Bonum Certa Men Certa

Who Focuses on Patent Trolls and Who Targets Real Reform or Advocates Elimination of Software Patents?

Red Hat and Google continue to be among those who disappoint by losing focus

Glass-Steagall
Sen. Carter Glass (D—Va.) and Rep. Henry B. Steagall (D—Ala.-3), the co-sponsors of the Glass–Steagall Act which brought real reform after the Wall Street collapse



Summary: Distinguishing between those who say they want "patent progress" and those who actually want and pursue proper progress

"Good" patent lawyers are as few as "good" software patents (we wrote about this quite recently); there's none. Lawyers are devouring companies and organisations that oppose software patents and then hire the wrong people to help out. Those people profit from the mess and they protect their new job by never resolving the mess. There is some new EFF initiative called Trolling Effects, which is being used to focus attention on patent trolls. As one site, Patent Progress, put it:



Many a small business has been there. In the owner’s hands a letter filled with tons of legalese that makes little sense. They stare at the letter shocked, trying to figure out what the hell they are being accused of doing and how it means they might be liable for millions of dollars. It is becoming too real a story in America today – the plight of the patent demand letter recipient.


Here's more on this initiative, which the EFF is behind. To quote: "Wednesday also brought the launch of EFF’s Trolling Effects, a crowd-sourced database of patent demand letters, to bring transparency and attention to that troubling practice. And yesterday Matt Levy also pointed out that comedian Marc Maron (who was sued by Personal Audio, the infamous podcast patent troll) gave a great explanation and framing of the patent troll issue in a recent interview."

The EFF's approach towards patents as been somewhat ambivalent. Some lawyers there target just patent trolls, whereas others address (or claims to address) issues of scope. Patent Progress merely reports about the EFF, but it too seems to have lost focus on scope. As this site points out, "Comedian Marc Maron Gets That Patent Trolls Are Failed Inventors Trying to Hit the Lottery" (here is a famous example), but why focus so much on trolls? Another new post from this site says:

Yesterday, I attended a panel sponsored by the American Constitution Society, “Patent Assertion Entities: Helping or Hurting Innovation?” It was a great panel discussion, but, of course, there wasn’t time to respond to some points that needed responding to.


Rob Tiller too focuses on trolls. In Red Hat's platform he points out:

Patent reform is hot! The momentum seems to be building in Congress for patent reform to address the problem of nefarious patent exploiters (also known as non-practicing entities, patent assertion entities, and, less politely, trolls). As previously noted here, there are a number of serious legislative proposals circulating, and the President is pressing for new legislation.


Why doesn't Tiller ever target software patents properly? We highlighted this recurring pattern before (his tune three or four years ago was different]). Doesn't Red Hat want them over with? Maybe its own lawyers are creating a self-feeding mechanism which keeps them necessary? This sure seems to have happened in Google, as we noted several times before. The EFF too seems to have hired too many lawyers. The real problem is patent scope and as the new article "Broward firm ordered to pay $8.1 million for software patent violations" helps show, the problem is software patents, not just those which trolls are using. Becker gets it and even some writers at the Washington Post get it (citing him), motivating posts like this new one that says:

Dislike of software patents is no longer confined to wild-eyed Redditors and Mark Cuban. The Washington Post points us to two Nobel Prize-winning economists who have recently come out against the very idea of software patents and have said that their existence is actually inhibiting innovation more than helping. Economist Gary Becker, for one, acknowledges that some software developers will lose their incentive to create software if they aren’t guaranteed intellectual property protections. However, he thinks this is an acceptable price to pay if it means freeing other software developers from the burden of high legal expenses.


Patrick Hall, who recently criticised software patents, is being slammed by patent lawyers who complain that Wired dared to give one single columns to a non-lawyer. Meanwhile, reminding us that not just trolls are a pain, Motorola gets another day in court after Microsoft sued:

This was the hearing on their RAND dispute building up to the second part of the trial in this litigation which is set to begin on August 26th, and, as is typical before a trial, both sides brought motions for summary judgment or partial summary judgment. There was a trial already, part one, with the judge only, no jury, and he set a RAND rate Microsoft should pay to Motorola, a very low rate. But there is a second trial coming up in August, this time with a jury, on whether or not Motorola breached its RAND obligations, which is what Microsoft claims, and if so, whether Microsoft should receive damages and attorneys fees. Motorola filed a motion for partial summary judgment [PDF] on those issues. Here's Microsoft's opposition [PDF].


