Bonum Certa Men Certa

Decades of 'Stupid' Software Patents, Tactlessly Granted by the USPTO, Have Caused a Flood of Invalidations and Now a 'Section 101 Day'

Courts continue to be overwhelmed by briefs and motions for invalidation of abstract patents, Judge Leonard Stark (chief of the new American 'rocket docket') admits

Chief Judge Leonard Stark



Summary: Stunning admission from Chief Judge Leonard Stark, who is coming to grips with the severity of the quality issue and is announcing/heralding a 'Section 101 Day'

QUALITY of patents is an important aspect of patent law. The quality of US patents -- or patents granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) -- became the subject of much ridicule in recent decades. Going back to the days of 'Slashdot glory', people used to routinely shame patents over there. Companies like IBM were often forced (to save face) into conceding patents. At Sun, esteemed engineers had a game: let's see who manages to get the most stupid patent accepted by the USPTO. Admissions about these games came out after Oracle had bought Sun.



"At Sun, esteemed engineers had a game: let's see who manages to get the most stupid patent accepted by the USPTO."Just before this weekend the EFF's Joe Mullin announced the "Stupid Patent of the Month" (something he used to do a lot as a journalist). He now focuses on charlatans with fake patents that are software patents. To quote:

What if we allowed some people to patent the law and then demand money from the rest of us just for following it?

As anyone with a basic understanding of democratic principles can see, that is a terrible idea. In a democracy, elected representatives write laws that apply to everyone, ideally, based on the public interest. We shouldn’t let private parties “own” legal principles or use technical jargon to re-cast those principles as “inventions.”

But that’s exactly what the U.S. Patent Office has allowed two inventors, Nicholas Hall and Steven Eakin, to do. Last September, the government proclaimed that Hall and Eakin are the inventors of “Methods and Systems for User Opt-In to Data Privacy Agreements,” U.S. Patent No. 10,075,451.

The owner of this patent, a company called “Veripath,” is already filing lawsuits against companies that make privacy compliance software. With Congress and many states actively engaged in debates over consumer privacy laws, Veripath might soon be using this patent to extract licensing cash from U.S. companies as well.

[...]

Some background: Venpath, Inc., a company with a New York address that appears to be a virtual office, assigned the rights in the ’451 patent to VeriPath just days before the patent issued in September last year. As it happens, the FTC began enforcement proceedings against VenPath last September. The FTC’s complaint [PDF] alleged that VenPath’s website represented that “VenPath participates in and has certified its compliance with the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework.” The FTC alleged a count of “privacy misrepresentation.” It claimed that VenPath “did not complete the steps necessary to renew its participation in the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield framework after that certification expired in October 2017.” The FTC issued a Decision and Order [PDF] requiring VenPath to remove the misrepresentations.

An exhibit [PDF] attached to the complaint shows that one of the named inventors on the patent, Nick Hall, contacted Faktor to ask what its prices were. Hall identified himself as the CEO of VenPath. Once Faktor responded, Veripath sued Faktor in federal court in New York.

In its lawsuits, Veripath claims that basic warnings about cookies on websites, a now-common method of complying with the GDPR, violate its patent. The lawsuit against Faktor notes that Faktor’s own website “might not work properly” unless a user consents to having her browser accept cookies.

[...]

Even when a patent is invalid, defendants face pressure to settle. Patent litigation is expensive and it can cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars just to get through the early stages. To really protect innovation we have to ensure that patents like the ’451 patent are never issued in the first place. The fact that this patent was granted shows the Patent Office is failing to apply the law.

We are currently urging the public to tell the Patent Office to stop issuing abstract software patents.


"Stupid Patent of the Month" used to be announced and/or selected by Daniel Nazer, but he recently changed jobs and now works for Mozilla.

""Stupid Patent of the Month" used to be announced and/or selected by Daniel Nazer, but he recently changed jobs and now works for Mozilla."At the start of the year we promised ourselves to focus more on the European Patent Office (EPO) and GNU/Linux, mostly at the expense of USPTO coverage, unless things take a sharp turn for the worse in the US. Two months down the line, have things gotten worse? No. Not really. But the concerns expressed above (by the EFF) are not baseless because at the moment the Office continues to grant software patents -- abstract patents that oughtn't be granted. We keep seeing more and more stories about such patents being squashed in courts; sometimes we only include them in daily links without remarking/talking about them. We have to budget our time.

Here's another example: Paltalk/PeerStream case. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) will probably trash the underlying patents (there's an inter partes review (IPR)), based on this new press release, but the lawyers will get money for the dispute anyway. Patents on software should never be granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in the first place. In case the lawsuits goes forward it can take a long time (months of legal bills); it's very expensive to take this up to the Federal Circuit, and exceptionally difficult to get SCOTUS to even listen/consider. Either way, the lawyers always win. Mind this new piece from Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner LLP's Adriana L. Burgy and Thomas L. Irving. They try to lure clients into lawsuits, not properly informing them about the risk. There's no "Favorable Seas"; quite the contrary.

"That's just 35 U.S.C. €§ 101 in action."In the words of this new article ("'Section 101 Day' Yields Quick Ruling On Patent Eligibility"): "Sitting behind the bench at the Wilmington, Delaware, federal courthouse, Chief Judge Leonard Stark explained that his docket had become flooded with legal briefs arguing that a patent covers ineligible material..."

