governed “formal” adjudication. Many of these questions are working their way through the Federal Circuit and to the Supreme Court. Indeed, the Court will decide this Term whether PTAB adjudication unconstitutionally strips parties of their property rights in issued patents.

This Article situates PTAB adjudication within administrative law’s larger landscape of agency adjudication. By surveying this new world of agency adjudication, it becomes clear that PTAB adjudication is not that unusual. But we also identify one core feature of modern agency adjudication that is absent at the PTAB: the Director of the Patent and Trademark Office lacks final decision-making authority. To be sure, the Director has some power to influence outcomes, in her ability to order rehearing and stack the board with those who share her substantive vision. But these second-best means of agency-head control raise problems of their own, including constitutional questions. This Article concludes by exploring alternative mechanisms to remedy the lack of agency-head review at the PTAB.

We don’t expect the corporate/mainstream media to cover this because such media barely understands or cares to educate the public about patents. Will the Justices read it though? █

One Month Later the Patent ‘Industry’ is Still Promoting the Lie That GUIs Are Software and Thus CAFC Elevated Software Patents

Posted in America, Courtroom, Deception, Patents at 10:48 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Even courts in China reject GUI patents

How on Earth are such simple GUIs being patented as though they are inventions?

Summary: Revisiting (with revisionism) Core Wireless Licensing S.A.R.L. v LG Electronics, Inc. et al., the patent ‘industry’ is attempting to paint the decision as something that it’s not (GUIs are designs, not code)

THE breadth of USPTO patents isn’t too encouraging and isn’t sufficiently strict. Design patents, for example, have long earned negative publicity for patents [1, 2]. They’re widely seen as too vague and unoriginal; they have attracted a lot of negative press coverage.

“They’re widely seen as too vague and unoriginal; they have attracted a lot of negative press coverage.”On January 30th Sterne Kessler Goldstein & Fox PLLC published “Design Patents Continue to Show Survival Strength at the PTAB: Institution Rates Remain Lowest Among All Technology Categories and Well Below 50%”. It’s not particularly surprising as many of the patents targeted by PTAB (or the petitioners at PTAB) are software patents. But that still begs for an answer; Why does the US cling onto design patents so hard? Days ago the Docker Navigator said that a “court denied plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment that defendant’s auto body part design patents were invalid and rejected plaintiff’s argument that the aesthetic-functionality test should apply to design patents.”

“They distort outcomes of cases again.”For those who aren’t too familiar with design patents, they’re about layout rather than function. They’re almost like patents on art. GUIs, for example, can be designs.

A week ago, published in several sites (e.g. [1, 2]) was a piece by Andrew R. Cheslock from Foley & Lardner LLP. He is the latest person to spread the lie that GUI patents are software patents (they're not). It’s about Core Wireless Licensing S.A.R.L. v LG Electronics, Inc. et al. — a case which we wrote a great deal about earlier this month. “In Core Wireless Licensing S.A.R.L. v. LG Electronics, Inc. et al.,” he wrote, “the Federal Circuit offered rare guidance on the contours of patent eligible subject matter under § 101.”

“The fact that they still latch onto Core Wireless and then try to frame it as a “rebound” is worrying. It’s revisionism at best.”GUIs don’t fall under § 101. It’s not too hard to see why; it’s just the wrong test.

At around the same time we saw Jennifer B. Maisel from Rothwell, Figg, Ernst & Manbeck, PC writing similar things about this case. To quote: “It will be interesting to see how the USPTO (and courts) will assess the eligibility of claims directed to graphical user interfaces (GUI) in view of the Move decision. As is clear from the Court’s analysis, patent practitioners would be well advised to include specific details in the claim and the specification not only as to how a claimed interface is achieved, but why it offers a technical solution to a technical problem in the art.”

Yes, “in the art.” It’s not about code. I received some responses a few days ago alleging GUIs were code, but I responded by saying that GUIs alone — not callback functions — are not code. I wrote many GUIs over the years (using a lot of different toolkits). They’re not code. They’re layout descriptors.

Then there’s the latest nonsense from Fenwick & West (the Bilski Blog people), who would have us believe there’s a software patents rebound because of the above case. There isn’t. They distort outcomes of cases again. The Core Wireless outcome (very recent case) was not about software patents, but the patent extremists will spread that lie anyway. Gregory Hopewell’s article said this:

Do you remember obviousness before KSR v. Teleflex? To invalidate, the rule went, one must find an express rationale for combining references (a teaching, suggestion or motivation). The KSR ruling reminded us that the TSM test was too rigid—the proper analysis should more flexibly evaluate obviousness with the skilled artisan in mind, without rigid requirements for these rationales in the references themselves.

If we knew how to more flexibly identify rationales for obviousness post-KSR, it was not clear how to more flexibly apply patent eligibility without the machine or transformation test after Bilski and Alice. A machine, apparently, was now just a clue. But identifying how to apply the more general principles from Alice and Bilski was not as easy to apply as a flexible obviousness test. The recent Core Wireless decision may show us a more useful theme for applying a more general approach to obviousness.

[...]

General principles for finding claims eligible have been elusive. A few weeks ago, the Core Wireless decision (Fed. Cir., Jan. 25, 2018, by J. Moore, affirming eligibility) suggests a broader theme that may help tie these eligible cases together.

