Bonum Certa Men Certa

Biased IAM's Editor in Chief Goes on the Offensive Against (Software) Patent Sceptics, Still a Trolls Denialist

IAM logo



Summary: The latest illustration of biased coverage by IAM 'magazine', which is a Web site by patent maximalists for patent maximalists (or unsuspecting readers who are indoctrinated into patent maximalism)

SEVERAL days ago we explained why IAM doesn't say "patent trolls" (Spanish translation published this morning). The editor of IAM told me explicitly that he doesn't believe in the term "patent trolls", even though it's clearly defined and commonly used (even by the highest judges last year).



Not accepting the term "patent trolls" in 2016 is a bit like refusing to accept the term "cloud" (which is also too vaguely defined, but nonetheless widely used). I personally worry that IAM's agenda includes bringing a USPTO-style system/agenda (low quality) over to Europe. IAM is basically European but it is paid by many firms in the US, as we noted here before. Even patent trolls from the US put money in IAM's coffers.

"IAM is basically European but it is paid by many firms in the US, as we noted here before."A "Korean company claims that Facebook, Kakao, Line et al are infringing one of its patents," wrote IAM the other day (Facebook does this too). The writer, Mr. Ellis, is quite alright and he correctly asserted that "Korean companies are not known for being particularly proactive or aggressive when it comes to asserting their IP rights."

Wild, on the other hand (the boss of Ellis), keeps attacking patent critics, such as Rackspace, which spends a lot of time and money attacking software patents (we covered this before [1, 2, 3]). To make matters worse, Wild nearly associates himself with the blowhard Gene Quinn (whom we dubbed Patent WatchTroll), who is the most aggressive proponent of software patents (or at least most vocal). To quote Wild's piece: "A couple of days ago Gene Quinn, who runs the IP Watchdog blog, had a Twitter spat with Van Lindberg, VP of technology at Rackspace, about the validity (or not) of the patents issued by the USPTO."

"Shame games again? Like shaming Germany over UPC inaction? Repeatedly even?"As we noted here several times in March, Quinn now attacks everyone in the system who does not consent to granting software patents. He's nearly as bad as Andrew Y. Schroeder and he likes confrontation (although he blocked me in Twitter after losing a long debate that left him utterly embarrassed).

"Almost all patent professionals acknowledge that 80% of patents are invalid," Van Lindberg wrote. So hence begins Quinn's and Wild's coy shame game. Wild speaks to patent maximalists for 'expert' opinion on this statement and then ends with the words: "Should Lindberg now apologise to IPValue for misreporting the firm’s views? I’ll leave that to him to decide, but at the very least he might want to let his Twitter followers know that he got that 96% stat wrong."

Shame games again? Like shaming Germany over UPC inaction? Repeatedly even?

Speaking of Twitter, Wild is apparently too shy to speak on behalf of IAM (where he's the editor), so he uses some weirdly-named personal account of his, which alludes to a spa, whenever he writes anything to me.

"Is it really worth paying for a subscription to a 'magazine' so biased that trolls don't even exist in it (instead they're groomed and characterised as legitimate businesses)?"IAM's agenda, which includes protecting EPO management, heralding the UPC (shaming its obstacles), grooming patent trolls, encouraging patent stockpiling and defending software patents needs to be widely understood not just by EPO workers but by anyone out there. Is it really worth paying for a subscription to a 'magazine' so biased that trolls don't even exist in it (instead they're groomed and characterised as legitimate businesses)? Wild is the worst of the bunch; some of the writers are OK, but Wild still gets to edit away what he does not like (or change words) and that's a problem. I actually spent months reading every article in IAM before reaching this conclusion.

Watch this new article titled "New Marathon subsidiary heralds move beyond patents into technology licensing". Alternative headline for the same article: "New Marathon subsidiary is a patent troll" (as per definition).

"IAM still doesn’t say patent trolls, not even in this latest article which calls a troll “NPE”, quite frankly as usual.""WiLAN, Intellectual Ventures and Spherix," it says, "have all entered into agreements recently designed to diversify their business models to varying degrees."

It doesn't say the "T" word (troll) and instead uses positive words like "agreements", "diversify", and "business models". Maybe our Prime Minister should hire Wild to describe NHS crackdown as "investment", bombings in Syria as "democracy", and Investigatory Powers Bill as "safety".

IAM still doesn't say patent trolls, not even in this latest article which calls a troll "NPE", quite frankly as usual.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims or says can be trusted
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
How Software Patents Were Viewed or Their General Status Changed Over Time
A rough summary
Datamation, Where I Used to Publish Articles, Appears to Have Been Sold to TechnologyAdvice Only to Become a Slopfarm
I'd prefer to not associate with that site anymore
 
Links 04/10/2025: "Privacy Harm Is Harm", Criticism Outlawed in US
Links for the day
Garmin Uses Linux for Some of the Garmin Products, Now It's Sued by Strava Using Software Patents
Software patents should never have been granted in the first place
Richard Stallman Will Give a Talk in Sweden in 6 Days
Dr. Stallman, despite his battle with cancer is still alive and mentally sharp
FSF Turns 40
We'll be focusing on patent-related topics this weekend
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 03, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 03, 2025
Gemini Links 04/10/2025: Distro Hopping and "Part Time"
Links for the day
We Are Turning 19 in One Month, FSF Turns 40 in 3 Hours (CET)
For our anniversary next month we still have no concrete plans
Patent Docs (or PatentDocs) Learned the Wrong Lessons From the Death of TypePad
Had they gone ahead with an SSG, they'd become a lot more future-proof
USPTO Patent Bubble Already Imploding, After Decades of Artificial Inflation, Entire Offices Close for Good
we can deduce that financial pressures (lack of "demand" for monopolies) play a role
TikTok is Not Harmless (Being CheeTok in the US Will Advance Orange Agenda)
Social control media isn't "fun and games"; it's a digital weapon that lets hostile groups or nations infiltrate others, then turn them against themselves
Andy Farnell and Helen Plews Explain What "Modern" Tech Does to Old People
Imposing terrible tech "religion" on people is not helping them
Tomorrow the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 and Its Web Site is Still Slow Due to DDoS by LLM Slop Bots
For an advocacy group, uptime is important (for its message to remain accessible)
Slopwatch: Google News as a Firehose of LLM Slop About "Linux"
Google News is really bad
Links 03/10/2025: "NPR’s Economics Lessons Come With Neoliberal Spin" and Canada Post at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/10/2025: Panic Attacks and Food Adulteration
Links for the day
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day