Bonum Certa Men Certa

Makan Delrahim is Wrong; Patents Are a Major Antitrust Problem, Sometimes Disguised Using Trolls Somewhere Like the Eastern District of Texas

Lobbyists are becoming officials under the Trump administration

Makan Delrahim
Reference: Wikipedia



Summary: Debates and open disagreements over the stance of the lobbyist who is the current United States Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division

ON SUNDAY, a day throughout which some patent blogs are still active (more on that later), Patently-O spoke again about the Department of Justice. "Delrahim explained his general position," he recalled, "that patent holders rarely create antitrust concerns."



This is a lie. It's so much of a lie that even Patently-O disagrees. These remarks from Delrahim aren't new and IAM already commented on these from a trolls' perspective.

"This is a lie. It's so much of a lie that even Patently-O disagrees."It's worth noting that Patently-O then alludes to right wingers (so-called 'Conservatives' or 'Libertarians') and lobbyists associated with the Kochs, as promoted recently by IAM (we wrote about this letter some days ago). To quote: "Sweeping in now to buffer Delrahim’s position are a group of libertarian scholars and others (including David Kappos and Judge Michel) who have offered their competing letter."

To suggest that these patents don't (or rarely) pose antitrust-type threats is ludicrous. Look how Microsoft blackmails the competition using patents. Cisco, which is a patent bully, is doing the same to a small rival nowadays. The financial press has just noted the devastating effect of these actions.

"So how can one be so blind to antitrust aspects? How can one overlook the fact that some large companies also use trolls to 'punish' their competition? It's not too hard to see."Japan/JPO, which we recently wrote about in relation to patents in standards, also seems to understand that patents are a barrier to fair competition in many cases. See this new blog post from Japan IP.

So how can one be so blind to antitrust aspects? How can one overlook the fact that some large companies also use trolls to 'punish' their competition? It's not too hard to see. Some of them retreat to the Eastern District of Texas*. The trolls' favourite courts facilitate that ("Flexuspine had sued Globus for infringing patents covering spinal implants in the Eastern District of Texas," Finnegan noted the other day). ___________ * It rapidly changed after TC Heartland however; this upcoming webcast will speak about "[l]itigation Strategies against NPEs" (trolls) and "[v]enue after TC Heartland". There's also this new court decision regarding venue challenge (when an accuser drags you to a state you have nothing to do with because of mere allegation of patent infringement). To quote:

The court denied intervenors' motions to sever and transfer plaintiff's actions against them for improper venue because intervenors waived venue through their intervention.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Ensuring That Every Computer User Anywhere in the World Can Take Control of All His or Her Computers
We must fight the people who attack general-purpose computing, in particular those who push this agenda very aggressively inside Linux
What Happened to the Open Source Initiative (OSI) Elections: The Purge, the Cover-up, and the Witch-hunts
OSI has gone "full Microsoft"
 
Gemini Links 28/04/2025: Autism and Structural Navigatio
Links for the day
In 24 Countries Observed by statCounter Vista 11 is Still Less Than a Quarter of Windows Users Despite All Other Versions Being 'Expired'
They ought to move to GNU/Linux
Links 27/04/2025: Pope Goodbyes, "Politics of Fear", Slop Redux and More Google Shutdowns (Google Debt Had Grown This Year)
Links for the day
Links 27/04/2025: Serenity Dialectics, Hockey Jersey Ethics, and More
Links for the day
Links 27/04/2025: Death of Nest Thermostats, Death of Metaverse
Links for the day
Links 27/04/2025: Projects Workflow and Discovering Technology
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, April 26, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, April 26, 2025
Microsoft Isn't on the Map in USSR
To them, it's either Google or Yandex
In Central America Windows Became a Small Force
These are countries where Windows used to have well over 95% of the "market"
What's Very Vexing to GAFAM, EPO and Others Is That It's Incredibly Hard to Censor Us (and Nobody Ever Successfully Did That Before)
resist, do not capitulate
Site May be Even Faster Now
It basically takes less than a tenth of a second to serve the page
Receiving SLAPPs and Collecting Them Like Trophies (the SLAPPs Always Fail)
People who file lawsuits bring even more attention to themselves (or to embarrassing statements about them)
Year of GNU/Linux on the Laptop?
It's not happening only in Lenovo
What People Must Understand About the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
some facts about the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
Many of the Scandals Are Interconnected (Overlapping People and Corporations)
We're only getting started
More Copyright Lawsuits Against LLM Slop Providers and Suppliers of LLM Slopfarms Would Benefit Society
It's not just bad for the Web and for society; it's also legally dangerous
Links 26/04/2025: General Assassinated in the Town of Balashikha, US Promoting Seafloor Mining
Links for the day
Links 26/04/2025: Facebook Layoffs Again, Remembering What's Real, and Say No to Mass Surveillance
Links for the day
Links 26/04/2025: NOAA Budget Cuts and "Dog Days Ahead"
Links for the day
In defence of JD Vance, death of Pope Francis
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Three Years in Prison for Disney Employee’s ‘Menu Hacking’: The Economic Fallout of Digital Menus
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, April 25, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, April 25, 2025