05.14.16
IAM ‘Magazine’: Not Just Paid by the Patent Trolls and Legal Giants But Also Speaking With (and For) Them
Calling spades…
Summary: Another week’s classic examples of who and what IAM really speaks for while claiming to be a news site rather than lobbying (agenda as ‘news’)
TECHRIGHTS makes an effort to keep abreast of patent trolls because there are so many of them and they usually work for some larger (separate) entity like a massive corporation or a patent lord (along the likes of drug lord). Intellectual Ventures, for instance, is estimated to have literally thousands (over 2,000) satellite firms and Intellectual Ventures itself works for Microsoft and Bill Gates, who had a lot to do with its initial formation and continued existence (even contemporary cash infusions, as reported here more recently).
“Remember that Intellectual Ventures is constantly being groomed by IAM ‘magazine’, which even speaks to Intellectual Ventures’ top officials, having recently made Intellectual Ventures a front page feature.”Recently, TiVo chose to get close to Rovi, so it basically got close to Microsoft's patent troll (Intellectual Ventures) and right now TiVo’s CEO denies that it was a patent move, perhaps realising what Rovi became known (or notorious) for. Remember that Intellectual Ventures is constantly being groomed by IAM ‘magazine’, which even speaks to Intellectual Ventures’ top officials, having recently made Intellectual Ventures a front page feature.
Readers of ours already know that IAM is viewed as an opposition because it’s often just an EPO mouthpiece and it also promotes software patents, patent trolls, etc. (it refuses to even call them that)
In relation to Micromax, which we mentioned here before in relation to patents [1, 2, 3] (we last mentioned it some days ago) IAM is now cheering for and speaking to patent trolls who try to extort India using FRAND or software patents (invalid there anyway). As we noted/asked some days ago, is this really reporting or just lobbying? Maybe agenda-pushing disguised as ‘news’. In other ‘news’, IAM now calls a patent troll, Jay Walker, “entrepreneur”. Well, he used to be an entrepreneur, but now he’s a textbook example of patent troll.
“Marathon joins forces with one of the world’s biggest patent trolls and IAM makes it sound like a legitimate business of some kind.”There are other new examples where IAM is doing this kind of reputation laundering for trolls. When a company is passing patents to an ‘enforcer’ (like troll) to extract money by threats and litigation, essentially acting as a proxy, IAM calls it “patent monetisation” (nice euphemism) and it separately, in relation to this article, says: “Erich Spangenberg joins Marathon; will head #patent buying & licensing business, with emphasis on Europe & Asia. Very interesting news.”
Spangenberg is one of the world’s worst patent trolls. We wrote a lot about him and his firms over the years. He now speaks to IAM. “He added some more detail in an email to IAM,” the author says proudly. What the heck is IAM for and when will everyone realise who it actually speaks for? It’s part of a truly parasitic industry and a lot of what’s wrong with the patent systems (which earned these systems notoriety inside and outside the industry). Marathon joins forces with one of the world’s biggest patent trolls and IAM makes it sound like a legitimate business of some kind. Follow the money, e.g. “NPE” conferences. █
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