VoIP-Pal (or VoIP-Pal.com because it could afford an Internet domain), which we've mentioned here before, e.g. in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], is back. As someone put it not too long ago: "A patent troll play is still a patent troll play. Regardless of the exchange it is on. And VPLM is very clearly a patent troll play. The fact the CEO spends money on fees to keep this POS current, when there are no revenues, just adds to millions more shares need to be diluted. And with the anti-dilution clause also means more shares for himself."
"Malak, a troll, has called the whole American patent system “corrupt” because it calls him out for his trolling."Well, Emil Malak, the CEO of VoIP-Pal.com, a notorious patent aggressor/troll, has gotten lots of puff pieces from Watchtroll, a site sympathetic to all patent trolls (it does not even call them that). Malak was cheering for corrupt Donald Trump and against patent sanity in yesterday's article, whose title was about as trollish as him: "President Donald Trump Should Investigate the Corrupt Patent System and Passage of the AIA" (no kidding).
The site has gone MENTAL. They actually publish things like these, irrespective of the consequences. They also habitually engage in judge-bashing and science-bashing antics (and yes, they did it once again this past week). We don't wish to entertain or even link to this piece but only to point out that the new editor of Watchtroll failed to (fore)see the ramifications of publishing such crap for really crappy people.
Meanwhile, contrariwise, "Judge Alsup Slams Patent Troll For Basically Everything," as this headline put it. It's actually a copy of an article from Mike Masnick.
"Glad to see someone taking time to understand," AntiSoftwarePat wrote. Mike Masnick didn't even focus on his personal views but the views of a very famous judge (high-profile cases).
Mike Masnick covered the outbursts of Judge Alsup against Uniloc -- outbursts that we mentioned in passing earlier this month. Putting aside the fact that 35 U.S.C. ۤ 101 likely extinguishes most of this patent troll's USPTO-granted patents, there are many other things to be criticised:
That brings us to a more recent case, involving notorious patent troll Uniloc -- a company we've written about a bunch in the past, mainly for its buffoon like attempts at patent trolling. This includes suing over the game "Mindcraft" (the trolls were in such a rush to sue, they didn't notice it was actually "Minecraft"), and a weak attempt to patent basic math. All the way back in 2011, we wrote about Uniloc getting smacked down by the Federal Circuit for pushing a ridiculous way of calculating patent damages.
It appears that in the intervening years, Uniloc hasn't given up any of this. The company keeps buying up more patents and suing lots of companies -- including Apple, which it has sued multiple times. One of those lawsuits was filed back in 2017. In response to this lawsuit, Apple argued that Uniloc didn't actually hold the right to sue over the patent. Ridiculously, Uniloc demanded most of the details be blacked out, arguing that it was "confidential."
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A few other areas where Uniloc sought to hide info, Alsup dismisses by pointing out that a "boilerplate assertion of competitive harm fails to provide a compelling reason to seal."
And that's not all that Alsup appears displeased with Uniloc over. Remember earlier when I talked about Uniloc running into trouble years back for using a nutty formula for trying to calculate damages? Well, Alsup notes that redacting all this info might help Uniloc hide "reasonable royalties" from being used in damage calculations, and calls out "vastly bloated figures."