In summarizing prior eligible decisions, the court returned, again and again, to how prior eligible decisions addressed claims with features that were “particular” and “unconventional.”

The fact that they still latch onto Core Wireless and then try to frame it as a “rebound” is worrying. It’s revisionism at best.

Then there’s Scott McKeown, who wants us to think that one old case, WiFi One, had a “ripple effect”; it hasn’t and barely anyone mentions it anymore.

Notice who’s in there. The anti-PTAB lobbyists are getting desperate and reach out to Rob Greene-Sterne of Sterne Kessler for PLI (maximalists for support). Yes, PLI! The UPC boosters. █

Links 26/2/2018: Chrome OS With Linux Containers/VMs, New Stable Kernels

Posted in News Roundup at 9:58 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • gvSIG 2.4: New version of gvSIG open source GIS is now available

    gvSIG Desktop 2.4, the new version of the open source Geographic Information System, is now available. You can access both the gvSIG Desktop 2.4 installable and portable versions from the download section of the project website [1], with distributions available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.

  • Web Browsers

    • iOS Gopher Client 17+

      This is is a modern Gopher browser for iOS. Built from the ground up, it lets you access the wealth of data available via Gopher from your favorite devices.

  • SaaS/Back End

  • Programming/Development

Leftovers

  • Smoke bomb forces skunks out and leads to Ferndale house fire

    A Ferndale man who used a smoke bomb to try to rid his crawlspace of skunks succeeded — but also nearly burned down his house.

    “We suggest citizens hire pest control professionals, however if one is an absolute die-hard do-it-yourselfer, please read and understand the directions and warning labels before applying an incendiary (smoke bomb) to your home or garage,” Ferndale Fire Chief Kevin P. Sullivan said.

  • Science

    • How Cells Pack Tangled DNA Into Neat Chromosomes

      A human cell carries in its nucleus two meters of spiraling DNA, split up among the 46 slender, double-helical molecules that are its chromosomes. Most of the time, that DNA looks like a tangled ball of yarn — diffuse, disordered, chaotic. But that messiness poses a problem during mitosis, when the cell has to make a copy of its genetic material and divide in two. In preparation, it tidies up by packing the DNA into dense, sausagelike rods, the chromosomes’ most familiar form. Scientists have watched that process through a microscope for decades: The DNA condenses and organizes into discrete units that gradually shorten and widen. But how the genome gets folded inside that structure — it’s clear that it doesn’t simply contract — has remained a mystery. “It’s really at the heart of genetics,” said Job Dekker, a biochemist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, “a fundamental aspect of heredity that’s always been such a great puzzle.”

  • Health/Nutrition

    • America Should Have Stayed Home This Flu Season

      Influenza isn’t just widespread — the strains in circulation are also severe. As the following chart illustrates, the share of doctor visits for flu and flu-like illnesses has not been this high since the 2009-10 season, when the flu hit early and hard but then quickly declined. (The flu season typically begins around October, peaks somewhere between December and February and peters out by the end of May.)

      Still, there’s some good news out this week. Data released Friday shows that, after a steep and steady rise over the past weeks, doctor visits for flu and flu-like illnesses are finally dropping.

    • Idenix Loses Patent on HCV Treatment that Supported $2.54 Billion Infringement Verdict

      On February 16th, the District of Delaware granted a motion for judgment as a matter of law filed by Foster City, CA-based pharmaceutical giant Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ:GILD) to invalidate a patent owned by Idenix, a subsidiary of Kenilworth, NJ-based pharma firm Merck & Co. (NYSE:MRK). In invalidating the Idenix patent, the Delaware district court effectively overturns what had been the largest award for royalty damages in a U.S. patent infringement case ever handed out. After a two-week trial in December 2016, the jury had awarded Index $2.64 billion in damages, which was based on finding Gilead infringed the Idenix patent – U.S. Patent No. 7,608,597 — by selling the hepatitis C virus (HCV) treatments Harvoni and Sovaldi.

    • Swiss Panel Looks At Value-Based Drug Pricing, Link Between R&D And Prices

      Some products are too cheap, generic drug companies do not invest in them because they do not make enough money out of them. Others seem astronomically expensive, and are said to include the costs of all research, successes and failures alike. Panellists at a recent Swiss-organised expert event in Bern concurred that something must done about pricing, and explored some surprising ways to do it.

    • Inside the fight over the sugar conspiracy

      In a paper published in JAMA Internal Medicine in 2016, researchers suggested that in the 1960s, the sugar industry paid scientists to obscure the relationship between sugar and heart disease, derailing the course of nutrition science and policy for years to come. Now, two researchers at Columbia University say that those claims are not backed by the historical evidence, and by promoting the idea of a “sugar conspiracy,” they hinder our understanding of how science is actually done.

  • Security

  • Defence/Aggression

    • The 9/11 Hijackers Were Iraqis, Right?

      I was teaching the day the airplanes hit the World Trade Center. It was the second meeting of “The Communist Manifesto for Seminarians,” a course for my fellow graduate students. By the time I got to class, both towers had collapsed. A few hours later, Building 7 came down as well. We dispensed with a planned discussion about what Marxists mean by “idealism” and “materialism” and talked instead about the meaning of this particular example of the “propaganda of the deed.”

      We already sensed that, with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in the White House, the attacks would mean war. But like the rest of the world, we didn’t yet have the faintest idea how long that war would last. And 16 years on, we still don’t know.

