Bonum Certa Men Certa

Lawyers' Propaganda About Software Patents and a New AstroTurf Entity Called Innovation Alliance

Summary: Patent propaganda and deception from patent lawyers (among other parasites such as patent trolls) continues to flood the Web, intersecting with reports that prove them totally wrong

Generalisations are never a good thing, but the vast majority of lawyers are greedy and self-centered. I can now say this based on personal experience (I will publish details later this year). The vast majority of them can only pretend to be something else (striving for ethics) and a small majority might actually be genuinely ethical. The typical lawyer's goal it to maximise profit, nothing else (unless it brings publicity, hence profit at some future date). Anything he or she would say (often verging on lies) is designed to align with this goal but must be disguised as something else. They're good with words. They love money. That's why they decided to go to law school.



"They obviously don't like to accept the reality that software patents are on the decline."Patent lawyers are probably worse than most lawyers because they typically serve businesses and rich people. And look at what they do; they help acquisition of monopolies. It's engagement in class war. They obviously don't like to accept the reality that software patents (monopolies on algorithms) are on the decline. That is why they use straw man arguments, such as tackling bogus arguments that software patents are now "dead" (they are not) or as yet another lawyer put it, "Software Patents are Only as Dead as Schrödinger’s Cat". Nowhere have we seen anyone claiming that software patents are dead, but this pro-software patents Web site finds such a straw man arguments useful. To quote: "The environment for patent applicants and examiners that has resulted from such inconsistent treatment of Alice by the USPTO is one in which neither examiners nor applicants have clear guidance about how the USPTO is interpreting and intends to apply the Alice decision. This makes it difficult for examiners to know whether and how to issue Alice-based rejections, and for applicants to know how to respond to such rejections. In this environment, software patents are not dead; instead, they are, like Schrödinger’s cat, in an indeterminate state, simultaneously dead and alive until examined by an observer."

That is at least a more balanced article than previous ones from the same site, which take for instance just software patents in specific fields (like banking). It's a lie by omission. They're being selective to generate propaganda in their headlines and ultimately they bamboozle the world.

There is a lot of software patents propaganda following the SCOTUS decision and the large share it comes from patent law firms, as we demonstrated months ago (we gave dozens of examples). Do not let them win the information war as they did after In Re Bilski. They want to redefine what's true.

Over in India, where software patents are definitely not legal, patent opportunists continue to pollute the press with ideas for patenting software patents and using them offensively, thanks to loopholes. Here is one ho says: "From both the cases, we can conclude that, patent rights may be enforced even though one of the elements in the claimed system or method is located outside the territory of the patent, provided that the beneficial use of the system occurs within the territory of the patent granted."

Here is the messenger's introduction:

About the author: Mr. Kartik Puttaiah has more than 17000 hours of experience in patent consulting.


On the other hand we have the strongly anti-software patents people, including Timothy B. Lee who published this long new series titled "Everything you need to know about software patents". Here are the parts of this series:

What are software patents and why are they controversial?

Are software patents legal?

Why do so many patent lawsuits involve software?

Are software patents needed to promote innovation?

Could the patent office do more to scrutinize patents after they've been granted?

Do other countries allow patents on software?

You didn't answer my question!


This is a good series and it helps explain where we stand. Sadly, however, Timothy B. Lee is being outweighed by a barraged of self-serving spam from law firms. That's what the press is saturated with, maybe outnumbering writers like Timothy B. Lee by a factor of 1:5.

Meanwhile, reveals Mr. Levy (patent lawyer), there is a new lobbying group misleadingly named "Innovation Alliance". It is actually a front for patent trolls and as Levy puts it, data does not back their claims, so they make stuff up:

The Innovation Alliance (an organization whose members include large patent trolls such as Tessera, InterDigital, and Qualcomm) has been pushing against patent reform in the name of the small inventor. They even have a Save the Inventor website set up. (And no, I’m not linking to it – you can find it easily enough.)

[...]

Patent reform does not make it harder for legitimate patent infringement suits. And should we really avoid helping 3,700 operating companies because about a dozen patent owners a year might be slightly worse off than they are now?

Seems to me it’s up to the Innovation Alliance to prove there’s really an invention-copying problem before we derail attempts to deal with patent trolls.


As Simon Phipps from OSI points out, patent trolls are now feeling the pinch because software patents (their typical ammunition) are on the decline, which of course helps the Free software world and empowers OIN, too. It definitely is very bad for patent lawyers. Whatever is bad for patent lawyers is usually good for society (if not always). What does that say about patent lawyers?

