Bonum Certa Men Certa

Meet J. Carl Cooper, a Patent Troll (Plus Other Patent News)

Having already introduced you to the father of all patent trolls, Ray Niro [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6], we wish to present one of his siblings or descendants. Those who are not familiar with the malicious nature of patent trolling ought to watch the following video.

Here is a good biography of J. Carl Cooper, the man who attacks GNU/Linux using software patents.

Now I have. In numerous court filings, Technology Licensing Corp. (not to be confused with the totally separate California patent licensing shop, Technology Licensing Company -- more on them another day) admits it is a shell for J. Carl Cooper. TLC first started working with TechSearch back in the day, and now Acacia since the big Acacia-TechSearch transaction.

Who is J. Carl Cooper, anyway? For one, he is a registered patent agent. He also sometimes testifies as an expert in patent litigation. He used to be affiliated with the Los Gatos, California company Pixel Instruments Corp., but now has moved to the Lake Tahoe area. Similarly, Technology Licensing, once located at the home offices of Pixel in Los Gatos, has moved to Carson City, Nevada.

This article on Ray Niro (titled, by someone else, "Meet the Original Patent Troll") states that Cooper came to Niro through an introduction made by Anthony O. Brown of TechSearch. The article claims that Niro has netted over $50 million for Cooper.


You can hopefully see the relationship now. Also remember that Acacia has links with Microsoft [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9].

In other patent news:

FTC bars company from higher royalties

The Federal Trade Commission said Wednesday that it has blocked a company from seeking higher royalties on a patented technology that is included in a widely used computer networking standard.

[...]

Ethernet enables computers and other devices to connect over networks and is used in "nearly every computer sold" in the United States, the FTC said in a release. N-Data's efforts could have led to higher prices for consumers, the FTC said, though it didn't specify the amount at stake.

The technology, known as Nway, was originally developed by National Semiconductor Corp. and was accepted as part of the ethernet standard in the 1990s by a technology standards group. Technology standards allow different high-tech equipment makers to develop compatible products.


U.S. panel to investigate Samsung-Sharp dispute

Samsung had accused Sharp of infringing four patents on LCDs, which are often used in computer monitors.


BoingBoing: a more acquiescent Parliament [via [digitalmajority.org]

I am proud to have been the proposer of an amendment in July 2005 which scrapped the proposal for an EU software patent. What worried me then, and still does, was the response from an EU Commission official at the time. I quote, "Colleagues, we are disappointed, WE will just have to bring this back before a more acquiescent Parliament"


IPhone Visual Voicemail Co-Defendant Settles Lawsuit with Klausner Technologies

SimulScribe, a co-defendant with Apple in the patent infringement lawsuit recently filed by Klausner Technologies, has settled the litigation and has licensed the Klausner Technologies visual voicemail patents. Other defendants in the case include AT&T, Comcast and Cablevision Systems.


