Bonum Certa Men Certa

Patent Maximalism Duo: Watchtroll and Patently-O Now Conjoined and Mutually Referencing One Another

Watchtroll -- like patent trolls (e.g. Dominion Harbor Group) -- resorts even to sexually-themed insults

PTAB impotence



Summary: Radical sites like Watchtroll are spreading their ideology and harassment tactics to sites such as Patently-O, run by Dennis Crouch from the University of Missouri School of Law

THE ATTACKS on the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) -- an issue we covered a little earlier -- is unmatched by PTAB-bashing blogs like Watchtroll and Patently-O, which now reference one another in an effort to discredit PTAB. What compels Dennis Crouch to be associated with such radical sites? We can't tell for sure (we can guess), but IBM did the same thing. Even Michelle Lee was foolish enough to meet Watchtroll before the site endlessly attacked her until she resigned.



"Even Michelle Lee was foolish enough to meet Watchtroll before the site endlessly attacked her until she resigned."Watchtroll is still wrong, as usual; a few days ago it repeated the myth of "Ownership Rights" (also peddled by Patently-O). It's false because patents are monopolies; they are neither rights nor ownership.

The day beforehand Watchtroll continued with its nasty attacks. If one opposes software patents and/or patent trolls, then Watchtroll will try to scandalise and come up with conspiracy theories (see what it did to Michelle Lee). It's disgusting. It's despicable. And this is what IBM and Patently-O now associate themselves with. It's like the 'Brietbart' of the patent world.

"And this is what IBM and Patently-O now associate themselves with. It's like the 'Brietbart' of the patent world."After harassment and bullying of Michelle Lee (by the patent microcosm) they finally look certain to have installed the patent microcosm (Andrei Iancu) at the USPTO. In some among other articles of ours we explained that he is certainly in favour of software patents. He's on the record on that. Patently-O certainly seems to be pleased. Days ago it wrote:

Andrei Iancu’s nomination to be the next Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office has now been delivered to the Senate. The nomination will be considered by the Judiciary Committee with likely confirmation this fall.


What a coup!

"Even Crouch is willing to admit that there is something dodgy about patents granted by the Office."For patent maximalists like Crouch, who keep attacking PTAB all the time, Iancu will likely be like a 'mole' inside the Office.

Even Crouch is willing to admit that there is something dodgy about patents granted by the Office. Days ago he revisited the subject of references 'spew'. What is that? It's the strategy of overwhelming patent examiners with references, as we noted to other day (to just make rejection harder to justify). At school we used to call that "smearing" -- or trying to hide the low quality of something using quantity that's beyond scope of assessment (in a project, quiz et cetera). Here is what Crouch said:

Matching my parallel work, the authors write: “By 2014, patents that cite an “extreme” or “impossible” number of citations are responsible for more than 46% of all patent citations, even though they comprise less than 5% of all patents issued in that year.” In my data – looking at patents issued Jan-Aug 2017 – I found that the skew has increased so that the “impossible” patents now cite half of all applicant-submitted patent citations. [Note Here that Kuhn looks at citation of US patent documents only, while my approach considered all citations, but limited them to those designated as applicant cited.]


So Crouch's analysis of patents reveals decline in quality and just 'spew' of references. His latest analysis also showed reduction in the word "said". "I’m quite happy with the timeline above showing the percentage of US utility patents that include the word “said” within their set of claims," he wrote.

"The bottom line is, there are worrying signs that the Office (USPTO) under Trump will be a return to the dark ages. Patent quality may no longer matter."Maybe the patent lawyers just tweaked their templates a little to contain more reference 'spew' and less actual substance. Such is the case nowadays at the USPTO. They just give the impression of novelty by overwhelming with jargon and intentionally avoiding certain words to dodge Section 101 disqualification. They advertise this!

The bottom line is, there are worrying signs that the Office (USPTO) under Trump will be a return to the dark ages. Patent quality may no longer matter. All the progress made by Lee imminently undone?