Recent Techrights' Posts

New XBox Leaks Probably Serve to Confirm XBox's Collapse (Many More Layoffs)
It's very much consistent with what many other sites have reported lately
 
Noteworthy Claim That IBM is Firing a Lot of Lawyers This Week (RAs in the Legal Department)
A lot of what they do is patent 'trolling' or lawyering up against their own staff (e.g. HR disputes)
Links 10/10/2025: US Judge Bars Attacks by ICE On Journalists and Protesters; “We Took The Freedom of Speech Away” Says the President
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Serial Sloppers, Google News Gifting Slopfarms, and Fake News/Plagiarism About "Linux"
Google itself is a slop pusher these days
Qualcomm, the New Owner of Arduino, Blasted for Its Software Patents Tax on 'Smartphones'
A lot of Qualcomm's patents are on software. We wrote about this in prior years.
XBox Layoffs Rumours, Downtime, and Criticism From XBox Co-Founder
"everyone is ditching the xbox."
Links 10/10/2025: Honoring The Legacy Of Robert Murray-Smith, Many Articles on the Hey Hi (AI) Bubble
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: October Gothic and Reading Middle Earth Role Playing; C and Ada
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 09, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 09, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Farewell to Jane Goodall, California Bans Algorithmic Price-Fixing
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Lost Wages and a Saga Of Continuing To Use Palm PDAs
Links for the day
Richard Stallman's Talk in Helsinki is Done. Tomorrow Göteborg.
There are scarce details in Finnish about Dr. Stallman's talk
The Slop Song
The train wreck marches on
LLM Slop/Advanced Plagiarism Flooding the Zone With Capital That Does Not Exist
Many publishers out there still participate in this bubble instead of calling it what it is
Links 09/10/2025: Sacked Microsoft Workers Make "Sackbird", IBM Taps CockroachDB for PostgreSQL
Links for the day
"Happy Hacking Day" Richard Stallman Talk This Afternoon (From 14:00 to 16:00) at Haaga-Helia University in Pasila
Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Finland
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 08, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 08, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Impact of Microsoft Layoffs, More Data Breaches
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Autumn Blues and C IRC Bot
Links for the day
Slopwatch Appreciated by Real Authors of GNU/Linux Articles
We do try to keep on top of those things
Upgraded R.R.R.R.R.R. Today
The Web of 2025 is full of garbage, not limited to slopfarms
Freedom From Proprietary Prisons
Forking always an option
IBM's Watson Died in 1956, Now Watson Dies Again
IBM is becoming just a reseller of GAFAM and other stuff
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, and Google News
We've also just noticed more slop from UbuntuPIT
Microsoft Says That Constant Mass Layoffs Are Success, the Media Isn't Buying This Microsoft Narrative Anymore
If people in the media feel an obligation to repeat whatever lies Microsoft tells, what point will there be to the media?
Links 08/10/2025: "Mali Puts Free Speech on Trial" And Apple Enforces Dictatorship
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: ‘Death to Spotify’ and Law to Ban Loud Commercials on Streaming (Dis)Services
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Real Innovation and Nina.chat is Dead
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Y2K38 Bug is a Vulnerability, Chat Control in Europe a Threat
Links for the day
Microsoft Windows is No Longer an Operating System, It's Surveillance Project
Why is this even legal to preload on PCs outside the US?
How and Why Once-Legitimate Sites Turn Into Slopfarms
Many sites will go offline and many social control networks will shut down once they realise or even openly admit they spend money and time gardening a bunch of bots and slop
UbuntuPIT Became a Slopfarm and Gnoppix Tarnishes Its Own Brand With Slop
It fits all the characteristics of mildly-edited (if at all) slop
Slopwatch: Linux Journal and Other Slopfarms
GAFAM needs to go the way of the dodo
Gemini Links 08/10/2025: "Seek Seek Revolution" and Gradient Backgrounds
Links for the day
Qualcomm Arduino Takes Aim at Raspberry Pi
Qualcomm is a Microsoft partner
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 07, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 07, 2025
Stagnation of the Economy and What Free Software Can (or Could) Do For It
If your economic model is based on a pyramid of lies, it won't last very long
Social Control Media is Sinking
it would rightly seem like the era of centralised "social" sites (they're not social, they're about controlling the users) is ending, not overnight but gradually