Some of these have already been passed on to Groklaw (yesterday), in case you sometimes wonder about an overlap.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Rust is Starting to Seem More Like Microsoft-hosted "Digital Maoism", Not a Legitimate Effort to Improve Security
Maybe this is very innocent, but they seem to have taken a solid, stable program from a high-profile Frenchman and looked for ways to marry it with GitHub, i.e. Microsoft/NSA
Gemini Links 08/05/2025: Practical Gemini Use Case, Shutdown of the Blanket Fort Webring
Links for the day
Links 08/05/2025: "Slop Presidency", US Government Defunds Public Broadcasting
Links for the day
Lasse Fister, Organiser of Libre Graphics Meeting, Points Out the Code of Conduct is Likely Violated by the Same People Who Promote Codes of Conduct (and Then Bully Him Into Cancelling a Keynote)
I am starting to see Lasse Fister as another victim
LLM Slop Attacks Not Only Sites of Free Software Projects But Also Bug Reporting Systems (Time-wasting, in Effect "DDoS")
Microsoft, the leading purveyor and promoter of slop, is a cancer
The Richard Stallman (RMS) "European Tour" Carries on In Spite of the Nuremberg Incident
Some people spoke about how they saw yesterday's talk
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 07, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, May 07, 2025
The CoC Means the Founder of GNU/Linux Cannot Talk and a 72-Year-Old Man With Cancer is Somehow a "Safety" Risk?
Those who don't like RMS are not forced to attend his talks
Gemini Links 07/05/2025: A Shopping Spree and Digital Gardening
Links for the day
Links 07/05/2025: Pegasus Guilty and a Path Towards EU Without Russian Energy
Links for the day
People Used to Talk
If pets can live a measurably happy life without gadgets and "apps", why can't humans?
Outsourcing GNU/Linux to Microsoft GitHub Promoted by Microsoft LLM Slop and Army Officers
Something doesn't seem right
Weaponisation of For-Profit Dockets - Part III: No More Media Lawsuits From Brett Wilson LLP This Year, One Can Only Guess Why
People leak a lot of material to Techrights because they know, based on the track record, that the sources will be protected and whatever gets published will stay online, in full, no matter how stubborn an effort (even lawsuits and blackmail) will be sent its way
Gemini Links 07/05/2025: Adopting GrapheneOS, Further Enshittification of Flickr
Links for the day
Links 07/05/2025: CISA Gutted, Debt-Saddled (Likely Insolvent) 'Open' 'AI' (Proprietary Slop) Faking Its Financial State Again
Links for the day
Finland, Lithuania, and Latvia Fortify Their Digital Border With GNU/Linux
This month's data from statCounter is particularly interesting near the Baltic Sea
The European Patent Office (EPO) Has a Very Profound Corruption Issue, Far More Urgent an Issue Than Pronouns
a rather long document
Richard Stallman Gives Public Talk at Technical University of Liberec, Czech Republic
"For programs that you could run, and for network services that could do your own computing, under what circumstances is it reasonable to trust them?"
Today We Turn 18.5
The eighteenth "and a half" anniversary
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 06, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, May 06, 2025
Microsoft Finally Admits That XBox is ****
In this case, "enshittification" is an understatement
Another Wave of Microsoft Layoffs Comes Shortly. Microsoft Propaganda Sites and Slopforms Powered by Microsoft LLMs Already Spew Out Face-Saving Nonsense.
Based on last month's leak, some very extensive layoffs are now imminent [...] Perhaps we can expect a lot of noise, some of it spewed out by bots, to distract from or belittle the impending mass layoffs
Ubuntu Becomes Microsoft GitHub, Based on Decision Made by British Army Officer
You're hopeless, Canonical
Slopwatch: Microsoft Slop, Anti-Linux Slop, and IBM Marketing Itself as a Slop Company
Microsoft-controlled LLM spewing out garbage about "Linux"
Links 06/05/2025: Microsoft's Assassination of Skype After Years of Failure, Slop Hallucinations Are Getting Worse
Links for the day
Links 06/05/2025: Changing Places and StarGrid for PalmOS
Links for the day
Windows and Microsoft Causing Serious Data Breaches, Media Rushes to Blame That on "Linux" Somehow
While selling us some rusty old propaganda about how moving to Microsoft GitHub (Rust) will improve security
Making Site Archives More Easily Accessible (Approaching 50,000 Blog Posts)
Efforts to censor us have always backfired badly
Weaponisation of For-Profit Dockets - Part II: Hiding Behind Lawyers and Barristers Who Lack Standards so as to Engage in Classic Corporate Extortion
They're trying to scare people and they misuse their licence to operate
Links 06/05/2025: LLMs/Chatbots Attract More Scrutiny (Getting Worse Over Time), PwC Has Many Layoffs
Links for the day
Thanks for listening. How can this Morse feed be further improved?
Right now any and all feedback on the audio would be helpful
statCounter: Bing's Market Share Lower Right Now Than It Was When LLM Hype Began (With "Bing Chat")
If anybody gains at Google's expense in search, it is BRICS' alternatives such as Yandex
Gemini Links 06/05/2025: Failure and Proxmox Cluster
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 05, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, May 05, 2025