That's just 35 U.S.C. €§ 101 in action. Similar things happen at the Office too, but patent maximalists such as Janal Kalis look really hard (exhaustively) for the exceptions. Here's the latest one: "The PTAB Reversed an Examiner's [35 U.S.C. €§] 101 Rejection of Claims for "producing shipping labels based on information included in a shipping uniform resource identifier" But Affirmed the Examiner's 102 and non-statutory double Patenting Rejection: https://e-foia.uspto.gov/Foia/RetrievePdf?system=BPAI&flNm=fd2017004956-02-06-2019-1 …"

Unified Patents published a string of overnight posts last night [1, 2, 3, 4]. It's going after a bunch of software patents which are leveraged in bulk by a satellite of Qualcomm. To quote Unified Patents: "Velos claims to have and seeks to license patents allegedly essential to the HEVC / H.265 standard. The ’365 patent is part of a family of patents that were originally assigned to Qualcomm Inc. and transferred to Velos Media in 2017. After conducting an independent analysis, Unified has determined that the ‘365 patent is likely unpatentable."

They are tackling several such patents (US 8,964,849, US 9,930,365 and US 9,979,981 were named last night) and they would be wise the do the same to MPEG-LA, whose cartel is a lot broader and recently chased companies in Europe for 'protection' money, even if software patents are not valid in Europe. We'll focus on Europe in our next post.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsoft XBox Layoffs: Almost 2,000 Layoffs Became "Over 2,000"? (Over 20% of the Staff)
over 20% of staff will be let go, not counting staff that leaves voluntarily
Summer Plans in Techrights and Elsewhere
massive layoffs at Microsoft
 
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 30, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, June 30, 2025
People at the Very Top of Microsoft Know How Bad Things Really Are
There's no product that can replace the former profitability of Windows licensing and stuff that went on top of Windows
Gemini Links 01/07/2025: Mid Year and a Tour of Old Languages
Links for the day
EPO Presentation Bemoans Misuse of Slop in Decision-Making on Patents and in Classification (Which is Likely Illegal Too)
We habitually mention failed use cases of LLMs on the Web
Mass Layoffs at Microsoft Confirmed, "XBox Hardware Is Dead"
It's possible that over 20% of the staff will be laid off
Links 30/06/2025: Kyrgyzstan vs Media Freedom, Dalai Lama Succession
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/06/2025: Backend Programs in Gemini and Dynamic Content Without The Scripting
Links for the day
Links 30/06/2025: Zuckerberg’s Tax-Evading Scheme Harms Kids, US Copyright Office Lacks Leadership
Links for the day
Microsoft Isn't Laying Off Tens of Thousands to 'Invest' in Slop ('Hey Hi'), It's Laying Off Tens of Thousands Because It's Running Out of Money (and Willing Lenders)
the layoffs are a sign of the business failing, not "hey hi" (whatever that is) replacing staff
Intel Lays Off 20% of Its Workforce, Microsoft is Doing the Same This Year
Like a yoyo, whatever goes up will come back down
GNU/Linux Rises to New Highs in Angola, Africa in General is Abandoning Windows
Western media barely covers Microsoft layoffs in Africa, but in recent years Microsoft culled the workforce and even shut down entire operations
Destination Geminispace (in the Age of LLM Slop and Slop Images That Infest the Web and Social Control Media)
Geminispace isn't vast, but at least it is - on average - a lot "cleaner"
GNU/Linux Growing in Sierra Leone This Year
Based on what statCounter is seeing, this year there are more and more people there who adopt GNU/Linux
Serial Sloppers Gonna Slop
More sites out there ought to call out the cheaters
Quartz (qz.com) is Spam and a Slopfarm
It used to be OK. Then they fired the staff.
Links 30/06/2025: US Economic Woes, Extreme Heat
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 29, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, June 29, 2025
Gemini Links 30/06/2025: "The AI Hype" and New AuraGem Ask
Links for the day
Our Desktops Are Not Your Experiments, X is Not an Experiment
Breaking what already worked
Microsoft's Big Lies Regarding This Week's Mass Layoffs Have Already Begun (and They're Already Being Spread by Slopfarms)
Microsoft is the "market leader" in slop
Explaining the Full Story of SLAPPs From Microsoft Staff
For every action there is a reaction, for every attack there will be proportionate consequences
The Openwashing Shills Initiative (OSI) - Part III: IRS and Status of OSI
"They lied to the US IRS and there’s a paper trail"
IBM Red Hat's Dogmatic Fanaticism Under a Thin Veil of "Modernism"
IBM now has the audacity to paint people who don't agree as "nazis"
Microsoft's Share in Guatemala Fell From 97% to 14%
Eventually Microsoft will get stuck in a loop of layoffs, layoffs, and more layoffs
They Made Technology Scary and Taught Us That It's Innocent, Friendly, Even "Social"
Rejection of all this "apps" and "gadgets" and "Smart" (whatever that means!) status quo isn't a rejection of society
The Media is Under Attacks Partly Because There's Little Other (Remaining) Press to Speak in Its Defence
The biggest danger here is that when there's very little press or no "opposition media" left it becomes even easier to crush critics because there aren't many people left to speak about the matter
If Your Web Site is Run by Bots, Eventually Nobody Will 'Read' It Except Bots (People Don't Want to Read Slop)
Eventually people learn from mistakes
Links 29/06/2025: Microsoft Releases False/Fake Benchmarks, "Google Wants You to Watch Ads or Take Surveys to Read Articles"
Links for the day
Links 29/06/2025: Data Breaches and Online Censorship
Links for the day
Gemini Links 29/06/2025: "The Price Of Eggs" and Gemini 3D Tic Tac Toe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 28, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, June 28, 2025