Bonum Certa Men Certa

Oral Arguments in the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) Suggest That the TC Heartland Case Will Likely Crush the Eastern District of Texas, Presently Infested With Patent Trolls

Judge Gilstrap alone may have already caused billions of dollars in damages to legitimate (practicing) companies

Rodney Gilstrap



Summary: Courts of the Eastern District of Texas (EDTX or East Texas for short) might soon have to fold or resize, and the local economy adapt to accommodate something other than patent trolls and aggressors, based on words (questions) heard at the highest courtroom in the United States

MANY eyes are on SCOTUS this week, for it can seriously influence the USPTO as much as it influences the courts. Are patent trolls going to receive one final death blow (not entirely mortal, but enough to weed out most of them)? Two cases currently deal with it, one covered in IAM (with the expected bias, being IAM) and another by MIP yesterday. Behind a paywall, as usual, clues are given that the future of patent trolls in the US seems anything but promising. They might soon be more or less defanged, as their historical preference for East Texas can belatedly come to an end. Natalie Rahhal wrote about "[q]uestions from some Supreme Court justices in oral arguments in TC Heartland v Kraft," saying that these "suggested a desire to overturn the Federal Circuit on patent venue."



As a crucial reminder, the Federal Circuit ruled in TC Heartland that it's fine for trolls to carry on and last month Professor Dennis Crouch said that "TC Heartland doesn’t seem like a case the Supreme Court would hear simply to affirm" but rather to overturn. There is no level higher than SCOTUS, so if SCOTUS says no to East Texas, then it's a big no. The corporate media obsesses over the effect on local businesses, rather than the effect on victimised companies which get dragged into Texan courts that are a sham. Employees lose their jobs over such lawsuits. Entire companies can collapse. The other day we shared the following video:



"Are patent trolls going to receive one final death blow (not entirely mortal, but enough to weed out most of them)?"Yesterday we wrote about LG resorting to the use of patent trolls for legal leverage -- a truly despicable tactic conveniently overlooked by the English-speaking Korean media.

Elsevier, in the mean time, has published this new article titled "Standing Up to the Patent Troll, the Big Bad Wolf of the Patent World" and it's not too flattering to trolls. To quote a part which advocates the America Invents Act:

Regardless of how you define the term “patent troll,” most people agree that such entities are bad news for our economy because they cost consumers and retailers billions of dollars each year. The patent troll is, for lack of a better analogy, the big bad wolf of the patent world, huffing and puffing by suing legitimate businesses for patent infringement. The question that remains is what can be done about them? More specifically, must one succumb to litigating a patent infringement lawsuit in federal court in order to defeat a patent troll? The short answer is, not always. Recently Congress, through its passage of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (“AIA”), provided alleged patent infringers with several tools to invalidate patents outside of U.S. district court litigation. Indeed, in many instances alleged patent infringers can challenge patents in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“U.S. PTO”) using proceedings known as “post-grant proceedings.” Among other advantages, post-grant proceedings are typically less expensive and faster than district court litigation. And if the U.S. PTO invalidates one or more claims of a patent before a district court reaches its decision in a patent troll’s infringement litigation, the patent troll’s district court litigation is likely to end. While there is still much work to be done to solve the problem of patent trolls, Congress’ implementation of post-grant proceedings has restored some of the balance of power between patent trolls and those they allege infringe their patents.


The America Invents Act (AIA) has done so much to improve the US patent system and even invalidate a lot of software patents, thanks in part to Alice (SCOTUS). Patent maximalists are still licking their wounds over it and one of them asks questions like, "How Technical Must an Improvement be to Survive 101?" (via this proponent of software patents)

"Now we just need to stride forward or strive for the end of East Texas as the hotbed of patent trolls and then put an end to trolls once and for all."That's the wrong question to ask. 101 is about "abstract" or not, not "technical" (whatever that means) or not; perhaps the writer conflates that with something of the EPO. Either way, the writer says "[t]he technical nature of a claimed improvement is central to the evaluation of claims under 35 U.S.C. €§ 101. Two recent district court opinions illustrate that whether or not the claims describe an improvement in the functioning of a computer itself can be determinative."

Well, district court opinions barely bear any weight compared to anything from CAFC and SCOTUS, which are both hostile towards software patents in general. Now we just need to stride forward or strive for the end of East Texas as the hotbed of patent trolls and then put an end to trolls once and for all. They are in no way promoting innovation; they suppress innovation. Many of them are being used as proxies of large corporations such as Microsoft in order to taunt and cause damage to their rivals. LG is just one example that we named earlier this week.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Changing One's Name Won't Change One's Past
People who have earned a bad reputation are not magically "entitled" to reset
People Who Assault Women Are Not Victims of "Distress"
It seems like an American tradition. In a country with almost 50 presidents, not even one was a female.
Adoption of Gemini Protocol Still Growing
Gemini Protocol is being obscured by the media - it doesn't help that Google 'hijacked' the word "Gemini" - but people still manage to find out about it, download a client, and use it
Brett Wilson LLP "Takes it Personal" (Character Assassination, Not Professionalism). Everybody Can See That.
On behalf of violent men
Pissing Contests and Pissing Off Everyone
people who came from Microsoft are trying to vex and divide the community
Microsoft Repeats the Mistakes Made by the EPO After We Exposed a Major Microsoft/EPO Scandal 10 Years Ago
That scandal was all over the media, not just in English
 