      A few years later, I found myself in front of 40 undergraduates on the first day of the first ethics course I would ever teach. You know how sometimes you have no idea what you’re going to say until the words are out of your mouth? That day, I opened my mouth and this came out: “I was so excited about this class that I couldn’t sleep last night.” Eighty horrified eyes stared back at me. “I guess it wasn’t like that for you,” I added, and felt the blush creep up my face. Most of them had the grace to laugh.

    • Police say more deputies waited outside school during Stoneman Douglas shooting

      The allegations emerged a day after another deputy, assigned to guard the school, resigned under fire, also for failing to enter the building during the shooting.

  • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

    • The terrifying phenomenon that is pushing species towards extinction

      There was almost something biblical about the scene of devastation that lay before Richard Kock as he stood in the wilderness of the Kazakhstan steppe. Dotted across the grassy plain, as far as the eye could see, were the corpses of thousands upon thousands of saiga antelopes. All appeared to have fallen where they were feeding.

      Some were mothers that had travelled to this remote wilderness for the annual calving season, while others were their offspring, just a few days old. Each had died in just a few hours from blood poisoning. In the 30C heat of a May day, the air around each of the rotting hulks was thick with flies.

    • Coral Reefs at Risk of Dissolving as Oceans Get More Acidic, Finds Study

      Coral reefs could start to dissolve before 2100 as man-made climate change drives acidification of the oceans, scientists said on Thursday.

      Acidification will threaten sediments that are building blocks for reefs. Corals already face risks from ocean temperatures, pollution and overfishing.

      “Coral reefs will transition to net dissolving before end of century,” the Australian-led team of scientists wrote in the US journal Science. “Net dissolving” means reefs would lose more material than they gain from the growth of corals.

    • How General Electric gambled on fossil fuel power, and lost

      Last March, executives at General Electric Co’s power-plant business gave Wall Street a surprisingly bullish forecast for the year. Despite flat demand for new natural gas power plants, they said, GE Power’s revenue and profit would rise.

      Showing data from financial firm Lazard and other sources, their presentation said natural gas, coal and even some nuclear power plants were the lowest-cost producers of electricity on the planet, cheaper than wind or solar.

      “Gas is the most economical energy source today,” one slide read. In the days following the conference, GE’s shares rose 2 percent.

  • Finance

    • Dropbox Files for $500 Million IPO a Decade After Launch

      Dropbox on Friday filed for an initial public offering (IPO), seeking to raise an estimated $500 million (roughly Rs. 3,240 crores) for the Silicon Valley cloud computing storage startup. The San Francisco company claimed 500 million users in 180 countries and $1 billion (roughly Rs. 6,480 crores) in annual revenues in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Dropbox said its shares will trade on the Nasdaq under the symbol “DBX.”

    • Dropbox to go public 10 years after launch

      The company’s losing money, but [...]

    • Dropbox files for public stock offering of $500 mln (Update)

      Dropbox filed Friday for an initial public offering, seeking to raise an estimated $500 million for the Silicon Valley cloud computing storage startup.

      The San Francisco company claimed 500 million users in 180 countries and $1 billion in annual revenues in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

    • Labour alliance piles pressure on Corbyn over Brexit stance

      Labour’s divisions over Brexit are exposed today as an alliance of more than 80 senior figures from across the party warn Jeremy Corbyn that he will be unable to fund his promised investment in schools, hospitals and social care unless the UK stays in the EU single market.

    • Capitalism as Obstacle to Equality and Democracy: the US Story

      The Cold War displaced the legacies of the New Deal. Time and Trump are now displacing Cold War legacies. Where capitalism was questioned and challenged in the 1930s and into the 1940s, doing that became taboo after 1948. Yet in the wake of the 2008 crash, critical thought about capitalism resumed. In particular one argument is gaining traction: capitalism is not the means to realize economic equality and democracy, it is rather the great obstacle to their realization.

      The New Deal, forced on the FDR regime from below by a coalition of unionists (CIO) and the political left (two socialist parties and one communist party), reversed the traditional direction (to greater inequality) of income and wealth distributions in the US. They shifted toward greater equality. US history thus illustrates Thomas Piketty’s argument in his 2014 Capital in the 21st Century about long-term deepening of inequality that can be punctuated by interruptions. Indeed, the New Deal reversal was such an interruption and featured just the sorts of taxation of corporations and the rich that Piketty favors now to correct/reverse capitalist inequalities.

    • Rovio loses 50% of share value in one day

      Rovio will publish its full-year results statement on 2 March.

    • Is China ready for what US could unleash in trade war?

      As rumblings of a trade war between Washington and Beijing grow louder, the Trump administration appears to be gearing up for renewed confrontation with China.

      The signs have been clear. Last month, Donald Trump’s move to slap punitive tariffs on solar panels and washing machines, mostly on imports from China, was an opening salvo, while the “renegotiation” of the Nafta and Korea-US (KORUS) free trade agreements has drawn the most attention.

    • Tech companies should stop pretending AI won’t destroy jobs

      I took an Uber to an artificial-­intelligence conference at MIT one recent morning, and the driver asked me how long it would take for autonomous vehicles to take away his job. I told him it would happen in about 15 to 20 years. He breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, I’ll be retired by then,” he said.

