Summary: The American patent system continues to distribute monopolies on algorithms and some of these cause litigation to reach courts that are notorious for intolerance of 35 U.S.C. ۤ 101, resulting in unnecessary payments to lawyers and patent trolls

IN THE WAKE of TC Heartland (last summer) it was hoped that the courts in the Eastern District of Texas would see little or no more patent lawsuit filings. The effect of TC Heartland was profound, but it didn't go far enough. When will judges follow the law down there? There are signs that they begrudgingly and only belatedly do so.

Meanwhile, there are new Dallas (the east of Texas) patents granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Some of these seem to have been wrongly granted based on 35 U.S.C. ۤ 101. Those will possibly lead to frivolous lawsuits or at least shakedowns.

The patent maximalist Matthew Bultman says that the Federal Circuit insists Apple should be on trial in a court that advertises being lax to plaintiffs like patent trolls with abstract patents. Never mind if Apple isn't based in Texas. In Bultman's words (that aren't behind paywall):

The Federal Circuit on Tuesday allowed a lawsuit against Apple Inc. over patents covering a communication system to move forward in the Eastern District of Texas...

Based on the above, it's likely a software patent and the action may have been initiated by a troll (hard to tell because of the paywall).

Speaking of trolls, they nowadays issue press releases in prominent sites; they try to warp the narrative. The spammy Associated Press (press releases as a section) writes nonsense for a patent troll Avanci (we wrote about it before) or rather publishes lies for it, as did other sites. Lies like these: "The Avanci platform simplifies the way companies share technology by licensing intellectual property from many different patent holders in a single transaction. Avanci’s licenses are offered to all competitors in an industry at the same fair, flat rates that will not increase over the term of the license no matter how many patent owners join the platform."

Avanci is a patent troll that pretends to be "licensing"; we already wrote about its origins. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) inter partes reviews (IPRs) would likely not shield against this troll because the number of patents at hand is too large to handle exhaustively by IPRs.

To properly tackle the issue we probably ought to push harder for all examiners -- like most courts and judges -- to respect and uphold 35 U.S.C. €§ 101. A lot of software patents are still being granted and some form the basis of lawsuits, as we shall explain in later posts (later tonight). ⬆