Bonum Certa Men Certa

Watchtroll and Other Proponents of Patent Trolls Are Trying to Change the Law Outside the Courts in Order to Bypass Patent Justice

Court's steps



Summary: 35 U.S.C. €§ 101 (Section 101) voids almost every software patent -- a reality that even the most zealous patent professionals have come to grips with and their way of tackling this 'problem' is legislative, albeit nowhere near successful (so far)

TWO years ago we still wrote some articles about the EPO's relationship with Microsoft -- a subject we had covered in years prior to that and got us some threats from the EPO's lawyers. A few weeks ago we wrote about the USPTO in relation to "Changing Rules to Punish PTAB Petitioners and Reward Microsoft for Corruption at ISO" -- a subject which was later discussed by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s Patent Public Advisory Committee (PPAC), as scheduled earlier this month. Based on Watchtroll's report on this: "The USPTO is also looking to encourage patent applicants to file their applications in the DOCX format by introducing a new surcharge for utility non-provisional applications that are filed in formats other than DOCX. This would introduce a new $400 fee for such applications. According to Hourigan, the decision to encourage DOCX-format filings is intended to simplify the sharing of application data as DOCX files are XML-based. Other formats, such as PDFs, must be converted to XML using optical character recognition (OCR), a technology which is a source of potential errors."

"Related to this is a bill that deals with fee-setting authority, as covered by CCIA three days ago."So they basically decided that proprietary Microsoft formats are the gold standard? This is ridiculous. What about ODF (Open Document Format) or XML-based formats that do not contain blobs and Microsoft-specific directives like OOXML?

Related to this is a bill that deals with fee-setting authority, as covered by CCIA three days ago. Josh Landau (CCIA's main patent matters person) said:

Today, the House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to markup Rep. Chabot’s newly-introduced SUCCESS Act, which is itself a combination of portions of two other bills Patent Progress has covered: Reps. Comstock and Adams’ SUCCESS Act, and the fee-setting authority contained within Rep. Chabot’s BIG DATA for IP bill.

Each bill is individually worthwhile. The SUCCESS Act attempts to address the relatively low number of patent applications filed by underrepresented groups. And fee-setting authority is important to help prevent marginal patents from being issued.

At the same time, Rep. Chabot’s bill does not currently incorporate any of the suggested improvements to the SUCCESS Act designed to study the impacts of patents that never should have been granted when they’re used to threaten innovative companies founded by underrepresented minorities. Without these improvements, the SUCCESS Act can only study a portion of the barriers to innovation faced by underrepresented minorities.


The problem with many of these bills is that they're promoted by bribed politicians. They try to shape the law depending on which millionaires and billionaires sponsor them.

Going back to Watchtroll, a site that promotes several anti-PTAB bills (but hasn't done so recently), on the same day (as the above) it published complete nonsense, pretending that patents are necessary for startups and whatnot (they're not). In "Can I hold on long enough until the madness stops?" (also published on the same day) Watchtroll gives Jeffrey Killian a platform in which to frame patent quality as "madness". These people are laughable. Here's the portion which bemoans Section 101: "This anti-patent bias toward software is illustrated in many ways. The Supreme Court of the United States added the words “abstract” and “significantly more” to 35 U.S. Code €§ 101 and did not define such terms. Previously 35 U.S. Code €§ 101 granted patents in the past and now 35 U.S. Code €§ 101 has become a provision to deny software patents on a wholesale basis. The added judicial exceptions were not approved by Congress, the law still reads the same, the added and undefined terms were legislated from the judicial bench. Something is inherently wrong with this situation from a common person’s viewpoint."

SCOTUS decided on Alice and patent maximalists like Watchtroll and Patently-O try hard to get US Congress to intervene, counterbalanced by the likes of HTIA, CCIA, EFF etc.

Patently-O meanwhile says that the "House [is] Considering [a] Bill that Would Preclude Enforcement of Injunctions Against Non-Parties," interjecting the author's views as follows: "I am trying to envision the problems this creates for patents, and happen to be writing a book on Remedies right now. Problems?"

Injunctions are basically something like an embargo, imposed by the ITC typically. We have already seen how the ITC simply disregards judgments made by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) on inter partes reviews (IPRs), before or after the Federal Circuit gets involved. This means thar they disregard and totally disreprect the principle of due process -- something which certainly makes the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) seem rather aloof or detached from the rule of law.

Courts aren't entirely "pure", but high courts a lot less impure than politicians with "campaign contributions" and a patent office that measures "success" by number of patents rather than justice. So we'd rather rely on Justices than on a bunch of politicians.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Approaching 10,000 Articles/Pages Since Going Static
Trying to silence or derail the site was always a dumb strategy
Microsoft is Shedding Off Loads of Staff and That Can be Dangerous Too
Working for Microsoft is a choice; nobody forces you to do it
Richard Stallman and the Unix Philosophy
When asked about systemd people must remember that RMS speaks as an active Board member of the FSF and also the founder of the FSF
Get Rid of Back Doors, Don't Obsess Over Bounties and Other Corporate PR Stunts (or Needless Reboot Rituals)
Security as a term has mostly lost its meaning due to repeated misuse for many years
Serial Sloppers Are Killing the Web (They Probably Don't Care, Either)
Slop is a disease on the Web
IBM's Debt Ballooned by 8.5 Billion Dollars in Just 3 Months!
Hallmark of a company in a state of disarray, trying to spend its way out of trouble
Big Trouble in GNOME
even GNOME people admit the CoC went wrong
 