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Trump and the weird attention economy of Facebook

      When you try to buy online ads from Facebook’s self-serve ad-auctioning platform, merely being the highest bidder isn’t enough to guarantee that your ads will get through: Facebook multiplies your bid by a software-generated prediction about how responsive the audience will be to it, so the clickbaitier your ad is, the less it costs to place it.

    • How Trump Conquered Facebook—Without Russian Ads

      During the run-up to the election, the Trump and Clinton campaigns bid ruthlessly for the same online real estate in front of the same swing-state voters. But because Trump used provocative content to stoke social media buzz, and he was better able to drive likes, comments, and shares than Clinton, his bids received a boost from Facebook’s click model, effectively winning him more media for less money. In essence, Clinton was paying Manhattan prices for the square footage on your smartphone’s screen, while Trump was paying Detroit prices. Facebook users in swing states who felt Trump had taken over their news feeds may not have been hallucinating.

    • The Mueller Indictments: The Day the Music Died

      Fads and scandals often follow a set trajectory. They grow big, bigger, and then, finally, too big, at which point they topple over and collapse under the weight of their own internal contradictions. This was the fate of the “Me too” campaign, which started out as an exposé of serial abuser Harvey Weinstein but then went too far when Babe.net published a story about one woman’s bad date with comedian Aziz Ansari. Suddenly, it became clear that different types of behavior were being lumped together in a dangerous way, and a once-explosive movement began to fizzle.

    • First Impressions of Russia’s Upcoming Presidential Election

      In the West, election news from Russia carried by mainstream media has centered on Alexei Navalny. Prior to his disqualification as a candidate by the Central Election Commission in December, he was characterized as posing the only real threat to Vladimir Putin’s hold on power through his popular exposes of official and corporate corruption disseminated virally on social media and YouTube. All others in the race were put down as Kremlin controlled and tolerated only to give sham elections an appearance of authenticity.

    • Manafort Left an Incriminating Paper Trail Because He Couldn’t Figure Out How to Convert PDFs to Word Files

      There are two types of people in this world: those who know how to convert PDFs into Word documents and those who are indicted for money laundering. Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort is the second kind of person.

      Back in October, a grand jury indictment charged Manafort and his business associate Rick Gates with a variety of crimes, including conspiring “to defraud the United States.” On Thursday, special counsel Robert Mueller filed a new indictment against the pair, substantially expanding the charges. As one former federal prosecutor told the Washington Post, Manafort and Gates’ methods appear to have been “extensive and bold and greedy with a capital ‘G,’ but … not all that sophisticated.”

    • What Do Jotted Talking Points Say About Trump’s Empathy?

      For more than an hour on Wednesday, President Trump listened quietly to entreaties for action, personal stories of grief and loss, and expressions of raw anger, clutching a white notecard with talking points written on it.

      “I hear you,” one said. “What would you most want me to know about your experience?” said another.

      Mr. Trump’s use of notes, captured by news photographers who covered the extraordinary listening session with parents, students and teachers who lost loved ones in the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., was not unusual.

      But the nature of Mr. Trump’s written prompts was atypical. Composed beneath a heading that read “The White House,” they seemed to suggest that the president needed to be reminded to show compassion and understanding to traumatized survivors, an impression that Mr. Trump has sometimes fed with public reactions to national tragedies that were criticized as callous.

      On Wednesday, the president never uttered the talking points, but appeared by turns sympathetic, attentive, determined to take action and angry on behalf of his distraught guests. “I just grieve for you,” Mr. Trump told the group. “I feel so — it’s just, to me, there could be nothing worse than what you’ve gone through.”

    • They Came, They Saw, They Tweeted

      My sense of anticipation was hyped. Robert Mueller had just indicted the Russian troll farm known as the Internet Research Agency, along with several of the trolls who had slaved tirelessly from their cyber-cubicles in St. Petersburg in a plot to despoil American democracy. Having recently survived a hit-and-run collision with a suspected Russian troll, who had recklessly driven the internet highways using a false ID (Alice Donovan), I was eager to see what the former FBI man had uncovered.

      My appetite was further whetted by an NBC News producer who proclaimed the Mueller indictment “one of the most important political documents in US history.” Right up there with the Monroe Doctrine, the majority opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson, and the Starr Report, I suppose.

      I greedily downloaded a pdf of the 33-page filing, expecting to finally get answers to questions that had been nagging me for months, such as: How could the Russians have been so sloppy as to get caught with their hands in Trump’s pockets? Did they believe Trump was smart enough to effectively collude with them? Did they really think Hillary needed any help blowing a sure thing? And, most importantly, what was Alice Donovan’s real name?

      I was quickly disappointed. The Mueller indictment doesn’t charge any collusion between Trump and the Russians. In fact, it doesn’t even mention the word. Mueller also doesn’t draw any direct links between the troll farm in St. Petersburg and the Putin government in Moscow. And, most significantly, Mueller doesn’t allege that any of the nefarious trolling had the slightest “Butterfly effect” on the outcome of the 2016 elections. If there’s a conspiracy here, it’s looking more and more likely to be a conspiracy of dunces. Since there are many, many dunces in the White House, it’s still too early to rule out future charges against Team Trump. Thankfully, lack of evidence for collusion isn’t lack of evidence for criminal stupidity.

