08.18.21
Gemini version available ♊︎U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Has a Deep Revolving Doors Crisis (Former Officials Cashing in as Lobbyists and Private Sector Actors)
Video download link | md5sum b06283f14c6f1dc5efcf02251ea30c45
Summary: Conflict of interest? Sure. Even worse: revolving doors. How USPTO Directors benefit from the job well after their time in the Office, occasionally lobbying for the very firms that they came from in the first place.
THIS Web site has long focused on EPO scandals and as a result of that we’ve written more about the status of European software patents while mostly ignoring 35 U.S.C. § 101 since 2019 (when Andrei Iancu crafted new workarounds to bypass Alice/SCOTUS and weaken the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) by rejecting more inter partes reviews (IPRs)).
“A reader of ours who is a GNU/Linux user and patent applicant (not software patent) looked more closely at what’s happening, noting along the lines that USPTO services seem to exclude GNU/Linux users (only clients of Microsoft and Apple are accepted).”It has since then been pointed out that Mr. Iancu is attracting patent trolls as clients* , even just months after leaving the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). So he’s exploiting his time inside the Donald Trump regime; now he’s cashing in. But he would not be the first one. Under Obama we saw the same thing (two people appointed as USPTO Directors — the latter of whom, who supported PTAB, is now being sued by some crackpot).
The former one (in Office for longer) comes from IBM and he’s on Microsoft’s payroll too, lobbying for software patents. A reader of ours who is a GNU/Linux user and patent applicant (not software patent) looked more closely at what’s happening, noting along the lines that USPTO services seem to exclude GNU/Linux users (only clients of Microsoft and Apple are accepted).
This same reader wrote to us about “Action in US Senate”. Last week he sent us this lengthy report of his [PDF], noting: “If you look at page 7 in the Report on the USPTO I sent you a few months ago – new copy attached – you will see that, a few years ago, Senator Capito got the Inspector General involved in my fight with the USPTO, and they lied to her. I’ve been in touch with her again, and she is going to contact them. Might be interesting, given that they lied to her once, and I have a lot more information.”
“RT reports today that some Senators are going after Apple and Google. Might be a good sign. Maybe they will be in the mood to go after Microsoft, as well. Believe it or not, I found that David Kappos is a partner in something called Partnership for Public Service. Funny as hell, right?”
“He’s also at the Cravath law firm in New York, a pretentious 200-year-old law firm in New York that portrays itself as an enlightened and progressive law firm. Funny them having Kappos.”
“I did some research into the Microsoft lobbyists in Washington. They are really really trying to portray themselves as liberal and progressive. They all think they are such wonderful people, and so lucky to have Kappos.”
As we’ve noted here before, Microsoft and Bill Gates are in fact right-leaning and nationalist types. They just know how to hide that when it suits their financial agenda (depending on the current political atmosphere and regime).
Our reader said: “They have a Black man and a Jewish man involved in civil rights (his LinkedIn page shows the Edmund Pettus Bridge, famous sight of civil rights battle in the 1960′s) [and] I’ve been sending e-mails and letters informing them about Kappos, and about how he corrupted the Patent Office for IBM and Microsoft. Microsoft owns LinkedIn, and I had a few mysterious views on my LinkedIn page, so maybe they are trying to figure out who I am, what to do with the problem I am trying to create for them. Might get interesting. Never know.” █
______
* As Expose Patent Troll recently put it: “Given all that, this other bit of news is also concerning. It centers on VLSI’s firm of choice, Irell & Manella. We all knew that former United States Patent Office Director Andrei Iancu rejoined Irell & Manella after stepping down from the USPTO. We’ve written about Iancu before and how his changes to the patent system played to the interests of patent troll plaintiffs. Now, word is that—fresh off of making a ton of money litigating in Western Texas on behalf of VLSI—Irell is expanding its footprint . . . there’s an office coming to D.C. . . . and only Irell knows where it will expand to after that. Boy howdy. For all the patent trolls out there, and for firms like Irell, there’s lots of money to be made in Waco.”
ᶃ Gemini Space
This post is also available in 
Content is available under CC-BY-SA