07.06.15
Gemini version available ♊︎Patent Propaganda, Glamourisation, and Erosion of Citizens’ Rights in the Process
Taking away from people’s rights to empower corporations
Summary: An overview of recent coverage about patents, demonstrative of inherent bias in the world of patent practitioners and the journalists whom they misinform
Patent propaganda is rampant and increasingly widespread in the corporate media because patents these days mostly serve large corporations. It’s means of protectionism, not for the ‘small guy’ (as the saying goes) but for any large corporation that loathes fair competition (it’s against shareholders’ interests to have competition).
Like in the Germany-Greece standoff, Japan treats people’s rights as inferior to corporations’ (as if corporations are entitled to rights), based on the Japanese corporate/globalist media (Japan Times). It may be considered extremely shocking a piece of news if it weren’t for how highly Japanese society regards corporate power. One site in Japan said that “The House of Councillors on Friday passed into law a bill to revise the patent law to allow companies to obtain patents on inventions by their employees.”
Remember that most people capable of coming up with a patent are employed by one company or another. So this is further centralisation of patent power, almost abolishing the notion of so-called ‘independent inventors’.
Isn’t that great? More corporate power. We now have ‘trade’ deals whose veiled purpose is deregulation, allowing corporations to even sue governments (ISDS) while perpetually expanding the scope of patents. The war is being waged by oligarchs, who apparently feel as though they deserve more power and money and they use law (lobbying to change it) as their weapon. Everything that stands in their way is, over time, being painted an illegal obstacle, not a safeguard.
“The war is being waged by oligarchs, who apparently feel as though they deserve more power and money and they use law (lobbying to change it) as their weapon.”Watch the jingoism and self glory (or myth) from Robert Kuykendal, who says he “has over 15 patents to his name”. “Protect American innovation” is the title of his new article in the corporate media. It’s of course nothing to do with innovation. It’s about patents. The corporate media likes to conflate the two. Kuykendal says “America (he means the US, not American] has been a global leader in innovation since its founding. One thing that protects and fosters that innovation is the U.S. patent system. Without a strong patent system, these advances may never have happened. From the cotton gin to the light bulb and from the telephone to the smartphone, this remarkable progress must be protected, and a patent system that fosters life-changing innovation does just that.”
This is complete nonsense and revisionism. The light bulb, for instance, was created despite patents, not because of them. It’s well documented a fact (hint: Edison did not invent the light bulb). As for smartphones, they are made and improved in the far East, never in America (the US, Canada, Latin America and so on). Kuykendal is so blinded for his love/lust of patents that he just waves a flag and repeats nonsensical myths.
Patents proponent (for a living) Dennis Crouch now remarks on new patent cases that erode patents (not just Alice). “Constitutional Challenges to IPR Continue” was the titled he chose because the Constitution itself serves to protect people’s interests, partly by design. “IPR” is a propaganda term of patent lawyers and this is where Crouch shows his real agenda. “Respect for property rights has always been a core American principle,” he writes.
There is no doubt about it. The American (US) principle of slave ownership is well documented. There is also ownership of houses and the country (by north European feudalists), but the former assumes ownership of people (a gross concept by today’s standards) and the latter ownership of constructs put together by people (sometimes slaves or wave slavery). What Crouch is trying to insinuate here is that ideas are also ownership (patents) and that therefore “America” (meaning US) should defend people’s claims to ownership of ideas. Clever lie.
“That respect generally means that a government grant of a property rights cannot be cancelled or annulled outside of judicial action,” Crouch continues.
Why does Crouch obsesses over the need to compare patents to “property” or “ownership”? These are nonsensical comparisons. It’s like that infamous “corporations are people” statement (echoed by more than just one oligarch over the years).
Anyway, patent lawyers live in another kind of world, where ideas are to be treated the same way as objects, the US is a continent, and innovation depends on patent monopolies rather than bright immigrants from all around the world (people who immigrated to the US after it had gained independence).
The theme of “trolls” is still dominating patent news (see “New Mexico businesses need patent reform | by Sen. Jerry Ortiz y Pino” and “Patent Trolls and CBM“) meaning that the perceived problem with the patent system is that small actors, not just large corporations, manage to derive money out of it. The latter example says: “For anyone that is interested in becoming a lawyer, or at least thinking about becoming one, may I suggest that you get into patent law…because even in the rough Obama-economy, patent trolls are busy at work and busy is booming.”
Patent lawyers in general would be out of business of this whole concept of monopolising ideas was thrown out the window. “Beware of the patent trolls…the current law doesn’t protect you from them,” wrote David Schachter in the corporate media. What about large patent aggressors such as Apple and Microsoft? Does the law protect from them? Of course not, but we’re supposed to think that it’s fine for large corporations to bully and chase people around because they’re ever so… “innovative”, or “respectable”, or whatever. This status quo is clearly rigged, but not for the reason the corporate media says it is.
More proof that the USPTO is out of touch is this firewall patent example which we cited the other day. The system is surely is out of touch if many years after firewalls were conceived and also implemented, deployed etc. the USPTO hands out a patent on the concept, facilitating litigation by a late-coming opportunist. There is some more coverage of this from a trolls expert right now:
Last month, the EFF faced down a lawsuit claiming that one of its “Stupid Patent of the Month” blog posts illegally defamed the inventor, a patent lawyer named Scott Horstemeyer. Days after the lawsuit became public, it was dropped.
The series hasn’t skipped a beat, though, and the newest edition highlights another serial litigator with a ridiculous patent. Wetro Lan LLC believes that its US Patent No. 6,795,918 covers Internet firewalls, or as it says, a system of “filtering data packets” by “extracting the source, destination, and protocol information” and “dropping the received data packet if the extracted information indicates a request for access to an unauthorized service.”
“This month’s winner is a terrible patent,” writes EFF patent lawyer Daniel Nazer. “But it earns a special place in the Pantheon of stupid patents because it is being wielded in one of most outrageous trolling campaigns we have ever seen.”
There are many problems with the patent system, the least of which is “trolls” or “stupid patents”. The problem is much broader because “trolls” basically means small patent aggressors (leaving aside the bigger aggressors) and “stupid patents” evades the issue of patent scope. The US patent system, more so than other patent systems around the world. permits patents on various domains where patents are demonstrably harming innovation. █
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