    • The challenge to “winner-take-all” launched

      Beginning today, in four states across the country, lawsuits will be filed to challenge the way presidential electors are selected in America. The plaintiffs in these suits charge that the “winner-take-all” system—the system by which the candidate who wins the popular vote in a state gets all of the electoral college votes in that state—violates both the 14th Amendment’s principle of “one person, one vote,” and the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment.

      [...]

      Two of the lawsuits filed today are in traditionally “blue” states —Massachusetts and California. Two are in “red” states—Texas and South Carolina.

    • 5 Key Takeaways From the Democratic Rebuttal Memo

      Three weeks ago, House Republicans publicly released a much-hyped memo written by representative Devin Nunes of California. It alleged, through a series of allusions, tangential facts, and seeming misdirections, that law enforcement officials had abused their power in obtaining a surveillance warrant against former Trump campaign advisor Carter Page. Now, in a 10-page memo of their own, House Democrats are attempting to set the record straight.

    • China Moves to Let President Xi Stay in Power, Ending Term Limit

      China’s Communist Party has cleared the way for President Xi Jinping to stay in power, perhaps indefinitely, by announcing on Sunday that it wants to abolish the two-term limit on the presidency — a dramatic move that would mark the country’s biggest political change in decades.

      The party leadership “proposed to remove the expression that the president and vice president of the People’s Republic of China ‘shall serve no more than two consecutive terms’ from the country’s Constitution,” Xinhua, the official news agency, reported.

      With each term set at five years, the Constitution currently limits Mr. Xi, who became president in 2013, to 10 years in office. But the announcement appears to be the strongest signal yet that Mr. Xi, 64, intends to hold onto power longer than any Chinese leader in at least a generation.

  • Censorship/Free Speech

    • Russia VPN Blocking Law Failing? No Provider Told To Block Any Site

      In 2017, Russia introduced tough new legislation that compels VPN providers to restrict access to sites blocked by regular ISPs or get blocked themselves. Now, several months on, not a single VPN provider has had any action taken against them, despite an estimated 25% of local Internet users using such products.

    • Sales at Arco Madrid unscathed by censorship controversy

      Galleries reported that sales at the Arco Madrid fair (21-25 February) proceeded undeterred even after controversy broke out over the removal of a polemical Santiago Sierra work just as the aisles opened to VIPs on Wednesday this week.

    • The Walrus Wants Google to Strangle Globalresearch.ca: Lessons in the New McCarthyism

      When David Berlin and Ken Alexander launched The Walrus in September 2003, their ambition was to create a Canadian equivalent to American monthly magazines like The New Yorker or Harper’s, which was then under the legendary editorship of Lewis W. Lapham. Who could have anticipated that not quite fifteen years later, The Walrus would be dipping its tusks into the tepid sludge of McCarthyist witch-hunting? It’s not an orientation Lapham would have recommended when David Berlin consulted with him about possibilities of collaboration a year before the magazine’s launch: as Lapham wrote in Gag Rule: On the Suppression of Dissent and the Stifling of Democracy (2004),

    • Censorship termed ‘absurd’

      The recent controversies over censorship of films took centre stage on Saturday at a debate on the second day of Bengaluru International Film Festival (BIFFes). Most film-makers strongly opposed it, instead arguing that the industry should practice self-censorship.

      At a panel discussion ‘Censorship in India’, several film-makers, led by M.S. Sathyu, recounted the ordeal they had to face in their creative careers.

    • ‘Super censorship’ of films is worrying: Sathyu

      Bengaluru: Veteran filmmaker and art director MS Sathyu on Saturday said he is concerned about ‘super censorship’ of Indian movies, a practice under which anyone can violently oppose a film even before it’s released. He cited the example of the recent controversy surrounding the Bollywood period drama Padmaavat.

    • Self-regulation must replace film censorship, says M S Sathyu

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Apple to Start Putting Sensitive Encryption Keys in China

      The keys are complex strings of random characters that can unlock the photos, notes and messages that users store in iCloud. Until now, Apple has stored the codes only in the U.S. for all global users, the company said, in keeping with its emphasis on customer privacy and security.

      While Apple says it will ensure that the keys are protected in China, some privacy experts and former Apple security employees worry that moving the keys to China makes them more vulnerable to seizure by a government with a record of censorship and political suppression.

    • US, Britain in cybersecurity divide over Chinese tech firm Huawei

      Washington is cranking up pressure on Huawei Technologies Co., the Chinese telecommunications-equipment maker that U.S. officials view as a potential tool for state-sponsored spying.

      But across the Atlantic, one of America’s closest allies has taken a different approach. British Prime Minister Theresa May met Huawei Chairwoman Sun Yafang in Beijing earlier this month. Days later, Huawei announced it would invest £3 billion ($4.2 billion) in the U.K. over the next five years.

      Britain’s embrace of Huawei is widening a gulf between the U.S. and several important allies over American allegations the company poses a cybersecurity threat. Some Washington lawmakers have recently expressed worry that Huawei’s inroads in countries with close security ties to the U.S. could make their telecommunications networks more vulnerable to Beijing snooping.

    • How the NSA Can Greatly Reduce Mass School Shootings

      Instead of spying on Americans to crush dissent, consolidate power, or gather sensitive information for blackmail, the NSA could actually do something useful.

      The NSA could reduce the number of mass shootings using existing technology and resources.

      Remember, virtually all school shooters are males in their teens or early twenties.

