08.30.15
IRC Proceedings: August 9th, 2015 – August 29th, 2015
IRC Proceedings: August 9th – August 15th, 2015
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IRC Proceedings: August 16th – August 22nd, 2015
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IRC Proceedings: August 23rd – August 29th, 2015
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“Conservative” Site Responds (Yet Again) to Misguided “Conservative” Efforts to Derail Patent Reform in the US
Summary: Patent trolls throw stones in glass houses, contributing to their own unpopularity, but some influential “Conservatives” continue to defend (conserve) them
THE MANY loud calls and very persistent lobbying for a so-called patent reform in the US, notably the PATENT ACT [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8], won’t improve things, except perhaps for large corporations. They will, however, help put some additional burden on patent trolls, which is arguably better than what the US has got in place these days (trolls also target small businesses and startups with no legal budget). While fighting for big corporations’ protectionism, the lobbyists can help destroy some of the ‘little guys’ who are actually trolls, or ‘little trolls’ (not the big trolls with glorified brands and very high levels of revenue).
Mytheos Holt, who described himself as an Associate Policy Analyst with the R Street Institute (RSI is an entity which calls itself “Free-market think tank advancing real solutions to complex public policy problems”), wrote in the “Conservative” (GOP) media the other day. It’s yet another article in this site which challenges the “Conservative” stance on patent reform. Holt asks: “What do you call someone who supports Federal bureaucrats granting rights out of thin air, judges legislating from the bench about how those rights work, and spreads terror about technological progress (along with derogatory comparisons to Uber)?
“Sadly, some people seem to think you should call them “conservatives.”
“At least, that’s the only thing I can get out of looking at the so-called conservative opposition to patent reform, which just this week added yet more confusion to the debate when a group calling itself the Conservative Action Project put out a letter slamming the two major patent reform bills making their way through the House and Senate currently.
“It’s truly sad that this document could garner the signatures of the likes of Ed Meese and Club for Growth President David McIntosh, because as written, its concerns over patent reform are utterly contentless. It’s hard to talk of refuting arguments, when the arguments as presented mean nothing, but I will try for the sake of clarity.”
In conclusion, writes Holt: “Patent Reform will do something that conservatives have done since the days of William F. Buckley, Jr: It will stop people from pleading the case for bad ideas. It is a terrible shame that so many so-called “conservatives” are pleading that exact case.”
Sadly, a lot of self-acclaimed “Conservatives” (and GOP-leaning media) will continue to oppose patent reform and defend even large trolls such as Intellectual Ventures. IP Troll Tracker noted the other day that “there’s the option that Intellectual Ventures takes, which is to patent stuff so they can go sue people.”
Well, actually, Intellectual Ventures often just buys patents in bulk and then uses them aggressively, against a maximal number of weak (or affluent) targets. If this is the practice which “Conservative” are willing to not only tolerate but actively defend, what are they conserving? it’s a form of blackmail and racketeering in many cases. █
Increase in Lobbying for Software Patents in Europe and Its Trojan Horse, the Unitary Patent (UPC)
Software patents through globalisation
Summary: The relentless campaigns to bring software patents into Europe have not stopped and so-called ‘unification’ — much like so-called ‘trade’ deals — serves to support them
THE EPO will be the subject of many posts next months, having been de-emphasised somewhat during the summer vacation.
One interesting aspect of the EPO is its role in the UPC and the globalisation of patent law (in a US-leaning fashion, not EU-led). Quality is compromised for the sake of quantity, e.g. income and protectionism. This is secretly steered by multinational globalists with effectively no borders — shady people who have no loyalty to any country in particular.
Only a few days ago we showed how the EPO-supported UPC was potentially big news because experts in the field say that the unitary patent regime can bring software patents into Europe. Now we have a new article from some Web site titled “europeansoftwarepatents” (presumably in favour of them*). The article is titled “Software patents in Europe: Marketing campaigns are not patentable” and it says: “The patent application at stake concerned an intelligent mail system to coordinate direct mail with other marketing channels. The invention concerns the calculation of dates on which people should be contacted for marketing purposes. The idea is to predict when marketing mail pieces will arrive at recipients’ homes, and to use those dates to determine an optimal date on which the recipients should be contacted using a further marketing channel (e.g. telephone, e-mail, television, radio).”
“One interesting aspect of the EPO is its role in the UPC and the globalisation of patent law (in a US-leaning fashion, not EU-led).”That would not be patentable also on grounds of triviality, never mind how abstract it is and how overtly software-related it is (nothing physical in the process).
Europeans are meanwhile coming to realise that the UPC may change all this. More of them grasp the simple fact that it herald the start of a software patents era in Europe, dictated by patent lawyers and their biggest clients. One person wrote that “shamefully Gov PT [Portugal] approves unitary patents, no info released” — a subject that we covered here the other day (3 days ago to be precise). We have already explained why it’s so undemocratic and here is one article from earlier this month, showing that this was done with pretty much zero input from the Portuguese public. “Portugal has officially ratified the Unified Patent Court (UPC) agreement, raising the total number of signatories to eight,” wrote WIPR. “The ratification was confirmed yesterday, August 6, after a notice was published in the country’s official gazette on legal developments. The document states that President Aníbal Cavaco Silva ratified the agreement on July 30.
“In a statement on the ratification, published in English, the Portuguese government said the agreement will help to “improve the enforcement of patents and the defence against unfounded claims”.”
That’s a shamelessly misleading statement. The UPC would do exactly the opposite. It would make so-called ‘enforcement’ (litigation) more broad in terms of scope, which is of course a bad thing. This may seem bad on its own right, but UPC would also make more things patentable, which in turn renders many “unfounded claims” well founded. It’s euphoria for the patent maximalists and multinational corporations. █
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* The site describes itself as “your one-stop resource for everything you need to know to protect your valuable software innovations with European software patents.”
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