Bonum Certa Men Certa

The Anti-Section 101 (Pro-Software Patents) Lobby Looks at New Angles for Watering Down Guidelines and Caselaw

Section 101 (35 U.S.C. €§ 101) withstands endless lobbying against it

Section



Summary: By focusing on jury trials and patent trolls the proponents of bunk, likely-invalid abstract patents hope to overrule or override technical courts such as the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB)

IT SHOULD NOT surprise anyone that USPTO officials who came from the litigation 'industry' are upset at the Federal Circuit under Chief Judge Sharon Prost. As we shall show in later posts, she too has come under criticism if not attacks from the usual suspects. For those who forgot or haven't been following these affairs, Sharon Prost replaces a corrupt Chief Judge who was caught red-handed and is nowadays lobbying along with patent maximalists. They really hate Section 101, which basically invalidates just about any software patent.



A patent maximalist called Janal Kalis has just noted that "PTAB Affirmed an Examiner's [Section] 101 Rejection of Claims in a Thompson Reuters Patent Application for Docketing: https://e-foia.uspto.gov/Foia/RetrievePdf?system=BPAI&flNm=fd2017005527-11-07-2018-1 …"

This is the usual; whenever PTAB gets involved and Section 101 is brought up the likelihood of invalidation/rejection is very high. Berkheimer has changed practically nothing.

"...whenever PTAB gets involved and Section 101 is brought up the likelihood of invalidation/rejection is very high."So what will those patent maximalists do about Section 101 and about PTAB? "Despite Misleading Question, Berkheimer Case Has Legs at the Supreme Court," Dennis Crouch says. Crouch himself is a very vocal patent maximalist and opponent of Section 101. And no, he's just trying to sway the court's stance, having long promoted software patents and patent trolls. The EFF has also just urged the Justices at SCOTUS to examine the case because they want closure (the court repeatedly declines to revisit the subject). Crouch mentioned "go[ing] to a jury." To quote: "In my view, the question presented by HP’s attorneys intentionally creates confusion as the Federal Circuit did not rule (1) that eligibility is a question of fact; or (2) that any aspect of the eligibility question goes to a jury. Rather, the Federal Circuit has repeatedly ruled, including in Berkheimer, that the question of “eligible subject matter is a question of law.” I’ll also note that no court following Berkheimer has seen eligibility itself as a question of fact or attempted to get a jury verdict on the issue. I contacted David Salmons (counsel of record for HP) to see what I’m missing about the misleading question, but he did not respond."

He was later admitting a mistake, citing patent troll Finjan. These Berkheimer pushers (who are software patents boosters) cite Microsoft's patent troll Finjan in relation to letting a nontechnical jury decide on patents (a big mistake). His mea culpa:

In my recent Berkheimer post, I wrote that “that no court following Berkheimer has … attempted to get a jury verdict on the issue.” Turns out that I’m potentially wrong.

In the pending case of Finjan, Inc. v. Juniper Network, Inc. (N.D. Cal. 2018), Judge Alsup has ordered a jury trial on the “inventive concept” question. In its order, denying summary judgment, the court found that the Claim 10 of Finjan’s U.S. Patent No. 8,677,494 was directed to the abstract idea of “collecting data, analyzing data, and storing results.” (Alice Step 1). However, the court decided to wait for trial to determine the inventive concept question...


Looking at this troll's affairs, it's pretending to be an actual company, it attracts some investment, and it speaks of 'sales' when all it really does is litigation. This is the kind of firm that needs to go bankrupt because it's a classic troll.

"Logical arguments about the scientific contribution of such patents (or detriment thereof) don't seem to bother them. A facts-based, evidence-based discussion just doesn't appeal to these people."Jury trials, as we have been pointing out several times over the past year, are more likely to get things wrong; jury trials are not suitable for technical matters involving patents, which they don't understand (particular scientific disciplines). This is misapplying one principle of law to granting of a monopoly. Juvan Bonni, who works with Crouch, has incidentally just promoted these two recent papers. One of these is sort of 'court bashing' by Cambridge Technology Law (a push against PTAB); they just loathe patent quality, so they try to discredit the court and AIA. How typical. More lobbying as “papers” (the Koch Brothers sponsor some other attacks on PTAB, using 'scholars' in institutions they sponsor). The second of those two speaks of juries in patent litigation. Watchtroll has meanwhile taken this further with N. Scott Pierce (Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr, LLP), who repeats the same arguments (more or less). What we find noteworthy here is that almost a year later (10 months) they are still pushing Berkheimer, engaging in revisionism about Oil States (no matter what SCOTUS ruled this past summer) and obsess over faulty jury trials (based on misinformation) so as to discredit the court. Logical arguments about the scientific contribution of such patents (or detriment thereof) don't seem to bother them. A facts-based, evidence-based discussion just doesn't appeal to these people. They never wrote a single line of code.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
 
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October