04.19.20
Gemini version available ♊︎The Covert Corruption of Publishers That Cover Patent ‘News’
The litigation ‘industry’ has rendered various outlets worthless, or nothing more than advertising tools for litigation profits
Summary: There’s an ongoing trend that’s suggestive of a sort of ‘takeover’ of particular media by litigation fanatics, who exploit the scholars’ sites/magazines to do pure but subtle propaganda/marketing; this ought to be pointed out because it misleads the public and contributes to greater injustice
AS WE said earlier on, no publisher is perfect. Everyone has some vested interests, some being benign and some exceptionally malicious (we’ve given examples of both). The so-called ‘Public Relations’ giants or the ‘industry’ of deception is likely the worst, along with lobbyists and think tanks. We wrote about many of those over the years.
“We’ve already named some of the worst out there, including IAM, which does ‘Public Relations’ for some of the worst patent trolls out there.”Publishers aren’t always consistent as they can change hands, there can be takeovers, leadership swaps and so on. It’s important to track their staff and their sponsors (if any) to better understand who or what they exist to serve. Are the readers (audience) the product to be brainwashed? Or people to be serviced with accurate information? We’ve already named some of the worst out there, including IAM, which does ‘Public Relations’ for some of the worst patent trolls out there. IAM is now owned by a large firm whose self-evident interests should make one shiver. These people aren’t even remotely interested in science and progress.
Recently, Managing IP ceased to be a (pretense of) “news” site and now blatantly acts like a press release farm of litigation firms. Over the past few days we found no less than seven such examples [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] — the majority of ‘articles’.
“Sometimes they even offer such fake ‘awards’ to judges and Justices — people whom they hope to get something from, in return…”This eighth one reveals Managing IP taking money to publish for parasites operating across Germany, using patents to sue everyone, even on behalf of notorious patent trolls. Managing IP is nowadays doing lots of sponsored pieces presented as ‘articles’ (as does IAM), more so after redoing their site with a more stubborn paywall (except for this spam). In fact, the majority of actual articles (still most) is composed by law firms and it gets lose in a sea of self-promotional spam. We’ve also long complained about these charlatans adopting the IAM modus operandi, granting fake ‘awards’ to people (just marketing disguised as truly-earned badges). As Wikipedia puts it: “The legal directory was rebranded in 2013 as IP STARS, an annual guide that ranks the leading IP law firms and practitioners across the world. The guide is based on an annual research [sic] conducted by Managing IP’s research analysts in Hong Kong, London and New York. Managing IP’s inaugural awards ceremony (in 2006) was attended by more than 130 guests including the late Sir Hugh Laddie, who was presented with a lifetime achievement award…”
Sometimes they even offer such fake ‘awards’ to judges and Justices — people whom they hope to get something from, in return…
“There’s a bunch of dodgy firms out there that offer ‘awards’ in exchange for bribes — or worse (contrariwise), unethical firms that rip off or blackmail firms with threats of publishing something negative about them (or removing that for a fee).”It’s corrupt. It makes the legal process seem bad (a bad light).
There’s a bunch of dodgy firms out there that offer ‘awards’ in exchange for bribes — or worse (contrariwise), unethical firms that rip off or blackmail firms with threats of publishing something negative about them (or removing that for a fee). “IP STARS” sounds better than the original “World IP Contacts Handbook” (there’s even a Twitter account for it), we’ve bemoaned it before (repeatedly), and it’s suggestive of some kind of ‘celebrity’ status rather than a directory. It is perceived as authoritative and publicly bragged about.
The above hopefully shows how Managing IP publishes stuff funded by litigation euros, not by journalism as a motivator. Surely they’re very well aware of it, but they don’t wish to point this out openly or for someone to say it. We noticed the same in JUVE recently. Articles about “FRAND” and trolls are composed by law firms, not journalists.
“As usual, nowadays in IP Kat the signal is in the comments (what’s left of them). These people do not value free speech and diversity of views.”What about IP Kat, the ‘Kat’ who exposed a lot of EPO abuses under the pen name of ‘Merpel’ (multiple people by the way and we use scare quotes because of the ambiguity)? Well, the people have changed and ‘Merpel’ is nowadays a megaphone of patent extremists and patent trolls’ boosters from 4iP Council (they have done lots of that lately). Days ago Marie Barani (UCL and 4iP Council) was surfaced under the pen name of ‘Merpel’, pushing the agenda of litigation, as usual. Conversant (MOSAID) and other ‘proxies’ were named. “Sisvel and Conversant are two NPE using patents originally filed by Nokia and holding SEP in the field of wireless communication,” said the prominent comment at the bottom.
As usual, nowadays in IP Kat the signal is in the comments (what’s left of them). These people do not value free speech and diversity of views. They delete my comments and yesterday Benjamin Henrion told me, “I think ["pretty sure"] some of my comments have been rejected…”
Here’s one new comment about Sisvel (not rejected by the new ‘Merpel’):
In another case Sisvel vs. Xiaomi, the former was not so successful. After being denied a PI by the Court of The Hague, the Court of Appeal has confirmed the denial. Case number court : C/09/573969/ KG ZA 19-462, Judgement of 17 march 2020.
The situation is certainly different, as for a start and contrary to the present defendants, Xiaomi defended itself, and apparently successfully.
The fact that Sisvel is a NPE as well as the notion of proportionality in the Enforcement Directive have apparently played a big role.
Sisvel and Conversant are two NPE using patents originally filed by Nokia and holding SEP in the field of wireless communication.
And here’s another about IPCom, one of Europe’s biggest patent trolls (if not the biggest):
Yes this decision has had a different outcome. I think besides the fact circumstances were different because Xiaomi defended itself, one important point is that Xiaomi provided for a security.
Another decision not in the Netherlands but about injunction and proportionality is the Court of Paris decision in the case IPCom versus Lenovo, Motorola, Modelabs and Digital River (distributors in France) dated 20th January 2020. The Court considered a temporary injunction until patent expiration date would be disproportionate because defendants would have to remove all their 3G products and the injunction would harm their reputation. Also IPCom did not exploit itself the patent on the market and did not justify the existence of other licenses to similarly situated companies.
why are IPCom even treated or perceived as legitimate? Well, check who runs the blog and who the employer/clients are. That in its own right quickly answers the question.
“There’s an overlap between Phillips and the original ‘Merpel’; one wonders how he feels about his creations being misused by litigation fanatics.”For those who don’t know, the blog was founded by Jeremy Phillips, who “read law at Cambridge University in the early 1970s, and went on doing a PhD at the University of Kent. He then taught law at Trinity College Dublin, Durham University, and Queen Mary University of London.” So he was a legal scholar, not a lawyer. Nowadays almost the whole team at the blog is lawyers/litigators, not scholars (almost all of them left). And, believe it or not, he was also responsible for Managing Intellectual Property (also known as Managing IP or MIP), which is now publishing a pile of spam for law firms, as we noted above. To quote Wikipedia: “In 1990, he launched the Managing Intellectual Property magazine and sold it to Euromoney Publications in 1991. He also edited the magazines Patent World, Trademark World and Copyright World and cofounded the IPKat weblog. He also contributed to the Afro-IP blog and the Class 46 blog on European Trade Mark law. He was editor of the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (JIPLP), European Trade Mark Reports and European Copyright and Design Reports journals. He was also a council member of the Intellectual Property Institute.”
There’s an overlap between Phillips and the original ‘Merpel’; one wonders how he feels about his creations being misused by litigation fanatics. Phillips is a kind person and not a trolls’ apologist. █
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