    • State Insecurity: Why Are Top NSA Personnel Leaving in Droves?

      America’s intelligence bodies haven’t particularly enjoyed their time in the spotlight these last few years. The National Security Agency, or NSA, occupies a particularly complicated and frustrating place in the collective unconscious: It’s an institution we must trust with our wellbeing on a daily basis, but it is also fundamentally unaccountable and untrustworthy. When was the last time you voted for an NSA director?

      Beginning with the Edward Snowden leaks in summer 2013, we’ve watched this formerly hidden bureaucratic appendage grow more and more visible to the public – and what we’ve seen isn’t encouraging. We now know that the NSA regularly colludes with domestic internet service providers and spies indiscriminately on the heads of foreign governments, usually without justification. We also know that low morale within the agency has resulted in the leak of sensitive state secrets. Some of those secrets involve the way the NSA holds basic freedoms like privacy in contempt.

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • Happy International Blog Remembrance Day

      The general decline of the blog—not the news blog, but the BLOG BLOG—is a bummer. No offense to the many cool and worthwhile bloggers still posting to WordPress, Tumblr, XANGA(?), and good ol’-fashioned websites, but for the most part, the best blogs of our generation are being wasted in tweetstorms, Facebook rants, and reddit comments. I am not just making this up: There are entire conferences dedicated to preserving Web 1.0, back before our computers had become Facebook and Twitter machines.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Venerable Brands Snuffed Out as IPH Group Merges Firms Into Flagship Spruson & Ferguson

      Merger AheadOn 6 February 2018, Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) listed company IPH Limited (ASX:IPH) announced [PDF, 156kB] that two of its smaller group businesses – Fisher Adams Kelly Callinans (FAKC) and Cullens – are to be merged into its original and largest firm, Spruson & Ferguson (S&F). Operation under the single S&F brand is expected to commence in April 2018, with full integration to be completed by July 2018. The merger announcement comes on the heels of IPH’s settlement of its acquisition of New Zealand IP firm AJ Park on 31 October 2017 [PDF, 189kB].

    • Copyrights

      • Copyright Holders Call Out Costa Rica Over ThePirateBay.cr

        The MPAA, RIAA and other entertainment industry groups want Costa Rica to step up its efforts to combat copyright infringement. They inform the US Government that the South American country is failing to meet its trade agreement obligations, calling out the local domain registry as a “safe haven” for sites like ThePirateBay.cr.

As Japan Moves Towards Reducing Patent Lawsuits and Curbing SEP Abuse Will the United States Follow Suit?

Posted in America, Antitrust, Asia, IBM, OIN, Patents, RAND at 2:56 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Ask Makan Delrahim

KDDI Corporation logo

Summary: Japan is getting tougher on standards-imposed patent traps (SEP), the US may be getting ready to do the same, and Japan’s KDDI Corporation joins OIN

WE recently wrote about Japan's growing comprehension of the SEP threat, unlike the US with Makan Delrahim (a lobbyist) in charge of antitrust matters. President Trump fills his swamp and it truly shows (just look at his USPTO Director pick, soon to speak at an IAM event). As IAM put it the other day: “Another speech from @TheJusticeDept’s Makan Delrahim suggesting US gov is looking very closely at use of antitrust enforcement in standard setting https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/assistant-attorney-general-makan-delrahim-delivers-remarks-college-europe-brussels” (think about Qualcomm for instance).

Watchtroll, in the mean time, is frustrated that on patents “Trump DOJ is on the same page as the Obama DOJ, which is hard to fathom given all the promises made by President Trump during his campaign.”

“The patent maximalists sure hope that chaos will be restored as they profit from that chaos.”Watchtroll now helps the lobby for patent chaos, hoping that republishing a letter will help it have impact. The patent maximalists sure hope that chaos will be restored as they profit from that chaos.

As we recently noted, Japan (and JPO) recognises that patent litigation isn’t desirable (unless you’re a lawyer) and this new report says that “Japan will soon implement a process that will swiftly resolve disputes over patents that are crucial to adhering to certain technical standards…” (that’s SEP)

This is a good thing. Consider the fact that, as IAM put it last week, Hitachi fed patents to “NPE Microconnect in the past several months.”

“…Japan is moving in the same direction as the US. The EPO, by contrast, moves in the same direction as China (SIPO).”“NPE” is a euphemism for patent troll and it’s worrying to think that a Japanese giant will resort to this. This is good for IAM and its paymasters of course, but what about Japan in general? IAM has just published this sponsored ‘article’ for Shobayashi International Patent & Trademark Office (Japan), so it’s clear that IAM is in the pockets of the Japanese patent ‘industry’ (litigation), not actual industry.

A week ago it was announced that KDDI, a communications service provider in Japan, had entered the Linux-centric Open Invention Network (OIN). A press release got disseminated (e.g. [1, 2]) to say:

Open Invention Network (OIN), the largest patent non-aggression community in history, announced today that KDDI Corporation (KDDI) has joined OIN as a community member. As the first key communications service provider in Japan to enroll in the OIN community, KDDI is demonstrating its commitment to open source software and the associated development efforts that benefit the entire communications industry.

“The communications industry is continuing its rapid transformation. Linux-based platforms like ONAP, OPNFV, and OpenDaylight are beginning to enable carriers and enterprises to provision new levels of service functionality across cloud and software defined networks (SDN) at an unprecedented pace,” said Keith Bergelt, CEO of Open Invention Network. “We appreciate KDDI’s participation in joining OIN and demonstrating its commitment to innovation and patent non-aggression in open source.”