FRAND is about patent cartels, not trolls, and these too are a problem. Let's remember to focus on the real issue and not a red herring.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Slopwatch: Carnival of LLM Slop and FUD Spewed by Bots, Pasted in by MaKenna Hensley and Day
Welcome to the Web in 2025. Articles about "Linux", "Security", and the Web (e.g. "Firefox") are fake.
Links 07/02/2025: Amazon’s Stock Collapses and US Government Being Dismantled (Still)
Links for the day
 
New EPO Paper: Promoting (Rewarding) People Who Grant Many Illegal European Patents to Make More Money (at Europeans' Expense) While Patent Courts in the EU Are Themselves Illegal
now the coup is sort of complete and even the "courts" are part of the corruption
Links 08/02/2025: News Corp Admits Traffic Declines, Wildlife Trafficking Tackled
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/02/2025: Lamp and Notions
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, February 07, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, February 07, 2025
Gemini Links 07/02/2025: Mid-level Details and Simple Code
Links for the day
Links 07/02/2025: US 'Demolition Crew', e-ID Loopholes, and Sanctions
Links for the day
Professor Eben Moglen on How Social Control Media Metabolises Humans and Constrains Freedom of Thought
Nothing of value would be lost if all these data-harvesting giants (profiling people) vanished overnight
Social Control Media is Narcissism
Nowadays there's a lot more literature and even press coverage explaining the harms of Social Control Media
Debian Left Twitter (MElon "X"), We Think the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Should Do the Same
What would the FSF really lose if it stopped posting there?
statCounter Sees GNU/Linux Share Doubling in China Over the Past Year
It'll be interesting to see what data in the coming months shows
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, February 06, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, February 06, 2025
Richard Stallman (RMS) Confirms Next Week's Talk in Europe
He gave at least 2 talks in Europe last month
Nationalism As A Service (NaaS) by Microsoft Azure, Gutting the US Government for Profit
Will Microsoft be receiving bailouts as a reward for all this?
Rumours of IBM Layoffs Apparently Confirmed Yesterday, IBM Canada Consulting Impacted (as Rumoured)
when IBM has layoffs we must also read it as Red Hat layoffs
Tons of Anti-Linux 'Articles' Published by Bots (LLMs), Maybe Microsoft's
Upon closer inspection, all this FUD turned out to be LLM garbage
Gemini Links 06/02/2025: Voicemail Sucks and Night of Lights
Links for the day
Ubuntu Desktop Director of Engineering Has Only One Blog Post. It Promotes Microsoft Windows.
Remember that even 15 years ago (more or less, maybe 16 years ago) Canonical appointed a a 'former' Microsoft manager (Spencer) to lead Ubuntu on the desktop
Links 06/02/2025: YouTube Takedowns Out of Control, 'DOGE' Breaking Laws
Links for the day
IBM Red Hat on "era of cloud computing", pushing "hey hi" (AI) hype in Microsoft Azure
LLM slop might actually be more benign than Microsoft promotion
Corruption and Rule-Breaking Prevail at the European Patent Office (EPO), Europe's Second-Largest Institution
The law does not really exist at the EPO; it can be perceived as merely a "recommendation"
statCounter: More Countries Where Windows is Around 1% "Market Share" (People Have Moved to Android/Linux)
in some nations Windows is already 1% or less
404 Media Says "Workers at NASA Told to Drop Everything to Scrub Mentions of Indigenous People, Women from Its Websites" But There's Also Accessibility in the Firing Line
In the case of abandoning accessibility, everyone stands to be hurt and proprietary software can be brought in to replace standards
When BetaNews Writes Real Articles About "Linux" They Promote Windows
The Web is in a bad state. We need to at least try to correct this.
Gemini Links 06/02/2025: Cynicism and "Real Magic on the C64"
Links for the day
Links 06/02/2025: New Sanctions, Layoffs, and Executive Orders
Links for the day
Distros and Desktop Environments, Devices
GNU/Linux focused
New Rumours of IBM Layoffs in 2025, IBM Consulting Still Struggles, Based on Management
"Hey hi" (AI) has been a common excuse for business failure
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, February 05, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, February 05, 2025