08.12.17
Pro-PTAB Lobbying Leaves the Patent Microcosm Squirming, Lying
The High Tech Inventors Alliance (members below) promotes the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), which is invalidating a lot of software patents
Summary: The High Tech Inventors Alliance takes another step forward in its defense of the USPTO’s Inter Partes Review (IPR) process (reevaluation of patents at PTAB); the patent microcosm cannot tolerate the views of companies like the above, so quite inevitably a shaming strategy kicks in
AS NOTED in our previous post, PTAB bashing has become EFF bashing. The patent microcosm, i.e. the ‘industry’ of litigation, does not know what to do other than attack PTAB judges. It now attacks actual technology companies, not just their front groups. Not a wise strategy at all…
Watchtroll already attacks PTAB and organises so-called ‘protests’ [1, 2] (patent microcosm under the guise of “US inventors”). It’s laughable! Some might even find it utterly disgusting. Based on the photos, they’ve only managed to gather at most a dozen patent extremists (outnumbered by their placards) to stage a ‘protest’. It’s too pathetic for words. They probably used Facebook — the very same company which strongly supports PTAB — to organise this minuscule anti-PTAB ‘protest’. Imagine the collective laughters.
“The patent microcosm, i.e. the ‘industry’ of litigation, does not know what to do other than attack PTAB judges.”John Thorne, the general counsel of the High Tech Inventors Alliance, wrote for The Hill a few days ago. He described the High Tech Inventors Alliance as “a coalition of top technology companies supporting balanced patent policy and collectively holding more than 115,000 patents.”
“Double checking patents puts exploitative trolls on notice,” says his headline, which precedes an article in defense of patent quality (and PTAB which helps assure that). To quote:
On Friday, a group claiming to represent the nation’s small inventors will demonstrate at the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) building. They will call for an end to the PTO’s Inter Partes Review (IPR) process, a procedure for taking a second look at the validity of patents. Some of the speakers will be genuine small inventors. But behind those little guys will be the big dollars of the biggest big-guy exploiters of the PTO’s missteps and mistakes.
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Consider these facts. Almost 70 percent of this year’s challenged patents are in “high tech,” that is software, hardware and networking technologies. High tech is widely acknowledged to suffer from patent quality problems.
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Over 99.8 percent of all active patents and 82 percent of litigated patents never face an IPR. In all IPR petitions decided through March 2017, the Board began a review of only 47 percent of challenged claims and invalidated only 24 percent. When the Board has handed down a decision on the merits, it has upheld some or all of the challenged claims 65 percent of the time. Furthermore, patentees win before the PTAB on validity issues more often than they do in federal court.
Guess how the patent microcosm is responding to such pieces. It’s just so predictable. Here comes IAM with brain-dead tweets like these [1, 2], basically pretending that the High Tech Inventors Alliance is just Facebook and linking to some article about Facebook — an article which says nothing at all about patents. IAM then says: “Ever wondered why certain BigTech cos are so keen to reduce patent protection in the US? (clue: it has nothing to do with “trolls”) [...] All the big companies named in that WSJ article are prominent lobbyists for further efforts to restrict patent rights in the US.”
“The real (or original) purpose of patents is to help advancement of productive companies…”Notice the language. Techrights member Will Hill responded by saying: “Of course, they confuse privileges with rights. There is no such thing as a “patent right”. Patents are temporary monopolies created by government, ostensibly for some public benefit, not inalienable rights it is futile and tyrannical for government to interfere with. The good of that private benefit should always outweigh the cost of public restrictions, but it clearly does not and the restrictions need to be reconsidered. That’s impossible to see when people are so fundamentally confused about rights.”
Calling patents “rights”, “property”, or even “property rights” (we debunked this before, even back in February 2017 when Patently-O did its typical propaganda) is just so shallow. It is an old trick. Ascribing physical attributes to things that are immaterial concepts is also what they do when it comes to patent applications.
“This is why we can’t have nice things, as the famous saying goes.”The real (or original) purpose of patents is to help advancement of productive companies, even if Facebook is somewhat of a patent bully too. At its core, the patent system is also designed to help protect inventors from productive companies, but trolls are not inventors. Trolls typically prey on inventors (as large productive companies can afford going to court and squash the trolls).
Whether we “like” companies like Facebook or not (I personally hate that company), they actually make something. Unlike IAM, which is a funded lobbying arm of patent trolls and aggressors who make money from litigation alone. This is why we can’t have nice things, as the famous saying goes. Lobbyists like IAM, essentially apologists or advocates for patent trolls.
Our next post will focus on trolls and the growing backlash to them. █
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