"Think about the children!"

Summary: In another desperate effort to construct a compelling if not pressing argument against the USPTO’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) Watchtroll and conservative friends argue on 'behalf of' teens

THERE'S nothing new when it comes to PTAB bashing. It's always the same people and we know what they are after. They want a trolls-friendly USPTO and they also lobby for the UPC along with EPO management (UPC would help patent trolls in Europe). We're talking about sites like Watchtroll and Patently-O, which link to one another's PTAB bashing. They try to create scandals even where none exists.

"They try to create scandals even where none exists."Yesterday, not too shockingly, Watchtroll advised people to withhold facts about patents in order to secure bogus patents. In the founder's own words:

And for goodness sakes, don’t make any admissions! Admissions are unnecessary. Anything you may want to say in order to set up an argument you plan to make later can be argued later without making comparisons or unnecessary statements about the prior art in your patent application.

Admissions, i.e. divulging of facts, would be evil, according to Watchtroll. Sounds about apt, coming from Watchtroll anyway. The site associates with some rather deplorable people, who now construct a new narrative for PTAB. PTAB needs to be curtailed and why exactly? "Think about the children!"

"Admissions, i.e. divulging of facts, would be evil, according to Watchtroll."Watchtroll, which habitually promotes the agenda of patent trolls, is sinking to new lows; it's now exploiting teens (Tesia Thomas) to prop up the ludicrous lobbying illusion that PTAB "kills" inventors. It starts with a word about PTAB ("For the past two centuries before the America Invents Act was passed, patent laws in the United States were strong. There was no America Invents Act, which was created a PTAB to wipe out bad patents and patent trolls."), then the closing words:

My guess is many celebrated inventors would be unceremoniously removed from the Hall of Fame if they were to have their patents reviewed as part of a quality enhancement program the USPTO calls the PTAB.

There are aspects other than age (gender and ethnicity) that are often exploited to construct such arguments. They try to associate patent maximalism with opportunity and diversity. Such nonsense from Watchtroll has become very common. They're incredibly dishonest. How many inventors and startups were saved from trolls owing to PTAB? They don't like to even entertain or discuss such an aspect.

"How many inventors and startups were saved from trolls owing to PTAB?"A few days later Watchtroll was smearing PTAB, yet again, over the meeting of the Patent Public Advisory Committee (PPAC), in which PTAB's head/chief judge dispelled smears against PTAB. We also received some tweets from Watchtroll's friends in which they bashed the judge and the court/board -- an old Watchtroll tradition. One blog of patent maximalists then stated:

Since that time, the Board has continued to utilize expanded panels on issues of importance without changing the underlying result. However, the recent panel stacking notoriety continues to haunt all expanded panel decisions.

Dispelling this perception, the Chief Judge clarified the purpose and framework of expanded panels during yesterday’s quarterly meeting of the Patent Public Advisory Committee (PPAC).

How is an expansion of a panel a negative thing? If anything, it's a positive, but PTAB bashers would climb over themselves just to come up with a perceived scandal. Here comes Dennis Crouch with his PTAB baiting. This is what he wrote:

PTAB says not eligible. Ex Parte Hall, APPEAL 2017-002594, 2018 WL 460997 (PTAB Jan. 12, 2018). The Board’s two step analysis is as follows: (a) the claims are directed to the abstract idea of “rules for conducting a wagering game;” (b) although the claims is tied to physicality, it does not provide “something significantly more than a claim on the abstract idea itself.”

Now they just try the old claim that PTAB does not present actual evidence -- a claim we'll cover separately in another post. In a later post, this one from Friday, Watchtroll attempted to throw another perceived scandal at PTAB. They cherry-pick from several thousands of decisions and always hunt for anything that can somehow discredit PTAB and incite SCOTUS, the USPTO's Director and so on against it. But again, the lowest of low was calling PTAB judges impotent and days ago using voices of teenagers to frame PTAB as a threat to children. ⬆