03.10.18
Gemini version available ♊︎IAM Only Ever Seems Happy When There’s Patent Aggression and Patent Trolls
Summary: An analysis of IAM’s output from this past week; it’s yet more of that litigation lobbying, slanted in favour of aggressors and trolls, as usual
THE “troll-boosters”, as Professor James Bessen calls them (having done years of research into patent trolls in the US), aren’t exactly objective. They say virtually nothing about EPO scandals, they viciously attacked the USPTO‘s Director after she had reformed things (later to be replaced by a patent microcosm person, Mr. Iancu), and their joy is derived from patent lawsuits. Research does not interest them (they gleefully bash it instead) and they also focus on whitewashing trolls. They do reputation laundering even for massive trolls like Intellectual Ventures, which they treat like celebrities.
“Research does not interest them ([they gleefully bash it instead) and they also focus on whitewashing trolls.”This Saturday we prefer to focus on the US; as we noted in our previous post, the US Senate is cracking down on the scam perpetrated by Michael Shore, whom IAM crowned “IP personality of 2017″ back in January. Makes one wonder what kind of people IAM adores; many of the others in this list, as we noted back then, are patent trolls.
A couple of days ago IAM published this sponsored (ad) “international report” about the scam. To quote:
The panel determined that, regardless of whether tribal immunity applies to inter partes review proceedings, the proceedings “can continue even without the Tribe’s participation in view of Allergan’s retained ownership interests in the challenged patents” (page 4). Dispensing with executed documents such as assignment agreements recorded with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) while simultaneously stating that they are not commenting on whether the agreements constitute a “sham transaction”, the panel went so far as saying that “the proceedings can continue because Allergan is the true owner of the challenged patents” (page 19). It cited a Federal Circuit ruling where a “party that has been granted all substantial rights under the patent is considered the owner regardless of how the parties characterize the transaction that conveyed those rights” (Speedplay, Inc v Bebop, Inc (211 F3d 1245 (Fed Cir 2000))).
To IAM’s credit, it hasn’t gone to the extremes Watchtroll oftentimes does; as we’ll show later, Watchtroll is back to attacking judges at PTAB. It’s pretty ugly. There are even racist cartoons of judges. IAM has never, as far as we can remember, attacked judges. It attacks other things though.
“To IAM’s credit, it hasn’t gone to the extremes Watchtroll oftentimes does; as we’ll show later, Watchtroll is back to attacking judges at PTAB.”The patent trolls’ lobby, IAM, wrote this “exclusive” puff piece regarding the acquisition of many patents by InterDigital (at a rather low price point!), a publicly-traded patent troll. It then wrote a similar puff piece regarding Uber.
Last but not least, the patent trolls’ lobby was cheering for software patents-based aggression, as expected all along (IAM was a major booster of this strategy of BlackBerry for a number of years). They’re eager to see more of it:
Now Blackberry has embraced monetisation, the only question is who follows Facebook as a licensing target
[...]
The lawsuit that Blackberry filed against Facebook alleging that the social media giant and its subsidiaries WhatsApp and Instagram infringe seven of its patents shows one thing very clearly: the Canadian company is deadly serious about IP monetisation.
Ever since it realised that its best days as a device maker were behind it and turned its attention to the possible value in its patent portfolio, Blackberry has been busy knuckling down to make its patents sweat.
As if that’s what patents are for? Making them “sweat”?
“From what we’re able to gather in social (control) media, IAM is primarily boosted (links, likes, retweets) by patent trolls and their affiliates such as patent attorneys.”We wrote about this lawsuit some days ago and there’s still a lot of articles about it (must have been hundreds in English by now and moreover everyone I speak to seems to know about this lawsuits already). It still receives some new coverage, e.g. [1, 2].
To better understand IAM look at its funding sources (subscribers, event sponsors etc.) and remember that it’s not really a news site but lobbying disguised as “analysis”, “blog”, “international report”, “industry report” and so on. From what we’re able to gather in social (control) media, IAM is primarily boosted (links, likes, retweets) by patent trolls and their affiliates such as patent attorneys. They get their money’s worth. █
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