Bonum Certa Men Certa

Patents Roundup: Packet Intelligence, B.E. Technology, Violin, and Square

ViolinSummary: The latest stories and warnings about software patents in the United States

IN another defeat for software patents, Erise has just declared "big victory against patent troll" and to quote the only report we've found about it (so far): "Packet Intelligence owns U.S. Patent No. 6,651,099, which is named "Method and Apparatus for Monitoring Traffic on a Network." The company used this patent to prosecute patent applications against 275 issued patents..."



We have been hearing many stories like this recently. Patent trolls, equipped with software patents, quickly perish in courts. If not the first time, then the second time (higher court). Sometimes the patents get invalided before they even reach any court at all. The patent trolls' lobby, which includes Watchtroll, has just been moaning about software patents being rightly invalidated by PTAB. Here we have Watchtroll defending a troll. saying that the "Memphis, TN-based B.E. Technology, L.L.C., filed a suit alleging claims of patent infringement against Google in the Western District of Tennessee, asserting claims from two patents owned by the company."

Guess what happened. PTAB trashed it all. Good riddance, no matter who initiated the case and how wealthy the defendant is (Watchtroll obsesses over the wealth amassed by Google in order to create sympathy for the troll). The last paragraph has nothing to do with the story at all. That's just Watchtroll trying to influence a SCOTUS case and solicit lobbying. To quote: "All of this may soon change after the U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments in Oil States Energy Services, LLC v. Greene’s Energy Group, LLC on November 27th. The case will decide whether the PTAB acts in violation of the U.S. Constitution by extinguishing private property rights in a non-Article III forum without a jury. Whether the Supreme Court decides that the PTAB acts in violation of the Constitution, many patent owners hope the Supreme Court will at a minimum acknowledge that the PTAB works consistently to the detriment of patent owners in favor of efficient infringers."

Anyone who has watched this long enough (the subject of this case and SCOTUS) can easily tell that Justices will defend PTAB, maybe even unanimously. But Watchtroll would cling onto anything at this stage. The patent microcosm has grown so feeble in recent years and Watchtroll just attacks judges and officials more often than it actually covers something exclusively. It's an embarrassment for a lobbying body.

In other news, yesterday we learned about a bankrupt company, Violin, stating: “We are filing for 45 patents."

So suddenly they have money? And what for? Trolling the NVMe market? One can imagine where this is going...

To quote the article:

“There are no precise dates we can give,” he said. “We are filing for 45 patents.

“We’ve got our own SSD technology and we will not abandon leadership in IOPS and latency.”


The word "technology" rather than gear or software is often suggestive of paperwork. We shall see what they do next, but it doesn't look too promising. Patents are expensive to pursue and they already ran out of cash; are patents really their priority?

Another item that caught our eye in yesterday's news is this report about a financial surveillance firm known as Square. It seems to have not much left to it momentum-wise, so now it's hoarding software patents:

Since the payments company was founded in 2009, Square has filed 712 patent applications and obtained 221 patents. But between July 2016 and June 2017 alone, the company filed 144 patent applications and obtained 80 of those patents.


"We believe that a good IP program is targeted at fostering innovation all around and not at stifling creativity or competition," they said. That's just marketing talk. People don't end up spending millions of dollars on patents for "fostering innovation all around," they either use these patents or sell them. So will Square sue bigger firms that have a much larger share in this market (e.g. Apple, Samsung, Google)? That remains to be seen...

Speaking of finance, Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP's Michelle Tyde and Jason D. Gardner have just published this article titled "Becoming a Unicorn Fintech by Shoring Up Intellectual Property"

Aside from the fact that they are saying "Intellectual Property" and promoting -- by mention -- evil Black Duck, the positive thing is that they break it down to meaningful items: "IP assets, such as patents, technical know-how (including software and other technology), trade secrets, copyrights, licenses, trademarks, and data, are assessed by sophisticated purchasers and investors..."

Those are very different things. Lumping it all together under "IP" is undesirable as that leads to misjudgment. Here is the part about Free/Open Source software:

Many software engineers and developers use open source software or incorporate such software into their work in developing products or technology. But the use or incorporation of such open source software by a fintech company can lead to ownership, licensing, and compliance issues for a buyer. In particular, some open source licenses require any user modifying and distributing the open source software to make its source code generally available to other users and to license its software to third parties under the same terms as the open source license. Buyers usually want representation and warranty that no open source or similar software has been incorporated into any of their software or products as they want to be able to exclusively use the fintech company’s technology. Thus, open source issues could become a deal killer.


When has that actually happened? When did alleged violation of the GPL, for example, undermine a company's takeover/VC? This is more FUD than anything...

