Bonum Certa Men Certa

Unified Patents Demolishes Some More Notorious Patent Trolls and Offers Bounties to Take Down More of Them

Older: Unified Patents Puts $2,000 Bounties on Prior Art, Seeking to Defang Texan Patent Trolls That Are Active In Spite of TC Heartland

Bounty



Summary: Even though the new management of the US patent office treats patent trolls as a non-issue, groups that represent technology firms work hard to improve things (except for the litigation zealots)

THE epidemic of patent trolls in the US has slowed down and suffered some blows in recent years (TC Heartland being more recent and pretty major because it's a SCOTUS ruling). But the epidemic or this plague isn't a done deal. It's not over yet.



"This is Iancu speaking about patents amassed not only by the millions (in the US alone) but as much as 10 million, with the majority of these granted in recent decades when the system lost sight of its original goal/s."Trump-appointed (likely due to nepotism) USPTO "Director Andrei Iancu lauds risk takers, calls patent troll narrative ‘Orwellian doublespeak’," Watchtoll wrote in yesterday's headline, which sort of quote-mines a speech to the patent microcosm in which he also said: "This is 10 million patents in just over 200 years. And this is not just a number. Though sure enough, 10 million is a nice, round number. But more importantly, 10 million is the accumulation of creativity of such magnitude and concentration the likes of which humanity has never seen."

This is Iancu speaking about patents amassed not only by the millions (in the US alone) but as much as 10 million, with the majority of these granted in recent decades when the system lost sight of its original goal/s. "10 million is the accumulation of creativity of such magnitude and concentration the likes of which humanity has never seen," says a lawyer. Actually, a patent represents monopoly, not necessarily innovation and creativity (which as a lawyer he cannot recognise).

Either way, the above statement demonstrates that the current Director -- unlike his predecessor -- has no problem with trolls. Like Watchtroll, he refuses to recognise that they exist or that they're a problem.

Let's remember that Iancu is not a judge, however, so the more he deviates from what courts are saying (or keep saying), the steeper the decline in US patent certainty and therefore the value of pertinent US patents.

The EFF meanwhile presses on with its fight against patent trolls, having just mentioned AlphaCap again.

Daniel Nazer calls them "Patent troll AlphaCap Ventures" (mentioned here before several times last year) in yesterday's post of his at the EFF's Web site. To quote:

Patent trolls know that it costs a lot of money to defend a patent case. The high cost of defensive litigation means that defendants are pressured to settle even if the patent is invalid. Fee awards can change this calculus and give defendants a chance to fight back against weak claims. A recent decision [PDF] from the Federal Circuit has overturned a fee award in a case involving an abstract software patent on crowdsourcing. This disappointing ruling may encourage other patent trolls to file meritless cases.

Patent troll AlphaCap Ventures claimed that its patent covered various forms of online equity financing. It filed suit against ten different crowdfunding platforms. Most of the defendants settled quickly. But one defendant, Gust, fought back. After nearly two years of litigation in both the Eastern District of Texas and the Southern District of New York, AlphaCap Ventures dismissed its claim against Gust. The judge in the Southern District of New York ruled that AlphaCap Ventures’ attorneys had litigated unreasonably and ordered them to pay Gust’s attorneys’ fees. Those lawyers then appealed.


A disgusting thug and patent troll known as Global Equity Management (SA) Pty Ltd (GEMSA) also surrenders at last, having already trolled a lot of companies and SLAPPed the EFF. The patent was later thrown out and the EFF sued it back/reciprocally after SLAPP. Watch what Unified Patents has just accomplished:

On October 17, 2018, the Board issued an order terminating IPR2017-01467 pursuant to a joint settlement request filed by Unified Patents and Global Equity Management (SA) Pty. Ltd. ("GEMSA") (an NPE). U.S. Patent 6,690,400, directed to a graphical user interface (GUI) displaying graphics representing various partitioned storage devices in a computer, has been asserted in multiple district court cases, 35 of which were pending at the time of settlement.


Unified Patents is looking for information, notably prior art, which can help thwart some more patent trolls. This time there's a $1000 award to those who can show basis for demolishing the patent troll Express Mobile:

On October 18, 2018, Unified added a $1,000 contest to PATROLL seeking prior art for US Patent No. 9928044, the latest patent asserted in a wave of litigation filed by Express Mobile Inc. (an NPE). The '044 patent generally relates to a method and system for displaying a website on a mobile device. The contest will expire on January 18, 2019.


