Bonum Certa Men Certa

Lesson From the United States: Overly Permissive Patent Policy (Maximalism) Can Drive Technology Companies Away

Rodney Gilstrap wanted to attract plaintiffs to his town; instead he drove actual companies away

Rodney Gilstrap



Summary: Technological 'wastelands', or places where science and technology firms choose not to have business (shops/operations/staff/services/hosting), are the main legacy of a lawyers-centric patent policy; EPO must pay careful attention or drive away innovation

On the heels of our previous post about software patents promotion under António Campinos at European Patent Office (EPO) let's look very briefly at what happens in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

"Making a country/state/superstate (like EU) friendly to patent trolls and abstract patents simply means that real businesses will go away (or choose not to come); they might be replaced by parasites such as trolls and the arrival of parasitic lawyers who represent the trolls. "The CCIA's Josh Landau has just written this post about Apple's Texas exodus; we wrote about it twice recently (the past few days), on both occasions highlighting the danger this poses to Europe. It is a cautionary tale. Making a country/state/superstate (like EU) friendly to patent trolls and abstract patents simply means that real businesses will go away (or choose not to come); they might be replaced by parasites such as trolls and the arrival of parasitic lawyers who represent the trolls.

In Landau's own words:

Last week, it was widely reported that Apple plans to close its retail stores in the Eastern District of Texas in order to avoid facing patent lawsuits in the district. Given that a single patent lawsuit can easily cost just as much as opening an Apple store (estimated at $8-10 million per store), even if Apple wins the lawsuit, it probably wasn’t a difficult financial decision for Apple: move the stores out of the district and avoid being subject to litigation in a notoriously patent-owner friendly jurisdiction.

But it’s one thing for Apple to close a couple stores in Dallas suburbs. Apple has the financial resources to absorb that cost and the national presence to be able to forgo a store in the Eastern District.

What about a local store located in the Eastern District? (As I covered last week, small business are already frequently targeted by non-practicing entities.) Or a tech startup in Austin, located in the Western District of Texas—a venue already being touted as the next Eastern District?


Yet another reason for Apple to abandon East Texas (as it does), as per this report from earlier this week (with emphasis added):

According to the firms, they were discussing licensing the patents to Apple with the company as recently as January 2017. However, no agreement was formally reached. Optis does not appear to have developed the technology itself. Instead, it purchased many of the patents from companies including Ericsson, Samsung, and LG.

The patent lawsuit was filed against Apple in East Texas. The claimants are requesting a jury trial. A previous case involving the same court and many of the same LTE patents fined Huawei $10.6 million in damages.


East Texas as usual. And this latest "Dallas Invents" post is a symptom of the problem; they mistake patents for inventions. It's a litigation pipeline and a deterrence.

"They just know that software patents have no legitimacy, so they wrap these up in different paper ("AI")."Europe ought to get wise and reject this American/Texan policy, seeing it has led to nothing but trouble. After TC Heartland ( SCOTUS) and 35 U.S.C. ۤ 101/Alice a lot of this newly-formed 'litigation' industry is also collapsing, leaving the country and the state with little of anything. 2018 was a really hard time for patent zealots (unlike minimalists) as a lot of patents got invalidated and lawsuits went nowhere. Litigation rates have collapsed. Janal Kalis, a patent maximalist, is still (this week) obsessing over patent applications (not even patents!) because rarely does the Federal Circuit overrule/overturn the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). Watchtroll is meanwhile promoting software patents under the cynical guise of "AI" in "Japan Patent Office Case Examples on Artificial Intelligence Offer Guidance for Other Offices on Treating AI Inventions" (link omitted by intention). They just know that software patents have no legitimacy, so they wrap these up in different paper ("AI").

Recent Techrights' Posts

Why We're Reporting Brett Wilson LLP for Apparently Misusing Their Licence to Protect American Microsofters Who Attack Women
For those who have not been keeping abreast
Stefano Maffulli and His Microsoft-Funded OSI Staff Are Killing the OSI and Killing "Open Source" (All for Money!)
This is far from over
Techrights Headlines as Semaphore
"If you are hearing this, thank you"
 
Gemini Links 01/04/2025: Games and More
Links for the day
Links 01/04/2025: Apple Fined $162M for Privacy Abuses, Disinformation Online a Growing Concern
Links for the day
Newer Press Reports Confirm That Microsoft Shuts Down 'Hey Hi' (AI) Labs Despite All the Hype
The "hey hi" (AI) bubble is not sustainable
Links 01/04/2025: Mass Layoffs at Eidos and "Microsoft Pulls Back on Data Centers" (Demand Lacking); "Racist and Sexist" Slop From Microsoft
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/04/2025: XKCDpunk and worldclock.py
Links for the day
50 Years of Sabotage and a Gut Punch to Computer Science (and Science in General)
Will we get back to science-based computing rather than cult-like following?
3 Months in 2025, 4 Waves of Mass Layoffs at Microsoft, Now Offices Shut Down Permanently
"A recent visit by the South China Morning Post confirmed that the office was dark, unoccupied, and had its logo removed."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 31, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, March 31, 2025
Links 31/03/2025: China Tensions, Bombs Falling in Myanmar After Earthquake
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/03/2025: Falling Out of Love With Tech, Sunsetting openSNP
Links for the day
R.T.O. at IBM in Texas and Atlanta (State of Georgia) Expected as "Soft Layoffs" Catalyst This Coming Year
It also sounds like more IBM layoffs are in the making
Law Firms Can Also Lose Their Licence for Clearly Misusing It
The bottom line is, never made the false assumption that because you can pile up SLAPPs in a docket you will not suffer from bad reputation or even get disbarred
Link between institutional abuse, Swiss jurists, Debianism and FSFE
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
LLM Slop Piggybacking News About GNU/Linux and Distorting It
new examples
Links 31/03/2025: Press and Democracy Under Further Attacks in the US, Attitudes Towards Slop Sour
Links for the day
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Privacy Fiasco in Detail: The OSI Does Not Respect Anybody's Privacy
The surveillance mafia that bans dissent or key people (even co-founders) with dissenting views
Gemini Links 31/03/2025: More X-Filesposting and Dreaming in Emacs
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 30, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, March 30, 2025
Links 30/03/2025: Security Breaches, Crackdowns on Dissent/Rival Politicians
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/03/2025: London Soundtrack Festival, Superbloom, gmiCAPTCHA
Links for the day
Phasing Out Vista 10 in Nations Where ~90% of Windows Users Still Rely on It
Recipe for another Microsoft disaster
The Cost of Pursuing the Much-Needed Reform/Shield Against Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs)
“It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.”
The LLM Bubble is About to Implode, Gimmicks and Financial Shell Games Cannot Prevent That, Only Delay It
To inflate the bubble MElon is now doing the classic trick of buying from oneself for a fictional value
Links 30/03/2025: Contagious Ideas, Signal Leak, and Squashing Lousy Patents
Links for the day
Links 30/03/2025: "Quantum Randomness" and "F-1 Visa Revoked" in US
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/03/2025: US as a Threat, Returning to the WWW
Links for the day
Links 30/03/2025: Judge Blocks Dismantling Of VOA, Turkey Arrested Many Journalists
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 29, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, March 29, 2025