Bonum Certa Men Certa

Patent Trolls in the US, Storm of Patent Litigation Expected in China, and Yahoo's Patents (Potentially on Sale) Become Subject of Intrigue

“Along with many other computer scientists, I would like to ask you to reconsider the current policy of giving patents for computational processes.

“There are far better ways to protect the intellectual property rights of software developers than to take away their right to use fundamental building blocks.

“I find a considerable anxiety throughout the community of practicing computer scientists that decisions by the patent courts and the Patent and Trademark Office are making life much more difficult for programmers. ”

--Donald Knuth



Summary: The ugly side of patent systems with little or no quality control, including the resultant chaos, as demonstrated in the United States and soon in China too

THE epidemic of patent trolls in the US is a result of the USPTO granting patents on software as if doubling the number of grants can somehow be achieved while maintaining quality. A lot of patent trolls don't even need to be challenged in courts (which would likely invalidate these patents in this post-Alice era), primarily because their victims -- companies and individuals whom they prey on -- are too poor to afford many months (if not years after various appeals) in a court of law, thus would rather settle by paying 'protection money' to the troll/s. Now there's a 'Mafia economy', motored by the broken US patent system.



Apple, by contrast, can afford to go to court with trolls and based on this new report from Reuters:

A federal judge has rejected another bid by Apple Inc to get rid of a mobile phone patent that a U.S. appeals court said should not have been knocked out of a lawsuit filed by licensor MobileMedia Ideas LLC.

In a ruling on Monday, U.S. District Judge Susan Robinson in Wilmington, Delaware, refused a motion by Apple and its O'Melveny & Myers attorneys to rule on summary judgment that Apple does not infringe the patent or that it is invalid.


Even right here in Europe, despite resistance from the public, patent trolls are already a reality. Over at IAM, patent lawyers now report on patent trolls in Europe (the Openwave troll a.k.a. Unwired Planet, a notorious patent troll of Ericsson). It's a case that's based in the UK rather than Texas and as the lawyers put it: "In 2014 Unwired Planet asserted six of its European patents against the defendants, Huawei, Samsung and Google, which were acquired from Ericsson, in both the United Kingdom and Germany. To date, the judgments for three technical trials in the United Kingdom have been handed down. This article examines the third technical trial. After the technical trials have been completed in the United Kingdom, assuming that the proceedings continue, there will be a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms (FRAND) trial to decide on the licensing dispute."

"Now there's a 'Mafia economy', motored by the broken US patent system."What can be seen here is how a once-practising (and successful) company has turned into a patent aggressor, even if the aggression is carried out by proxies/shells/satellites/trolls. It's highlighting a trend (see IBM for example) and it is highly relevant in light of the news about Yahoo, which got hijacked by Microsoft several years ago. IAM looks at the vocation of its patents, noting: "As a point of comparison he highlighted AOL’s sale of a portfolio to Microsoft for $1.1 billion in 2012 and raised the possibility of a consortium bid a la the Nortel auction. Of course, comparing the value of patent assets today with those of 2012 is a bit like comparing the value of your Florida condo in 2009 with what you paid for it in 2006. You quickly end up with two very different numbers."

Remember what we wrote about Microsoft's buyout of the patents from AOL (after some preying). Microsoft is one of the worst patent aggressors out there, but it typically hides behind shells. IAM believes that China too might be interested in Yahoo's patents, noting: "Could, for example, a company looking to grow aggressively in the US that wants the freedom to operate in a notoriously litigious market be interested? The Chinese internet giant Alibaba might fit that bill and others may not want it to get what Yahoo has. That could drive the price up, but even then it’s hard to see how the portfolio goes for $4 billion."

"It’s a broken system and it will lead to a broken economy where only rogue elements and super-rich actors stand to gain."To quote an article just published, China patent "quality of the protection is so poor that a flood of litigation is bound to result."

"Experts expect flood of litigation as a result of huge numbers of Chinese patent filings and poor quality protection," noted the author in Twitter. As we wrote here many times before, one thing that China has in common with the US is low patent quality, as the goal is quantity, irrespective of the merit/novelty of an application. It's a broken system and it will lead to a broken economy where only rogue elements and super-rich actors stand to gain.

Remarking on the value of Yahoo's patents, another person thinks that it may or may not be in the billions (with a B, not an M) and patent maximalists, citing IAM and the latter, e.g. Daniel Ballard and J Nicholas Gross, whom we mentioned here before (not favourably), say "think these [are] generous + assume perfect monetization of these assets-which is impossible in current judicial climate" (probably Alice).

"Whenever Microsoft attacks Android/Google with patents it acts (towards Linux) like a wife beater being seen by an alibi 'in the action', then stating calmly "it's nothing personal, don't mind what you're seeing here!""The term "perfect monetization" means litigation and extortion. They make it sound so legitimate with their euphemisms, don't they? Just like IAM...

There are other patent boosters who wrote about it. They also cited the Murdoch-owned tabloid and criticised it as follows: "The New York Post reported this week that Yahoo’s patent portfolio could be worth up to $4 billion, as the company is currently seeking bidders in an auction for its core businesses. While the company has not explicitly discussed a separate patent sale, the value of the patent portfolio is likely to be a key factor in any ultimate sale price."

Our main concern is that a Linux foe like Microsoft might try to take these patents, just like it took Novell's. Remember that at least twice (just recently) Microsoft was abusing Google/Android/Linux with patents. That's many times so far this year. Whenever Microsoft attacks Android/Google with patents it acts (towards Linux) like a wife beater being seen by an alibi 'in the action', then stating calmly "it's nothing personal, don't mind what you're seeing here!"