Another new bounty stands at $2000 (yes, two thousand bucks) for anyone who can help demolish a patent troll that was paid a lot by Microsoft (Uniloc). To quote:

On October 15, 2018, Unified added a $2,000 contest to PATROLL seeking prior art for US Patent No. 6470345, owned and asserted by Uniloc USA, a well-known NPE. The '345 patent, titled "Replacement of substrings in file/directory pathnames with numeric tokens," generally relates to a system and method for a file directory system. The contest will expire on January 14, 2019.


Uniloc has been suing Apple quite a lot lately. We wrote about it quite a few times. This troll, Uniloc, keeps flinging more lawsuits and patents at Apple and based on some new reports HP patents have just landed on some troll's lap, which is suing:



These are patents based on old work of HP, but they're being used/leveraged by trolls. It's not possible for Apple to sue HP to deter/discourage such action. Therein lies the nasty nature of trolls and they need to be stopped, no matter what Iancu thinks. Unified Patents works for the interests of the Unified States, whereas Iancu (born in Hungary) works for the interests of patent lawyers' unions.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Five (or Three) Years Without Social Control Media
Glyn Moody quit X (Twitter)
Why GNU/Linux is Growing
There's growing interest in GNU/Linux right now because people do not fancy buying a new PC just to 'upgrade' (more spying) Windows
 
Microsoft's 'Lawsuit Diplomacy' (SLAPPs Riding UK Libel Law and Piggybacking UK GDPR, Inapplicable!) Will Only Give a Worse Image to Microsofters (and Microsoft), Give Exposure to Even More Suppressed Facts and Scandals
Microsoft came to dominate some sectors because of (or owing to) crimes; Microsoft won't just go away without some more crimes.
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, April 19, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, April 19, 2025
Electronics in People's Bedrooms
Modern technology not only blurred the gap between "functions" of rooms
Gemini Links 19/04/2025: Contingencies, GTD, and Old Computers
Links for the day
Links 19/04/2025: Economic Races, Charm Offensives, and USB-C Rants
Links for the day
Links 19/04/2025: "Infantilization at Big Tech" and LLM Slop Abused in Defiance of Workplace Rules/Policies
Links for the day
Gemini Links 19/04/2025: Palm Addiction and Real Experts
Links for the day
Egypt is Controlled by Google, Not Microsoft
Moving from Microsoft to Google is not the answer
Microsofters Say They Cannot Find a Job (That They Want) Because of Techrights, But Techrights Merely Reported on Their Behaviour
Quit pointing the finger at people who are recipients of abuse or merely mention the abuse
Free Software and Standards - Not Marketing Blitz - Needed Amid Growing Severity of Dependency on Hostile Suppliers (or Another Country's Sovereignty)
ZenDiS can be described as the "Center for Digital Sovereignty of Public Administration"
When It Comes to the Web, Google is Evil and It Destroys the Web's Integrity With LLM Slop
Even academia, which is meant to keep standards high, is being lured into LLM slop
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, April 18, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, April 18, 2025
Links 18/04/2025: "Fentanylware (TikTok) Exodus Continues", Chinese Weapons Allegedly in Russia Already
Links for the day
Gemini Links 18/04/2025: Price of Games and State of Tinylog
Links for the day
Sounds Like IBM is Preparing for Mass Layoffs/Redundancies in Red Hat, Albeit in "PIP" (Performance Improvement Plan) or "Relocation" Clothing
This isn't the "old" IBM; they're applying pressure by confusion and humiliation
Gemini Links 17/04/2025: Role of Language and Back to Mutt for E-mail
Links for the day
"Sayonara" (さよなら), Microsoft
Windows had fallen below iOS in some countries
Links 18/04/2025: Layoffs at Microsoft Infosys and Qt Becoming Increasingly Proprietary (Plus Slop)
Links for the day
Google News is Dying
treating MElon's algorithmic/biased site as a source of verified news
Microsoft's Attack Dogs Have Failed. Now What?
It would be utterly foolish to assume that Microsoft has any intention of changing
All Your "Github Projects" Will be Gone One Day (Just Like Skype)
If you have code you wish to share and keep, then start learning how to do so on your own
To Understand Who's Truly Controlling You Follow the Trail of Censorship (or Self-Censorship)
Do not let media steal and steer the narrative; CoCs are not about "social justice", they're about corporate domination
Fedora Already Lost Its Soul Under IBM
Fedora used to be very strict compared to many other distros and it had attracted very bright volunteers
Microsoft is Still Attacking GNU/Linux and the Net
Microsoft bribed the government using money that did not even exist
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 17, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, April 17, 2025
Gemini Links 18/04/2025: Pinephone Pro and Linux is too Easy
Links for the day