Patent Troll Watch: Polaris Sues, Klausner sues, and Ray Niro Harassess Bloggers
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
2007-12-05 00:48:20 UTC
Modified: 2007-12-05 00:48:20 UTC
Once in a while we point out various stories which show how much interference patents can cause to real "innovation" (a word to avoid and a word which Microsoft loves enormously).
If you want to see some truly large demands, how about this new case?
Klausner Technologies said on Monday the company had filed a $360 million suit against Apple (AAPL.O) and AT&T Inc (T.N) over voicemail patents that Klausner claims the Apple iPhone infringes.
If you search the Web for "Klausner Technologies", then you'll find little more than patent stories. Quite clearly, Klausner Technologies is some form of patent troll. It's a patent portfolio in the sky.
Speaking of patent trolls, one of them has just resorted to really ugly actions; even uglier than the act of patent trolling alone. Ray Niro has offered a bounty targetting TrollTracker. This brings back shades of the bounty on Pamela Jones' identity, not to mention gagging attempts [1, 2] .
Yes, Ray Niro has decided to offer $5,000 to find out who I am. According to the article, he wants to know "who is saying all those nasty things" about him. I don't think that's fair. I may have disparaged the validity of Acacia U.S. Patent 5,253,341, and I may have claimed that Niro was asserting the '341 patent against me just to shut me up, as he did to Greg Aharonian so many years ago (something that the article's author also implies), but that's not nasty. Is it?
Mr. Niro, here is a hint: if you behave [1, 2] and join civilisation, so to speak, you will not have to police the Web and fear what people say about you. Don't be a Novell [1, 2, 3]. ⬆
IBM basically laid off almost 1,000 people last week [...] At the moment about 75% of the 'articles' we see about IBM (in recent days) are some kind of slop
Very ill-prepared for the deteriorating situation caused by their clients' past behaviour towards many people, including high-profile figures who offered to testify
Last week IBM laid off almost 1,000 people in Confluent and the media didn't write anything about it, so don't expect anyone in what's left of the media to comment on Fedora's demise and silent layoffs at Red Hat
In an age when ~1,000 simultaneous layoffs aren't enough to receive any media coverage, what can we expect remaining publishers to tell us about Microsoft layoffs in 2026?
Is the "era of AI" an era when none of the media will mention over 800 layoffs? [...] There's a lesson here about the state of the contemporary media, not just IBM and bluewashing