Ubuntu is Becoming GAFAM-Like
What does that say about Canonical and Ubuntu?
Slopfarms Which Take Real Articles About GNU/Linux and Turn Them Into Copycats Which Are False
Even before the LLM hype those were quite common
The Firm That Picks on Techrights is Accustomed to Working With Criminals
Techrights never did anything illegal. So why is it being picked on by people who work with criminals?
Microsoft Said the Mass Layoffs Were for "Investment" in "AI", But It's Also Laying Off the "AI" and "Copilot" Staff
Months ago we showed many so-called "AI" people were getting the boot and this time it's the same
DryDeadFish is Dead, Long Live DryDeadFish
We kept checking, hoping it can recover from some temporary technical issue
For Quite Some Time Already Microsoft Attracts Crackpots, Scams, and More
Occasionally we talk about the situation at IBM as there are many parallels
Links 14/07/2025: Chatbots Broken Again, McHire LLM Shows Limits of the Hype
Links for the day
Slashdot Media Turned Linux Journal Into a Slopfarm and Now Slashdot Actively Promotes Anti-Linux Slopfarms
Yes, "no-nonsense" apparently means actual nonsense
Links 14/07/2025: Arresting Photographers, Threats to Revoke US Citizenship Over Criticism
Links for the day
More EPO Leaks on the Way
We hope that Mr. Rowan will actually try to refute what we say and show, not merely point the finger at the messengers
Decommodification is a Corporate Strategy Against Communities
systemd is led by Microsoft and hosted by Microsoft
copyleft.org 'Hijacked' by the People Who Attack the Person Who Created Copyleft
So far there's nothing "tasteless" in copyleft.org, but that can change at any time in the future
Asking People to Take Down Articles and Videos Only Makes These More Popular and "Viral"
If you do something bad, one of the worst things you can possibly do it try to silence those who speak about it
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 13, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 13, 2025
Two-Thirds Towards FSF Goal, Richard Stallman to Give Talks in Europe
There are 67 left before reaching the target
Gemini Links 14/07/2025: Politicised Tech and "Leaving GitHub"
Links for the day
The Demise of LLMs
We've just checked BetaNews again. They've dropped all the slop and went back to human authors.
Gemini Links 13/07/2025: Sonpo Museum of Art and FCEUX
Links for the day
Links 13/07/2025: UnitedHealth's Censorship Campaign, Australia Wary of China
Links for the day
Firing Away With Nonsense
Or fighting fire with fire
Links 13/07/2025: Climate Crisis, GAFAM Poisoning the Water
Links for the day
Turns Out LLMs for Code Don't Save Time and Don't Improve Quality
Neither legal nor useful
The Microsofters Will Have an Obligation to Compensate Us
This story isn't just about Microsoft. It's also about corruption, there are many women victims, there is abject "abuse of process", and many more scandals to be illuminated in years to come.
Reproducing at the EPO Instead of Producing Monopolies for Foreign Monopolies With Their Price-Fixing Cartels
Does the EPO recognise the need of well-educated Europeans to bear kids?
Valnet Inc. Dominates Real (Not LLM Slop) GNU/Linux Coverage in 2025
And likely in prior years, too
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Fund Raiser Goes on
Later this month we'll expose another OSI scandal
EPO Staff Representatives Issue a Warning About Staff's Health and Inadequate Care
Even the EPO's own stakeholders (money sources) are openly protesting against what the EPO became
Links 13/07/2025: Partly Assorted News From Deutsche Welle and CBC
Links for the day
Gemini Links 13/07/2025: Board Games and Battle Styles
Gemini Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 12, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 12, 2025
Plunder at the Second-Largest Institution in Europe
cuts, neglect, health problems, even early deaths
Links 12/07/2025: Political Developments, Attack on Opposition, Climate Actions
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/07/2025: Melodic Musings and Small Web July
Links for the day
Links 12/07/2025: Jail in China for Homoerotica, South Korea Discriminates Against Old Workers
Links for the day
If Only Everything Was Rewritten in Rust, We'd Have No More Security Issues?
Nope.
Links 12/07/2025: Birdwatching and Fake/Misleading Wall Street 'Valuation' Figures
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/07/2025: How to Avoid Writing, Apps for Android
Links for the day
Using SLAPPs to Cover Up Sexual Abuse and Strangulation
The exact same legal team of the Serial Strangler from Microsoft and Garrett already has a history fighting against "metoo"
EPO Staff Committee on Harassment in the Workplace
slides
Adding the Voice of Writers to UK SLAPP Reform
The journey to repair antiquated (monarchy era) laws will likely be long
EPO Takes More Money From Staff for Speculation (Pensions), Actuarial Study Explains the Impact
"The key change in this year’s Actuarial Study, due to cascading the new “risk appetite” from the financial study, is a significant increase of the total pension contribution rate of 5.7 percentage points, up to a total of 37.8%. This is driven by an unprecedented decrease in the discount rate of 105 bps down to 2.2%."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 11, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 11, 2025