Bonum Certa Men Certa

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Under Andrei Iancu Subjected to an Assault on Patent Quality

Even scholarly journals are being 'infiltrated' by the litigation giants

Andrei Iancu



Summary: Donald Trump has let the litigation industry 'govern' itself at the USPTO; all it has accomplished so far is even greater divergence between USPTO determinations and those of actual courts (which means that the USPTO does not follow the law, there's a state of lawlessness)

THE USPTO isn't coping with demand for patent quality. Instead it's trying to cope with demand for patents; the more, the merrier?



Emulation patents by Sony have been mentioned a lot on Sunday [1, 2, 3] and Apple patent propaganda sites which treat every patent from Apple like it's the digital "second coming" celebrated a patent application on user interface navigation just a few hours ago. It sounds like another bunch of software patents ascribed to a "device". What gives? When will we see a patent office that prioritises public interest rather than massive corporations like Sony and Apple? Who does this office really serve? It obviously doesn't help that its new Director comes from the litigation 'industry'.

"It obviously doesn't help that its new Director comes from the litigation 'industry'."We don't suppose patent lawyers like Techrights and we're fine with that. We don't try to collectively or personally insult them, we just make our observations based on the premise that patents were created (came into existence centuries ago) for the purpose of science, not just the purpose of litigation. Some patent lawyers are honest people -- sometimes honest enough to the point of abandoning the occupation. Some people go the other way. Our general advice to patent lawyers, especially in the current climate, is get a real job, people, create something rather than "facilitate litigation" with threatening letters and legal attacks that are costly to both sides (those who actually create things). World Intellectual Property Review published the following some days ago:

Baltzer’s practice focuses on patent litigation in the fields of biotechnology, electronics, and data processing systems.


Many data processing systems are purely software-defined now, hence the underlying patents would be software patents. How about this from World Intellectual Property Review (same day more or less)? It's about a man who used to write software but nowadays attacks (or contrariwise defends) coders with/from patent litigation through his new employer. Who needs this nonsense? "He has more than two decades of experience in patent law," it says, "having spent 16 years at Seed IP and five years at Perkins Coie. Before practising law, he worked as a software engineer for six years."

So he moved from actually creating software to litigating over software. What a failure.

"So he moved from actually creating software to litigating over software. What a failure."Unfortunately, many people out there think that this is acceptable. They're being brainwashed. Here we have "Recent U.S. Court Decisions and Developments Affecting Licensing" by John Paul and D. Brian Kacedon. Patent maximalists from Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner LLP are writing 'scholarly' papers by which to push their agenda, which is financial (lawsuits). So even journals, not just the media, get taken over by the litigation 'industry'. Over at Washington Law Review, which one might expect to target lawyers, another evidence of such a thing emerges. “Legislators and industry leaders claim that patent strength in the United States has declined,” they claim, but this is nonsense! Those ‘industry’ ‘leaders’ are law firms that want more lawsuits!

Guess who wrote this paper; it's law firms pushing 'scholarly' papers loaded with lies. It's Steven Udick (Skiermont Derby LLP) helped by Gregory Day (University of Georgia - C. Herman and Mary Virginia Terry College of Business). They suggest "Offshoring Patent Law" in their title! As in sending it to Iancu or law firms' interests? Letting the executive become legislator too? From the abstract:

Legislators and industry leaders claim that patent strength in the United States has declined, causing firms to innovate in foreign countries. However, scholarship has largely dismissed the theory that foreign patents have any effect on where firms invent, considering that patent law is bound by strict territorial limitations (as a result, one cannot strengthen their patent protection by innovating abroad). In essence, then, industry leaders are deeply divided from scholarship about whether innovative firms seek out jurisdictions offering stronger patent rights, affecting the rate of innovation.


This is just think tank-type propaganda disguised as academic paper. Check the authors' affiliation. Things have gotten so bad that these law firms not only dominate public/private forums but also the media (Web, TV etc.) and literature. Patent Docs has just advertised another 'think tank' of the Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO), a front group that lobbies the above people for software patents. Patent Docs also mentioned this from the USPTO:

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office will be offering the next webinar in its Patent Quality Chat webinar series from 12:00 to 1:00 pm (ET) on October 9, 2018.


A "Patent Quality Chat" (all capitalised) does not ensure quality; it's like Battistelli's "Working Party on Quality," which is a "Ministry of Truth"-type of façade.

Patent quality is something that the USPTO under its new Director does not care about; he actively tries to lower quality, seeing that the number of granted patents declined this year (not just the number of patent lawsuits). Guess by which yardstick lawyers measure their "performance", unlike judges?

Recent Techrights' Posts

Certificate Authority Let's Encrypt Has Almost Gone Down to Zero, Nearly Totally Extinct in Geminispace, the Few Capsules Still Using It Are Spam/Dead/Stagnant
This represents another decrease for Let's Encrypt; the last decrease was last week
Trying to Silence Techrights Was a Huge Mistake
Peter Thiel attacked a publisher for asserting, correctly, that he was gay. Now everyone knows it.
 
