02.19.18
Gemini version available ♊︎Makan Delrahim is Wrong; Patents Are a Major Antitrust Problem, Sometimes Disguised Using Trolls Somewhere Like the Eastern District of Texas
Lobbyists are becoming officials under the Trump administration
Reference: Wikipedia
Summary: Debates and open disagreements over the stance of the lobbyist who is the current United States Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division
ON SUNDAY, a day throughout which some patent blogs are still active (more on that later), Patently-O spoke again about the Department of Justice. “Delrahim explained his general position,” he recalled, “that patent holders rarely create antitrust concerns.”
This is a lie. It’s so much of a lie that even Patently-O disagrees. These remarks from Delrahim aren’t new and IAM already commented on these from a trolls’ perspective.
“This is a lie. It’s so much of a lie that even Patently-O disagrees.”It’s worth noting that Patently-O then alludes to right wingers (so-called ‘Conservatives’ or ‘Libertarians’) and lobbyists associated with the Kochs, as promoted recently by IAM (we wrote about this letter some days ago). To quote: “Sweeping in now to buffer Delrahim’s position are a group of libertarian scholars and others (including David Kappos and Judge Michel) who have offered their competing letter.”
To suggest that these patents don’t (or rarely) pose antitrust-type threats is ludicrous. Look how Microsoft blackmails the competition using patents. Cisco, which is a patent bully, is doing the same to a small rival nowadays. The financial press has just noted the devastating effect of these actions.
“So how can one be so blind to antitrust aspects? How can one overlook the fact that some large companies also use trolls to ‘punish’ their competition? It’s not too hard to see.”Japan/JPO, which we recently wrote about in relation to patents in standards, also seems to understand that patents are a barrier to fair competition in many cases. See this new blog post from Japan IP.
So how can one be so blind to antitrust aspects? How can one overlook the fact that some large companies also use trolls to ‘punish’ their competition? It’s not too hard to see. Some of them retreat to the Eastern District of Texas*. The trolls’ favourite courts facilitate that (“Flexuspine had sued Globus for infringing patents covering spinal implants in the Eastern District of Texas,” Finnegan noted the other day). █
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* It rapidly changed after TC Heartland however; this upcoming webcast will speak about “[l]itigation Strategies against NPEs” (trolls) and “[v]enue after TC Heartland”. There’s also this new court decision regarding venue challenge (when an accuser drags you to a state you have nothing to do with because of mere allegation of patent infringement). To quote:
The court denied intervenors’ motions to sever and transfer plaintiff’s actions against them for improper venue because intervenors waived venue through their intervention.
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