Recent Techrights' Posts

Someone Expiring Certificates on the Day of the 9/11 Attacks is Not Someone I Would Want Controlling My PC (or Deciding What's Authorised for Booting)
"social justice warriors"
More Microsoft-Red Hat Cross-Pollination as the Company Loses a Managing Director
some people move from Microsoft to Red Hat and some do the opposite
 
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part II - UK SLAPPs for Americans, SLAPPs for Profit
Brett Wilson LLP has a track record of this kind
Cloudflare Gives Us All Another Reason to Boycott Cloudflare
If Cloudflare wants to use its vast surveillance network (which is what it does as a CDN) to foist paywalls and maybe something worse (like DRM on top), then Cloudflare should be more widely rejected as a company
Links 24/09/2025: "NASA Moving Out of Entire Buildings as It's Gutted" and Purge of Online Critics (Opposing Fascism Becomes Unlawful)
Links for the day
Science is Under Attack
Oligarchy prefers a dumbed-down population
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Has Reportedly Failed People With Wrong Advice
At the moment the SRA has a PR blunder
The Man Suing Brett Wilson LLP and Gervase de Wilde (5RB)
Now he's probably using the (almost) 200,000 pounds he's supposed to receive to sue Brett Wilson LLP and former colleagues/partners
Slopwatch: A World Wide Web That's Rotting for Companies That Won't Even Exist in a Few Years
some of the junk Google News is promoting
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 23, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 23, 2025
Links 24/09/2025: Qt Creator 18 Beta, Microsoft Cannot Bail Out "ChatGPT" Anymore, China and US Intensify Censorship
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/09/2025: Gemlogs and Politics
Links for the day
Links 23/09/2025: Japan Limits Uses of Skinnerboxes ('Smartphones') With Toxic "Apps", Fentanylware (TikTok) Tapped by "MAGAts"
Links for the day
Brett Wilson LLP Has Just Been Sued (by Their Own Clients!)
Vladimir and Alla Yanpolsky sued Brett Wilson LLP in BL-2025-001167 at the end of last week
Mayday: Optus emergency calling crisis
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 23/09/2025: Massive Data Breach, Slop Versus Productivity, and Vista 11 Update Breaks Things Again
Links for the day
Code of Censorship
Extortion is peace
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has Un-cancelled the Best People, Just in Time for the Big 4-0
Mr. Oliva should have been there all along (since 2019)
Most "Modern" Technology Makes You Slower and Dumber
Because proprietary software makes you worse off
"What Comes After Free Software?" Wrongly Insinuates We've Reached the Goal (Prison is Not the Goal)
The oil tycoons use similar tactics against environmentalists, giving them fake "wins"
Making More Work Space
I learned the hard way that less is more in circumstances where more means distraction
MAHA is a Lie, Public Officials Never Valued Citizens' Health (They Still Value Private Businesses, Their Sponsors)
Reject demagogues
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has a New Press Kit for the Weekend After Next Weekend (40th Anniversary)
miles better than social [sic] media [sic] quips, moderated by narcissists and oil tycoons.
Microsoft Had Two Waves of Mass Layoffs This Month (That We Know of) and It'll Get Worse for Microsoft Soon
Will the axe fall again by month's end?
Gemini Links 23/09/2025: Happy Equinox, Photronic Arts, and Perception Cognition
Links for the day
Lessons We've Learned After 17 Years of American Hosting
GAFAM is "all-in" with the "Trump agenda"
Back to Normal Now, We Plan to Do More In-Depth Series (or Multi-part Stories)
Articles (or series thereof) that contain philosophy are important to us
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 22, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 22, 2025
Microsoft Media is Panicking Amid Mass Layoffs Every Month, H-1B Fees, and "Seattle’s Tech Scene in Trouble"
In "late stage Microsoft", copyleft becomes proprietary
The Next Wave of IBM/Red Hat Layoffs Being Discussed Already
Red Hat is sort of disappearing the way Tivoli did
New Techrights Turns 2
Today starts the third year of the SSG-based Techrights
What Scares Them the Most is Independent News Sites That They Cannot Control and Censor
Wikileaks was a good example of this
If You Don't Control Your Online Platform, Then Someone Else is Controlling You
be (or become) independent
Oracle Started This Year With Slop. Then It Stopped.
Passing fads are like this
Distros That Run on PCs Made 20 Years Ago and Don't Use Systemd
Betas for now
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Has a Policy on Racism and Sexism
In then future we'll show the misogyny and racial slurs
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part I - Abusing British Women on Behalf of American Men Who Abuse American Women
Transparency is important to us, so we've decided to make this series
Slopwatch: Google News and the Evident Slopfarm Infestation
This is what people get about Linux when they query Google for Linux
Links 22/09/2025: Murdochs Might Join Fentanylware (TikTok) 'Investors' (Masters), United Kingdom Recognises Palestinian Statehood
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Esperanto Music History and Apps For Android
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: More American 'Censorship' (Retaliation for Journalism), Cheeto "Might Be Losing His Race Against Time"
Links for the day
The Blob Slop
Give me more words, give me some text
The 50-Pound Note Experiment and the "War on Cash"
Britain is actually seeing a rebound in cash payments, and it's not a temporary phenomenon
Slopwatch: Blaming the Victims for Microsoft's Failures and Plagiarising Phoronix
That's what Google has been reduced to: slop and slopfarms
Links 22/09/2025: Breaches, Windows TCO, and Arrests
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Rabbit Hole and DeGoogling Fairphone
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: Russian War Planes Invade NATO Airspace While Dihydroxyacetone Man Escalates Attack on Free Speech Because of Critics
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 21, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, September 21, 2025