Gemini Links 07/09/2025: Scanner, Slop, and Chadobear
Links for the day
The UEFI 9/11 is 3 Days Away
Nobody denies that bad things will happen
Google Versus Journalism
Google played a big role in the demise of news sites
Gemini Links 07/09/2025: Advertising, Decentralized Archival, and Outsourcing to Bezos
Links for the day
Not Much Left in News Cycles
To be very clear, this does not describe "Linux" anything; it's true in just about every facet of news, except the paid-for fake "journalism" about "hey hi" (sites getting paid explicitly to maintain or rekindle hype)
Throwing Away "Old" Computers (Mozilla and Other Climate Deniers)
Mozilla is not leftist
The UEFI 9/11 - Part VIII - Denial of Service and Selling Us WSL (Windows) Instead of "Risky" (Prone by Breakage by Microsoft) GNU/Linux
Restricted Boot (so-called 'SecureBoot') does not improve security. It is nothing but trouble. It's meant to trouble non-Windows users. In dual-boot setups, SecureBoot is a recipe for disaster because Microsoft keeps erasing or tampering with the boot sector, to paraphrase an associate
Slop is Extremely Rare in Geminispace, Slop Images Are Unheard Of (Despite Images Being Supported)
As long as Geminispace grows in terms of domains it's safe to predict the protocol will still be used in 2029 and hence Geminispace will turn 10
Links 07/09/2025: Robodebt Class Action, Fines, and Copyright Settlement
Links for the day
Links 07/09/2025: Yle Impersonated in Social Control Media, Boat-Attacking Orcas, Midjourney Sued Again
Links for the day
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Linux Journal, and the Serial Slopper
Google won't tackle the issue because Google participates not only in relaying slop but also in generating lots of it
Links 07/09/2025: Google Fines in EU and "Your Internet Access Is at Risk"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/09/2025: Little Brother and Corporate Theatre
Links for the day
Links 07/09/2025: More Harms of Slop and Anthropic's Nightmare Scenario (Huge Legal Liabilities for Slop)
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, September 06, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, September 06, 2025
Microsoft Sites Now Talking About September's Mass Layoffs at Microsoft
It's noteworthy that even Microsoft's MSN now covers the latest revelations about mass layoffs
Gemini Links 06/09/2025: SpellBinding Moving and "The Cloud" Ridiculed
Links for the day
Slopwatch: On "the Apology Industry", Chatbots (Punchbag for Customers), and Fake Articles About "Linux"
"news reporting priorities changed"
Links 06/09/2025: "Covid Incidence on the Rise" and Many Attacks on the Press Worldwide
Links for the day
The Register Bill
The Register MS - putting the "MS" in your centre of the universe
Analogies for "Memory Safety" in Rust
Don't worry, it's Rust! It can do anything!
Nobody Denies That SecureBoot Will Cause Problems After September 11
Not even Microsoft
Gemini Links 06/09/2025: Infinite Scrolling and Posting from Emacs
Links for the day
Links 06/09/2025: GitHub Meltdown Over Slop, "U.S. Jury Says Google Should Pay $425 Million in Privacy Lawsuit"
Links for the day
Despite Its Severe Financial Problems Gnome Foundation Inc Paid Rosanna Yuen Over 100,000 Dollars Last Year
maybe relocation should be considered
The "Left" and the Right"
It poisons everything
Mozilla and Rust Are Not Leftists
they're part of the mass consumerism machine
Disposable to Microsoft
There is an extensive set of people who got used by Microsoft, only to be thrown away a month later or a year later or a decade later
The UEFI 9/11 - Part VII - This Coming Week Many PCs Will Refuse to Boot "Linux" (Because of Microsoft's Expired Certificate)
The real solution is, disable "secure boot" or "SecureBoot" while it's still possible. [...] Just like submarine patents, a lot of this problem was "hibernating" for a while
The Thing Nobody in Red Hat Wants to Talk About Openly
There is a real sentiment or worry among Red Hatters, Europeans and Americans in particulars (because of higher salary expectations)
Slopwatch: Small Parade of Fake News About "Linux" and Scams Borrowing the Name (or Word) "Linux"
In practice, LLMs are a risk
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, September 05, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, September 05, 2025
Genini Links 05/09/2025: Community, ROOPHLOCH, and PITkit
Links for the day
Links 05/09/2025: Vaccine Sceptics Poison the Well, Two Exploited Vulnerabilities Patched in Android
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/09/2025: Logitech Lift and DIY Gemini Servers
Links for the day
Links 05/09/2025: Sainsbury's Caught Spying on In-Store Shoppers and Microsoft "OpenAI is Using Legal Threats to Harass its Critics"
Links for the day
BASIC Predates Microsoft by Over a Decade, Microsoft-Controlled Sites Like The Register MS Don't Want You to Know This
The state of the media is really bad when it relies a lot on oligarchs' money and is appointing editors who are working for oligarchs
Brian Kernighan, "Only Third to Dennis Richie and Ken Thompson" (UNIX), Agreed With Someone Who Said Rust Was Just Hype, Should Not Replace C
17 hours ago
Reminder: Microsoft's "Secure Boot" Certificate for "Linux" Will be Expired in One Week
Many PCs won't manage to 'rotate' to another certificate
"Many of the Red Hat Employees Are Still Looking for Work"
Shame on IBM's CEO
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, September 04, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, September 04, 2025
Microsoft Started With Code Literally From The Trash, Nothing Has Improved Since
The reality is, there are systems and code that are reliable. But they're not Microsoft's.
Hypothesis That New McKinsey/Microsoft Executive Inside Red Hat Will Outsource Research and Development Operations to India (Like They Do in IBM)
IBM is floundering
Slopwatch: Scams, Fake Articles About "Linux", Plagiarism, and Worse
Perhaps some time soon the LLMs or the "Big LLMs" will run out of money (to borrow) and go offline, leaving those slopfarms in a tough place