01.11.17
The Patent Microcosm is Already Sucking up to Donald Trump in an Effort to Enrich Itself at Everyone’s Expense
Patent maximalists have been spreading this meme for quite a few weeks if not months
Summary: Four new examples of patent maximalists embracing/adopting the pseudo-populist slogan to advance their goals of increasing litigation (which they profit from) and undermining PTAB (which made patents great in the quality sense)
IT IS OFTEN said that politicians flip sides (defect) or flush down their principles when the opportunity arises. That is why many GOP politicians suddenly apologise and sidle with Trump, hoping to salvage/scrape some powerful position/s in his cabinet. The Republican Party as a whole has been like that; the same goes for the business world and even fellow oligarchs like Bill Gates. Suddenly they want to be friends with Trump, as they hope to get something from (or through) him.
“Suddenly they want to be friends with Trump, as they hope to get something from (or through) him.”This post is not political, however, and it isn’t intended to fall for the “left” [sic] versus “right” false dichotomy. This post is about the patent microcosm, which is a surrogate for a profession, not a political party (separate and partly overlapping dimensions). The patent microcosm has been "China"-baiting like Trump (even if he himself relies on China) and it pretends to stand for one thing while doing the opposite. For instance, it insists it’s interested in “innovation” — however one defines it — and in practice it crushes innovation.
“Make Patents Great Again” is a disturbing term (motto/slogan) we have been coming across for a while. We have already given examples where the patent microcosm spreads this term. Even a seemingly ‘leftist’ site like Patently-O does this right now (in the headline even!). What it speaks about it filling the swamp, so to speak, by appointing an utterly corrupt and disgraced judge, Mr. Rader (we wrote about his scandals many times in the past). To quote Patently-O: “Scott Graham of The National Law Journal reports that Chief Judge Rader is in the mix to be the next USPTO Director. Rader wrote hundreds of patent opinions during his 15 years on the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, including four as Chief Judge. Prior to joining the judiciary, Rader spent eight years as counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights. He is a recipient of the Jefferson Medal for exceptional contributions to the field of intellectual property law. In a fairly minor scandal, Judge Rader resigned from the bench in 2014.”
“This whole “great again” meme/motto has become somewhat of a plague this year.”It wasn’t minor at all. It was a serious scandal.
The above screenshot (this rather disturbing photo of a hat where “great” means “litigation”) comes from an IAM tweet. As Benjamin Henrion said in his response, “make software patents great again -> they were never great.”
Even if they were, that would go back to the days when patents were few and of high quality. Right now they are anything but great because many of them are bogus, low quality, etc. We’re all in favour of patents being great; but what we mean by “great” is “high quality”, hence fewer (and thus more potent).
This whole “great again” meme/motto has become somewhat of a plague this year. For self gain again, as in “How Trump Can Make Intellectual Property Great Again” (new headline), “James Edwards [...] consultant on intellectual property and health policy,” writes:
On the path to making America great again, President-elect Donald Trump will have a tremendous opportunity to reverse the steady slide away from a property rights-oriented American patent system.
There are good reasons to believe a Trump administration will readily grasp this critical problem and work to revitalize the American patent regime.
First, someone like Trump who has succeeded so well on the world’s biggest stages in real estate development will readily understand the fundamental need for sound, secure, enforceable property rights. After all, you face huge risks and problems developing real estate if you haven’t first secured the rights to that property.
More lobbying of Trump? And again for patent maximalism? Under the guise of litigation being “great”? We expect a lot more of that in the coming months. The motto-isation of their agenda is a sick, selfish plot.
Peter Harter and Gene Quinn (Watchtroll) sort of support Trump in their desperate effort to revive software patents, having just published “Will Patent Courts Be Great Again?”
“More litigation (again) and a patent gold rush (again) isn’t what will make America (US) great. It’s actually one of the reason it’s not great and it’s why many small businesses perish.”Now they say “Patent Courts”… because what they want is not great patents (good quality) but a lot of litigation. And they profit from litigation…
“Hopefully it won’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the PTAB is a controversial venue choice,” Watchtroll writes. No, it’s only controversial in the eyes of the patent microcosm, which simply hates PTAB because it does what’s right. They are concluding with “Courts can make patents great again in America. And if not they will at least be as active as they have been in the past 10 years in terms of shaping the patent dialogue.”
More litigation (again) and a patent gold rush (again) isn’t what will make America (US) great. It’s actually one of the reason it’s not great and it’s why many small businesses perish.
PTAB itself is working against bad patents and thus protecting small businesses. That’s what usually happens upon petitioning, which is affordable (unlike court cases that push start-ups towards bankruptcy). Recently we wrote about 8 wireless patents that got invalidated thanks to Section 101 and Dennis Crouch from Patently-O has a new article about Wi-Fi One v. Broadcom. It’s about PTAB. To quote: “The PTAB rejected Wi-Fi’s argument and call for discovery on the issue — holding that the “privy” requirement could only be met if Broadcom had the right to control the District Court litigation.”
“PTAB itself is working against bad patents and thus protecting small businesses.”Crouch also wrote about “Separation of Powers Restoration Act” and noted that “[f]or the [US]PTO, the change would open the door to challenge the PTO’s implementation of its PTAB Trial procedures as well as examination procedures, examination requirements, etc since any “rule” created by the PTO can be challenged with de novo review as well as any questions of law (even where the PTO has authority to make those determinations and was previously given deference).”
This kind of “separation of powers” is what the EPO was supposed to have (until President Battistelli attacked the equivalent of PTAB). Imagine a President Trump doing the same to PTAB in the US… █
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