Bonum Certa Men Certa

Patents Roundup: Patent Trolls, Patent Reform, IAM's Willful Ignorance, PTAB Paranoia, and Long Briefs

Underwear



Summary: A look at patent news from the United States, focusing primarily on patent trolls or software patents (the trolls' weapon of choice)

Trolls' Antics Spreading



"ServiceNow (NOW) stock rose Tuesday," said this article, "with word out that it might be able to settle some of its patent litigation with privately held BMC Software, avoiding a trial scheduled to start Friday."



"The cost of going to trial (plus all the appeals which typically ensue and moreover the duration which casts doubt and uncertainty) is greater than just settling."This is what very often happens when it comes to software patents. The cost of going to trial (plus all the appeals which typically ensue and moreover the duration which casts doubt and uncertainty) is greater than just settling. That's what gave rise to a lot of what's now known as "patent trolls", even though large companies with actual products do the same thing (our next post will deal with Microsoft, which even created a troll-like entity called “Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC”).

Patent Reform in the US



"In his Patently-O Patent Law Journal essay," says this post, "James Daily reports the results of his investigation into the signatories to these open letters [regarding patent reform that focuses on patent trolls]. He finds, inter alia, that the signatories of the second letter are (1) more likely to be donors to the Republican Party and (2) more likely to be registered patent attorneys."

"Republicans often stand for (or support) what's good for large corporations, which also get represented by patent lawyers (hence they 'trickle down' money to them, at the expense of everybody else)."This is expected, but receiving a reminder that reinforces these expectation can be helpful. Republicans often stand for (or support) what's good for large corporations, which also get represented by patent lawyers (hence they 'trickle down' money to them, at the expense of everybody else).

IAM Doesn't Know What "Trolls" Are (Follow the Money)



Why do we still see so many patent trolls in the US? Why does the EPO's management want to bring them over to Europe with the UPC? And why do friends of the EPO's management (sites like IAM) take money to promote the UPC and to soften the image of trolls? Follow the money. It's not hard.

"It's pretty obvious that the Eastern District of Texas is friendly to trolls."Consider this new article from friends of software patents who are also receiving money from patent trolls (and whose "Editor in chief" does not know how much money is being paid to by sponsors). Whenever they write about patent trolls they manage to not even to mention the word "troll" (because it might offend IAM's parent company, as it's paid by trolls). Here's the latest example which says that "as Congress waits, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) is set to tackle one of the most controversial aspects of patent infringement cases in the US - the thorny topic of venue shopping. Almost all sides of the reform debate can agree that it is not healthy in any legal system for a disproportionately large number of cases in any field to be heard by just one court and for one judge to hear so many. Last year, according to Lex Machina, 2,540 patent cases were filed in the Eastern District of Texas - 43.6% of the total suits brought in the US. Of those, 1,686 were filed with Judge Rodney Gilstrap. Regardless of Judge Gilstrap’s judicial skills, that lack of plurality does not paint the US patent system in a good light."

Amazingly, the article does not say a thing about trolls. Astonishingly, they miss the strong correlation between the Eastern District of Texas, patent trolls, and even software patents.

“U.S. Supreme Court refused Monday to rehear arguments from Pi-Net International Inc., which saw its Federal Circuit appeal in a case against JPMorgan dismissed after it used formatting tricks to hide the fact the appeal brief was too long.”
      --Law 360
"Of course," they added, "if the CAFC or Congress does severely stymie patent plaintiffs’ ability to bring cases in East Texas we might finally see whether patent owners flocked there not because the courts gave them such an easy hearing, but because it’s the only place in which they have been able to get a fair hearing."

It's pretty obvious that the Eastern District of Texas is friendly to trolls. It even openly advertises this, as covered widely in the press just weeks ago. How could IAM miss this crucial fact?

Fear of PTAB



The Intellectual Property Owners Association, which is essentially a lobbying group of the super-rich (not just any holder of patents), is trying to demolish previous reforms that introduced a court known for eliminating a lot of software patents, especially post-Alice. There is also the article "Fed. Circ.'s [CAFC] Embrace Of PTAB To Fuel More AIA Reviews", which related to what we wrote two days ago.

Patents Keeping the Price of Ink Sky-High



To understand the wider impact of patent maximalism look no further than the Lexmark story, which continues to be the subject of lawyers' analyses, e.g. [1, 2, 3, 4] in recent days.

Too Much Work? Inadmissible!



We couldn't help but notice this new article which says that the "U.S. Supreme Court refused Monday to rehear arguments from Pi-Net International Inc., which saw its Federal Circuit appeal in a case against JPMorgan dismissed after it used formatting tricks to hide the fact the appeal brief was too long."

A lot can be said about this, either about the cheeky lawyers who disguised the length of the brief or the court which judges based on the number of words (rather than merit).

Recent Techrights' Posts

Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
 
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October