Bonum Certa Men Certa

Patent Troll: I Am Not a Troll

Like Nixon is "not a crook" and Obama is "not a dictator"

Nixon



Summary: Giving the abusers a chance to defend themselves results in empty denials

Asking a terrorist "are you a terrorist?' has become somewhat of a popular joke. Of course no person would label himself or herself using a self-incriminating term. There is a growing trend now where trolls try to classify themselves as "good trolls" or "not bad trolls" because a crackdown on trolls is seemingly imminent [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] . It is obvious that patent lawyers and companies like Microsoft, which use trolls as litigation/extortion proxies, would weigh in.



"Of course no person would label himself or herself using a self-incriminating term."Following all the recent editorial changes at Slashdot it has not been surprising to see that the site helps reputation laundering of notable patent trolls, leading to Troll Tracker getting influenced. "Talk about jumping into the lion’s den," she wrote, "Jim Logan, founder of Personal Audio of “I’m suing all you podcasters, so git ready!” fame, agreed to participate in a forum on Slashdot."

That was hardly a lion's den, it was used by him to promote his side and it certainly worked based on Troll Tracker, who also cites an inflammatory pro-software patents Web site for patent lawyers, namely IAM 'magazine', perhaps failing to realise where it's all coming from. Regarding Logan, even if you get granted a patent, if all you plan to do is sue other companies and not create something of practical use (or failing at it), then you're a patent troll once you sue empty-handed. Jay Walker falls under this category.

Based on this tweet from IAM 'magazine' (blog), "#Patent privateers look set to become much more active in Europe and do not rule out the emergence of #trolls." With registration required to read the article, it is only possible to judge it by some context.

Over at the Gates-funded Seattle Times, John “Jay” Jurata Jr, who works for Microsoft ("His technology clients include Microsoft," says the disclosure) is getting a platform in which to defend trolls which Microsoft is using:

In investigating patent trolls, the Federal Trade Commission should tread carefully around the benefits of the secondary market for patents, writes guest columnist John “Jay” Jurata Jr.


No, not really. As Pamela Jones put it: "And there you have it, Microsoft would like to be able to continue to outsource its patents, and Nokia's, its little partner, to trolls like MOSAID, who will then go after Google's Android, without putting Microsoft at risk of counterclaims. Google and Red Hat and others have asked the FTC and the DOJ to investigate the antitrust implications of such outsourcing."

Intellectual Ventures, which Slashdot also helped groom, would love that.

What we have here is a systematic campaign by trolls to defend their parasitical business model. This happens right now because the US government is investigating ways to eliminate trolls. As a European-centric site put it: "Federal authorities are making an effort to rein in patent trolls, but the muddled, dysfunctional US patent system makes significant change a long process with chances of success limited.

"By now you’ve probably heard plenty of stories about the excesses of patent trolls, or Patent Assertion Entities as they’re politely referred to in legal circles."

"Nothing in such a reform is ideal, but any step in the right direction would be appreciated."Free software is affected by trolls, even if we don't hear from the victims very often (they don't have marketing people). We covered many examples over the years. Here is the FSF giving exposure to one new case. It says: "Patent trolls are a huge problem for software, as the FSF and Richard Stallman have discussed at length. The solution requires a lot more than litigation or even defense against individual trolls; we need a complete elimination or neutralization of software patents. But on the way to that goal, we do our best to help those like Charles that are being attacked by trolls."

I will discuss this issue on Monday when I meet Stallman in Oxford. Here is a new report on how patent trolls are crushing the developer economy. To quote a business-oriented site (Forbes): "News that Boston University is suing Apple AAPL -0.23% over parts for the iPhone and iPad (the component in question is called “highly insulating monocrystalline gallium nitride thin films”), is one more dull thud of the patent lawyers’ dossier on the smartphone scene. The University already took action against Samsung back in March. But the bigger picture is that companies like Apple and Samsung are encouraging troll-like behavior. It is reverberating seriously on start-ups in the developer economy."

Strafford Webinars are to discuss this issue. It is clear that the problem of patent trolling is increasingly being recognised, but it is drawing attention away from software patenting and the trolls try to warp this debate. Nothing in such a reform is ideal, but any step in the right direction would be appreciated.

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
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
 
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
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