Links 25/04/2025: Slop Fatigue and Patent Judges Flocking to Fake, Unconstitutional and Illegal Kangaroo Court (UPC, Captured 'Justice')
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/04/2025: Night Manager and Devuan in Hosting
Links for the day
Windows Falls to New Lows in Nicaragua, Now Below a Quarter (It Used to be Almost 100%)
Another all-time low for Windows
The Cost (to Linux) of LLM Slop
Slop 'artists' like Fagioli are far from harmless
Links 25/04/2025: Ubisoft Spyware, Hegseth Fails at Tech on Every Level
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/04/2025: Food Forest Update and Facebook Destroying the Net
Links for the day
Streaming Apps Are “Investor Fraud” That Kills the Planet
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Things Get Increasingly Nasty at Microsoft Ahead of the Fake Results and May's Mass Layoffs Wave
They try to get people to 'resign' so that they won't count as layoffs and the company's 'wellbeing' will seem better
Slopping the Trough: Disney Plus Loses Billions and the Decline of Physical Media in America
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 24, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, April 24, 2025
Links 24/04/2025: GAFAM Problems and No Peace (or Ceasefire) in Sight
Links for the day
Slopfarms on the Web Almost Always Generate Anti-Linux FUD When They Produce "Linux" Output
Welcome to the dying Web
Richard Stallman's Oxford Talk Has Just Ended, Here Are Some Photos
he might hop over to another European country
Gemini Links 24/04/2025: Birthday and Good Work of Academia in Esotericism
Links for the day
Links 24/04/2025: EU fines Apple and Facebook, Another Microsoft GitHub Security Blunder
Links for the day
New Article Explains How the GPL Came About and WordPress Having Copyleft Obligations
Having been involved in the WordPress development community since almost the beginning, I know why it chose the GPL and how it restricts abuse by Automattic
IBM Gained Almost 6 Billion Dollars in "Goodwill" Value in Just 3 Months, According to IBM
Congrats to the management!
In Belarus, Yandex is Now Measured as 50 Times More 'Popular' (by Usage) Than Microsoft
Yandex continues to gain, whereas Bing cannot even register at 1%. Last month it was registered or measured at a measly 0.65%.
IBM Cannot Lie to Shareholders Anymore
"I would not be surprised if we see a layoff every quarter this year."
Dr Richard Stallman (RMS) Gives Talk in Oxford University in 4 Hours
If you live nearby, go there (it's free as in gratis)
Using a Law Firm's Licence to Exercise Politics Through Frivolous SLAPPs and Nastygrams (to Silence People, Remove Pages, Demand Fake or Forced 'Apologies')
Things must be getting really bad when lawyers act for raving antisemites
We're Working to Make Full-Site Search Available
This site has over 1,000 'wiki' pages, many thousands of documents, several thousands of videos, and about 50,000 blog posts or articles. We need to make them easier to find/navigate.
Links 24/04/2025: IBM Loses Many Contracts, Intel to Lay Off Over 20% (Not Counting Those Who Leave 'Voluntarily')
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Can Explain to Oxford Artificial Intelligence Society Why LLM Slop is Not Artificial Intelligence and Why It Hurts Society
another 'crop' of LLM slop that damages GNU/Linux and facts
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 23, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 23, 2025
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Promoting Microsoft and Proprietary Software Using Microsoft Operatives
Because nothing says "Open Source" like GPL violations facilitated by Microsoft
Another Site Bites the Dust: "Open Source For You" Becoming a Slopfarm (LLM Slop)
What a shame. Another dead site.
Links 23/04/2025: Crackdowns on Dissent, Palin Loses Libel Retrial Against New York Times
Links for the day
Links 23/04/2025: Hard Times and Digital Amnesia
Links for the day
The GNU/Linux Site Formerly Known as "linoxide.com" is Back... as an LLM Slopfarm!
Better for linoxide.com to go offline than to do this
Richard Stallman to Speak in Oxford University Exactly a Day From Now
outsourced to GAFAM
Links 23/04/2025: "Hiding Corruption" and "The Cost of Defunding Harvard"
Links for the day
Microsoft 'Studies' Again? Leon Musolff is Writing Papers With Microsoft.
Even if one can see/find a link to "the study" (in the Bezos-controlled publication), most people won't look any further and just take everything at face value.
Towards GNU World Domination
The FSF led by Geoffrey S. Knauth with his friend Richard Stallman in the FSF's Board [...] Let's encourage people to adopt GNU/Linux. There has never been a better time.
statCounter Helps Visualise Just How Deep in Trouble Microsoft is (Especially in Africa)
Microsoft sabotaged efforts to connect Africans and equip them with GNU/Linux laptops
The Register is Using Linux-Hostile Clickbait in Articles of Linux Proponents
Don't be a "whore" to advertisers, team El Reg
Microsoft Windows in Cyprus Lacking a Future
Most people access the Web there from mobile
Matrix Has a Severe Problem With Illegal Images
If Matrix cannot get the CP problem under control, many projects and people will dump Matrix
Never Try to Justify Strangulation of Women (Not in the US and Not in the UK)
Joint post by Mrs. Rianne Schestowitz and Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Links 23/04/2025: Tesla Profits Plunge 71%, Intel Ready to Lay Off 20% of Staff, Microsoft and IBM Layoffs
Links for the day
Microsoft's Most Profound Issue is That People Moved to 'Mobile' and "App Stores" (Microsoft's Presence There is Negligible)
Expect a wild ride for Microsoft this year
Google News is Amplifying FUD and Lies About Linux (and OpenSSH/SSH) by Promoting Slopfarms With Machine-Generated FUD and Slop Images
Google should know better
Gemini Links 23/04/2025: Librarians, Anubis, and Refactoring a Gemini Capsule
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, April 22, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, April 22, 2025