OIN is not against software patents. It’s more of an IBM ‘hack’ which, according to Bruce Perens, is about protecting software patents from Linux rather than protecting Linux from software patents (quite an accurate description we might add).

Japan is one of IP5 (JPO is in it), so watching what happens there is definitely worthwhile. Japan has become a lot stricter on software patents and the courts not so plaintiff-friendly. In that regard, Japan is moving in the same direction as the US. The EPO, by contrast, moves in the same direction as China (SIPO). █

Arguing With Patent Maximalists is Not Arguing With People Who Care for Facts and Reason

Posted in America, Deception, Law, Patents at 1:49 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Patent policy, according to some, is a matter of “national security crisis.”

A duck
Should we restart nuclear drills?

Summary: The levels of unprecedented drama, or the attempts to induce panic, have reached laughable levels; just because the United States adopts saner patent policies does not mean doom and gloom, except for people who work for the patent ‘industry’

MARCH is approaching, so it may be way too late for new year’s resolutions. One thing I’m beginning to realise is that it’s pointless and hopeless debating with patent maximalists. They keep thinking (or lying to themselves) that US demise is purely due to patent policy, notably patent reform (we debunked that nonsense several times earlier this month), they think that technology companies are the most evil thing in their country, and many deny the very existence of patent trolls. They may never start using logic. They reject facts. The patent system is being improved, not “killed”, but here they go saying that it “is now a national security crisis.”

No, it’s not a “national security crisis.” Maybe it’s just a crisis to parasitic professions like particular lawyers and patent trolls. When I said this to one of them he responded by repeatedly saying that I am “a shill for Google.” [1, 2]

They say the same thing about others whom they don’t like; they’re seeing “Google” in everything.

“Yesterday we wrote about spin and judge-bashing (Professor Crouch made an offensive and potentially racist mockery of a judge with Mexican heritage, insinuating he does not care about facts).”I’ve never worked for them either directly or indirectly, but that does not seem to matter to these people. “To even suggest I have anything to do with Google is to associate oneself with conspiracy theories,” I told him. “I write lots of negative things about Google.”

Then again, speaking to people who are literally burning things in front of the USPTO (in a group of less than a dozen people, which makes the protest laughable) is probably a waste of time. It was an unauthorised protest and it basically made patent maximalists look like a bunch of radicals (which many of them are). This particular person writes regularly for Watchtroll, so it’s not a mere fringe. Yesterday we wrote about spin and judge-bashing (Professor Crouch made an offensive and potentially racist mockery of a judge with Mexican heritage, insinuating he does not care about facts). Even yesterday we saw that same case being spun by the patent microcosm. Dion Bregman and Karon Fowler (Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP) are the latest to spin/distort Aatrix for shameless self-promotion purposes. Here’s what they said: “The decision of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Aatrix Software, Inc. v. Green Shades Software, Inc. clarified that although Section 101 of the US Patent Act is ultimately a question of law, it may involve subsidiary fact questions that may preclude a Section 101 decision at the pleadings stage. As such, parties to patent proceedings should consider their long-term strategies for Section 101 challenges under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6).”

“…when dealing with the patent zealots/maximalists one can assume “alternative facts” and resistance to logic, common sense, objectivity. All they care about is making more sales (services), which necessitate public misunderstandings.”This decision, like the one that’s mentioned in conjunction (a case against HP), was not specifically about Section 101 and it has since then been largely ignored by the same court. We wrote more than half a dozen posts about it, but we don’t expect the patent microcosm to stop obsessing over misinterpretation and hype, calling these decisions “blockbusters”.

Anyway, the bottom line is, when dealing with the patent zealots/maximalists one can assume “alternative facts” and resistance to logic, common sense, objectivity. All they care about is making more sales (services), which necessitate public misunderstandings. █

Changes Introduced by the EPO’s Administrative Council Made It Abundantly Clear That Separation of Powers Does Not Exist for Independence of Judges

Posted in Deception, Europe, Patents at 1:06 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Also: IP Kat seems to have become a ‘pet’ blog of Bristows, CIPA and other elements of Team UPC

CIPA meeting with Stephen Jones
‘IP Kat‘ and Battistelli last month

Summary: IP Kat (i.e. Bristows in this case) wants us to think that the EPO keeps the Boards of Appeal alive and healthy, but in reality that’s just an illusion which Team UPC is attempting to prop up, knowing that Battistelli's attack on the Boards of Appeal dooms the UPC

YESTERDAY we wrote about Bristows using IP Kat to post ads for the EPO‘s management, possibly to help bolster the false perception they need in order to weaken the constitutional complaint and then ratify the UPC. “Have they mentioned,” one person asked, that EPO/BoA judges “can be suspended on half-salary for a minimum of two years (extension optional) at the whim of the appointing authority?” (against the EPC, i.e. core rules)

The cited document (warning: epo.org link) is worth reposting below in case the EPO removes it in the future (or makes it a lot harder to locate).