Either way, to their credit, they do not promote the illusion that software patents are worth pursuing. Because they aren't.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Nonfree Software in My Bank, by Richard Stallman
Updated 8 hours ago
Richard Stallman is Usually Right Because He Thinks "Outside the Box"
he is able to observe society (mores and norms) as somewhat of an outsider
 
Another Failed Use Case for Chatbots (LLM): Legal Advice and Analysis
They're just some self-discrediting toy that costs way too much to operate
Links 29/07/2025: More Pushbacks Against Slop and More Praises of Tom Lehrer
Links for the day
Gemini Links 29/07/2025: Purple Yarrow and Understanding Op Amps
Links for the day
This Monday WebProNews Absolutely Flooded the Web With Fake (LLM Slop) 'Articles' About "Linux", Google News Promoted Them as Legitimate
All of the following are fake articles attributed to pseudonyms or authors that don't exist; the images are also slop. Why does Google promote these?
Linuxiac is Not a Slopfarm, But at Least Some of Its Articles Are Machine-Generated Fakes
what we said about it was correct
Expect More Microsoft Layoffs
"Are more job cuts coming?"
Microsoft Behaving Like It's Running Out of Money to Pay Salaries
Does that seem like the behaviour expected from a company which claims it is "worth" trillions?
LWN Downtime Due to Linode, Not LLM Bots
"I’ve received an email letting me know that there is a potential for data loss."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 28, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 28, 2025
Links 28/07/2025: Science, Health, and Conflicts
Links for the day
Gemini Links 28/07/2025: Healthy Self-Image With Autism and a "New Life"
Links for the day
Links 28/07/2025: COVID-19 Sped up Brain Aging, "Circumvention is More Popular Than Compliance"
Links for the day
LWN Has Been Down for a Long Time, Another Casualty of LLM Bots?
Time will tell. How much time though?
Slopfarms Versus 'Linux' (and Against People Who Write Real Articles About GNU/Linux)
LLM slop in slopfarms by Brian Fagioli and Redazione RHC
Gemini Links 28/07/2025: Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray and Running pkgsrc in a FreeBSD Jail
Links for the day
Microsoft Turns News Sites Into Spamfarms
Is the site The Register MS the next IDG?
The Register MS/The Register US
On Saturday I contacted them for a comment (before issuing criticism)
Hacking revelations at Vatican Jubilee of Digital Missionaries
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 27, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 27, 2025
The Week to Come
Planning ahead
LLM Slop Has Only Been a Boon for Misinformation Online
The very same companies that were supposed to maintain quality (again, not limited to Google with PageRank) are now actively participating in generating and spreading slop
When They Tell You It's Free, Does That Mean No Charges (If So, Who's Paying and Why)?
there's "no free lunch"
We're Going to Focus Less on the Molotov Cocktail-Throwing Microsofters and More on Patents
We can get back to focusing on what we wanted to focus on all along
Just Trying to Keep Web Sites Honest (Journalistic Integrity)
the latest articles in LinuxIac are real
Links 27/07/2025: Political Affairs, Data Breaches, Attacks on Freedom of the Press
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/07/2025: Hot in Japan and Terminal Escape Codes
Links for the day
Links 27/07/2025: More Microsoft Layoffs Coming, Science and Hardware News
Links for the day
Links 27/07/2025: FSF Hackathon and "Hulk Hogan Was a Very Bad Man"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/07/2025: DAW Mixer Chains and Simple Software
Links for the day
The Register MS is Inventing or Giving Air Time to New Conspiracy Theories so as to Distort the Narrative As High-Profile Agencies Fall Prey to Microsoft Holes
But the problem is holes, i.e. Microsoft making bad products; the problem is Microsoft
Most Editors at The Register Are American, Including the Editor in Chief, a Decade-Long Microsoft Stenographer (Writing Prose to Sell Microsoft)
It's not easy to tell where the site is based (we tried) because it's hiding behind ClownFlare and CrimeFlare hasn't been well lately
Pushers of systemd Rewrite History (Richard Stallman Said UNIX "Was Portable and Seemed Fairly Clean")
Unlike systemd
"New Techrights" Soon Turns 2 (A Few Days Before the FSF Turns 40)
We have a lot more to say about LLM bots
When Silence Says So Much
Garrett, a 'secure' boot pusher, will need to defend himself in the UK High Court
The Register in Trouble
There is not much that can be done at this point
Trajectory of The Register: From News Site/s Into "B2B"... and Into Microsoft Salespeople
Something isn't right at The Register
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 26, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 26, 2025
Misinformation in Social Control Media
Social control media passes around all sorts of tropes
Slopwatch: Fake Linux 'Articles' and Slopfarms With "Linux" in Their Names/Domains
throwing bots at "Linux" to make some fake articles