10.19.12
Moves to Block Patent Trolls Would Benefit From End to Software Patents
Microsoft, for example, uses Nokia to feed patent trolls with Android-hostile software patents
Summary: An international crackdown on patent trolling overlooks the correlations which can address the problem more easily
A little while back we saw an effort by a couple of American politicians to stop patent trolls [1, 2], but trolls remain a big challenge because they too find loopholes, such as splitting loads and summoning proxies. Intellectual Ventures uses over one thousand such proxies and one legal site says:
This holding clarifies that two subsidiaries wholly owned by the same parent do not count as “commonly owned” for terminal disclaimer purposes. The decision underscores the importance of looking to the assignment history of the asserted patents and the relationships among the assignees in a patent family that are subject to terminal disclaimers when preparing a patent litigation defense.
In some cases, trolls are controlled or used by practising companies, e.g. MOSAID as utilised by Microsoft. Australia seems so concerned about the trolls epidemic that new laws are being considered these days.
“Most of the time — some estimated empirically — patent trolls file lawsuits with software patents.”In other news, the EFF welcomes a move that can help stop a troll’s favourite weapon: software patents. It writes about the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, noting that: “In a welcome move, the full Federal Circuit has agreed to revisit a troubling ruling in a case called CLS Bank v. Alice Corp. This case, along with the Ultramercial case, presents an important opportunity for the courts to insert some long-overdue sanity into the debate over what can and cannot be patented. In light of the Supreme Court’s ruling earlier this year in Mayo, we think the Federal Circuit has little choice but to throw out the dangerous patents in both CLS Bank and Ultramercial and make clear once and for all that ideas that are otherwise abstract cannot be patented simply because they are executed on the Internet or in a computer system.”
One way to impede patent trolling is to end software patents. Patent trolls are rare in Europe for a reason. Most of the time — some estimated empirically — patent trolls file lawsuits with software patents. █
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