Summary: How the corporate media chooses to cover the invalidity of many software patents and the effect of that

FOR a number of years we have written a great deal about software patents, hoping for change and hoping for acknowledgement of change in the corporate media, which typically just quotes lawyers when it comes to patent matters. Engineers are rarely part of this debate. The corporate media treats them as passive observers that barely count.

"Engineers are rarely part of this debate."There was a widely circulated article at Reuters last week and it spoke about positive developments in the area of patents, pulling together some important facts and figures:

For two decades, companies that buy software patents to sue technology giants have been the scourge of Silicon Valley. Reviled as patent trolls, they have attacked everything from Google's online ads to Apple's iPhone features, sometimes winning hundreds of millions of dollars.

But now the trolls are in retreat from the tech titans, interviews and data reviewed by Reuters show.

In the wake of several changes in U.S. law, which make it easier to challenge software patents, patent prices are plummeting, the number of court fights is down, and stock prices of many patent-holding companies have fallen. Some tech firms say they are punching up research budgets as legal costs shrink, while support for major patent reform is under fire as trolls get trounced.

"Their entire business model relies on intimidation, and that has lost its edge," said Efrat Kasznik, president of intellectual property consulting firm Foresight Valuation Group. "If the patents are not enforceable in court anymore... the troll has no legs to stand on."

With the headline "Big Tech Winning Battle With 'Patent Trolls'" it's clear that they take the narrative of big businesses and mostly ignore the relevance of software patents in this case. It's all about big business!

This is evidence-based as opposed to emotion-based (like analyses from patent lawyers), but it does quote a lot of people who are in the patent business and have a conflict of interest. ⬆