CA/D 18/15

DECISION OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE COUNCIL
of 17 December 2015
amending Articles 2 and 95 of the Service
Regulations for permanent employees of the
European Patent Office

THE ADMINISTRATIVE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN PATENT ORGANISATION,

Having regard to the European Patent Convention, and in particular Articles 10(2)(c), 11 and 33(2)(b) thereof,

Having regard to the Service Regulations for permanent employees of the European Patent Office (hereinafter referred to as “the Service Regulations”), and in particular Articles 2 and 95 thereof,

On a proposal from the President of the European Patent Office, submitted after consulting the General Consultative Committee,

HAS DECIDED AS FOLLOWS:

Article 1

Article 2(6) of the Service Regulations shall read as follows:

“The President may extend the terms of office of all members of the bodies under paragraph 1(b), (c), (d), (f) and (g) beyond the duration defined in the applicable provisions of these Service Regulations, within the limits of the terms of office of the Staff Committee members.”

Article 2

Article 95 of the Service Regulations shall read as follows:

“Article 95

Suspension

(1) (unchanged)

(2) (unchanged)

(3) A final decision in the proceedings shall be given within the following period, as from the date of the decision to withhold remuneration:

(a) 4 months for those employees whose appointing authority is the President;

(b) 24 months for those employees whose appointing authority is the Administrative Council. This period may be extended in exceptional cases by decision of the Administrative Council.

If no decision has been given by the end of the period specified under (a) or (b), the employee shall again receive his full remuneration.

(4) (unchanged)

(5) (unchanged)”

Article 3

This decision shall enter into force on 17 December 2015. It shall have immediate effect. This immediate effect shall include suspensions decided under Article 95 of the Service Regulations and which are ongoing on the date of entry into force.

Done at Munich, 17 December 2015

For the Administrative Council
The Chairman

Jesper KONGSTAD

The above is important because it shows that Battistelli was given enormous leverage over judges with help from the Administrative Council led by Kongstad, whom he viewed as a partner rather than supervisor (a gross distortion of the envisioned hierarchy of the Organisation).

IP Kat has meanwhile moved on to speaking about the German patent case about “Trommeleinheit” [Drum Unit], which we mentioned the other day. It’s at the German Federal Court of Justice (FCJ)

Has anyone noticed how rarely IP Kat mentions anything about EPO scandals? Why did it not report on the failure of UPC in the UK earlier this month? Or the successful admission of the constitutional complaint last week? So much for objective reporting on European patent matters… they only say what suits them (their employers). They also badmouth those who warn about patent trolls in Europe. The comments are a lot better than the posts and the appeal boards were alluded to in this comment from yesterday (T 1045/13):

Whilst generally supporting Pfizer’s case, I must say they appear to be misrepresenting the EPO’s position on the need for providing supporting data in the application. A very recent decision of the EPO supports the contrary view: T 1045/13.

We unfortunately suffer from poor decisions due to the inability of the parties to do their jobs sufficiently and provide both sides of the argument. By ‘sufficiently’, i do not mean stand up and present any case. The presented case must be plausible across the scope of the issues at stake.

As things stand at the moment, decisions of the EPO are also of dubious quality due to work pressure and brain drain. This is something we’re constantly being reminded of. But anyway, such a subject would no longer be entertained by IP Kat. It’s run by very different people now… █

Patents in the US Are Not Hard to Enforce, Software Patents Are

Posted in America, Patents at 12:29 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Some trolls and businesses have become accustomed to a pipeline of extortions

Next

Summary: Depending too much on abstract software patents is a losing strategy; it does not, however, mean that patents in general are not enforceable

THE number of patents granted by the USPTO kept climbing for many years. This sheer number and this growth is about to end. As we shall show later today, examiners are becoming tougher, owing primarily to PTAB.

Someone has just said that “it’s still almost impossible to enforce a patent in the US. Rare cases of success take 4-7 years and $5M-10M+.”

“…examiners are becoming tougher, owing primarily to PTAB.”This isn’t true unless one assumes that a low-quality patent like a software patent gets used.

Just the other day Michael Loney took a look at Lex Machina’s data and said that “ANDA pharma litigation spikes back up in 2017″ with some record rulings (in terms of damages). To quote:

After a slump in 2016, US pharmaceutical patent litigation triggered by the Hatch-Waxman process rose to 411 cases last year

Last year 411 ANDA cases were filed in the US, up from 318 in 2016, reveals Lex Machina’s recently released Patent Litigation Year in Review report.

“The report features many interesting statistics on case filing (the headline figure is a 10% drop) and the impact of TC Heartland on districts,” Loney wrote in another part (this too behind a paywall). His summary mentions Section 101 invalidation: “A closer look at Lex Machina’s Patent Litigation Year in Review report reveals some interesting nuggets of information on success rates of transfers, the judges with the most cases, design patent litigation, injunctions, Section 101 invalidation and damages…”

“Inherently, the problem isn’t enforcement but enforcement of software patents specifically.”Speaking of Section 101 invalidation, Watchtroll now calls the patent troll “Blackbird Technologies” [sic] an “intellectual property monetization firm” and says it intends to appeal the Section 101 invalidation of its software patent. We wrote about that less than a couple of weeks back. Why do they insist on enforcing software patents, knowing the very slim chances of a victory? Watch these patent trolls scraping the bottom of the barrel for exceptions to the norm and these awful results (face-saving press release) from InterDigital, which sees income going down by about 20%.

Inherently, the problem isn’t enforcement but enforcement of software patents specifically. It’s not hard to see that. █

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