Recent Techrights' Posts

Techrights Does Not Compete With LLM Slop, It Exposes the Bastards, Plagiarists and Scammers Who Do That
People like Scam Altman, still facing a lawsuit from his own sister for sexual abuse against her
Slopwatch: Planet Ubuntu Became LLM Slop and Some People Fail to See the Immorality of Plagiarism
it lessens the incentive for people to publish real articles
Microsoft Layoffs Again in Bay Area
Microsoft relies on people's false belief that being "in LinkedIn" will get you a job; well, seems like even working inside LinkedIn really sucks and you lose the job
 
The "AI" (Slop) Bubble Already Popped, But It's Not an Overnight Collapse
where Microsoft put its money
No More Steven Astorino at IBM, Chatter About Weekly/Nonstop Layoffs at IBM
What happened? Good luck guessing.
Looking at Corruption in Europe, Going Beyond the EPO
Expect a new series to kick off very soon
Slopwatch: Security SPAM and LLM Slop for SEO and FUD Purposes, Perpetually Tarnishing the Perception of Linux and (Open)SSH Security
A lot of this Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD) comes from Microsoft and its LLMs
Links 30/05/2025: Google's LLM Slop Pushers Are Killing Journalism and Shira Perlmutter Fails to Stop Bribed Regime From Legalising Plagiarism (in "AI" Clothing)
Links for the day
Links 30/05/2025: Offline Arts and "Threshold of Patience"
Links for the day
Signing Off Serious Lies With a Statement of Truth is No Joking Matter
It's not hard to see what's happening here
Links 30/05/2025: LLM Slop Already Ingests and Vomits Its Own Garbage, Facebook Exec Admits Copyrights a Concern Too
Links for the day
Mass Layoffs at Microsoft Result in More Whistleblowers From Microsoft
Microsoft's predatory pricing is further
EPO Poll: 68% Dissatisfied With Quality of Slop (Wrongly Framed as "AI") for Patent Classification
Slop does not work, it's just falsely advertised with extra hype (funded by slop pushers that sponsor the major media)
Big Crowds Gather to Learn About Software Freedom From the Man Who Started GNU/Linux in 1983
"It was a great success"
Gemini Links 30/05/2025: Fighting Against the Bad News, and Slop is Dehumanisation Disguised as "Intelligence"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, May 29, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, May 29, 2025
Links 29/05/2025: Chinese Cracking Against EU Institutions (Prague), More Assaults on Media and Its Funding Sources
Links for the day
EPO Workers Caution That the Officials Are Still Illegally Trying to Replace Staff With Slop (to Lower Quality and Validity of European Patents)
Nobody in Europe voted for any of this
Links 29/05/2025: US Health Deficit and Malware Disguised as Slop Generator
Links for the day
Links 29/05/2025: Turtle Roadkill, Modern 'Tech' as a Sting
Links for the day
Thanks for All the Fish, Linux Format
people who once wrote for it (or for other magazines) comment on the importance of this news
People's Understanding of the History of GNU/Linux is Changing
RMS is not a radical, he's just clever enough to see and foresee what's going on
Microsofters Were Scheming to Take Over This Entire Web Site (in Their Own Words!)
Money gets spent censoring/deplatforming people who speak about real issues; no money gets spent actually tackling those underlying issues
Bicycles for the Minds and the Story Harrison Bergeron
"The goal of having people in charge of the tools they use and that the tools should amplify ability" has long been abandoned
Links 29/05/2025: YouTube Problem and Giant Privacy Hole in Microsoft OneDrive
Links for the day
[Video] Cory Doctorow Explains DMCA: DRM in the Browser (or Webapp) Will "Make It a Felony to Protect Your Privacy While You Use It."
Pycon US Keynote Speaker Cory Doctorow
United States Courts With Sworn Testimonies Are on Our Side, We'll Present the Same Here
Chronicling what happened is a moral imperative
Serial Sloppers Ruin and Lessen the Incentive to Cover "Linux"
The Serial Sloppers (SSs) ought to be named and shamed, but almost nobody does this
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 28, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, May 28, 2025
Links 28/05/2025: 'Emulation Layers' (Measurements and Linguistics), Libraries, and Discomfort
Links for the day
Links 28/05/2025: More Arrests for Bitcoin-Connected Torture and Prosecutions for Dieselgate-Linked Executives
Links for the day
Even Microsoft (MSN) Covers Richard Stallman's Public Talk in Milan 2 Days Ago
He spoke in Spanish earlier this month (Alicante)
Gemini Links 28/05/2025: Techo-authoritarianism With Slop Plagiarism and "No Online June" (Going Offline)
Links for the day
Links 28/05/2025: GitHub MCP Exploited and MathWorks Discovers Huge Windows TCO
Links for the day
Very High Attendance Level at Richard Stallman's Talk Shows People Can Relate to His Message
Smear campaigns have their limits
Gemini Links 28/05/2025: Celsius-Fahrenheit, Endless Scrolling/Infinite Scrolling, and Trapping LLM Slop Bots
Links for the day
Prison gate backdrop to baptism by Fr Sean O'Connell, St Paul's, Coburg
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
More Photos From This Week's Milan Talk by Richard Stallman
The posts are in Italian, not English
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 27, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, May 27, 2025