Bonum Certa Men Certa

Illegal Software Patents and Patent Trolls Well Served by European and American Patent Offices But Not Courts

“As for a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities.”

--Charles Darwin



Summary: Patent offices are departing from the rule of law; first it was the EPO and now it's the USPTO under Donald Trump's appointees, chosen based on nepotism

THE previous post alluded to EPO President António Campinos and his promotion of software patents in Europe (the European Inventor Award 2019 made such patents a contender for an award). But the EPO never speaks of or uses the term "software patents"; even "CII" is gradually being deprecated in favour of buzzwords like "4IR" and "AI". Yesterday the EPO wrote: "Day one was rounded off by #SearchMatters first panel discussion. A lively expert debate and really interesting questions from the audience tackled the issue of AI future developments in the context of #patent searches"

When the EPO says "AI" (as in this case) it means illegal software patents -- so in essence it leverages buzzwords to break the law, or to violate the EPC.

Here's another EPO tweet from yesterday: "The next opportunity to visit the EPO will be in Munich. If you want to know more about the EPO's approach to #artificialintelligence"

Two things to point out here: 1) "AI" does not make software patents acceptable. They break/violate the law, EPC and beyond (caselaw included). 2) Guests at the EPO are subjected to illegal surveillance, so why visit? The EPO's violations of domestic and international laws have always gone unpunished.

Meanwhile, a vocal patent attorney (Kalis) says that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) "Affirmed Several AI Learning Patent Applications..."

He means software patents (which 35 U.S.C. § 101 trashes) disguised using buzzwords like "AI" for a fake sense of 'novelty'. "Over the Past 24 Hours," he adds, "the PTAB Posted a Lot of New Decisions. They Have Reversed a Lot of Examiners' 101 Rejections and Affirmed Several AI Learning Patent Applications. Scroll down for the decisions. They are Posted in Several Groups."

Among the examples: "The PTAB Affirmed a 101 Rejection of Machine Learning Claims in an AI Patent Application: https://e-foia.uspto.gov/Foia/RetrievePdf?system=BPAI&flNm=fd2018005866-04-03-2019-1 …"

"AI" nonsense again. Even at PTAB...

"Patent Trolls want to destroy PTAB & 101 so they can issue all the Software Patents they like," a critic of software patents wrote this week.

This is part of the trend, where PTAB is the equivalent of the EPO's Boards coming under attack. This attack has been 'harmonised' along both sides of the Atlantic. The Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) also participates in this attack. Yesterday Watchtroll published under the headline "Iancu: USPTO Guidance Gets 101 [35 U.S.C. § 101] Right; Time for Courts to Follow Suit..." (American Battistellism)

Actually, the vast majority of public comments (submitted to the USPTO) said it was wrong. The USPTO nowadays has its own Ajit Pai, however, so he is lying about public input. Almost all the comments received by the USPTO disagree with him, but here he is trying to tell courts what to do.

In addition, Watchtroll (which he's close to) still issues personal attacks on PTAB judges all the time. That's because trolls dislike justice (it stands in the way of their extortion). Benjamin Henrion quoted Iancu from the above (which we prefer not to link to directly): "In the end, all three branches need to be rowing in the same direction on something like 101" (which translates [to]: "we need a law to make software patents great again," as Henrion put it).

Also published on Wednesday by the EFF's Alex Moss was this update about patent troll Uniloc:

Patent owners shouldn’t be allowed to keep basic facts about their patents secret—especially when they initiate litigation in courts, which are presumptively open to the public. Uniloc is one of the worst examples of such a company: it doesn’t make any products, but sues lots of others that do. Then, it hides its licensing agreements while demanding fees from hundreds of other companies that make products supposedly covered by the patents in their vast portfolio. But those secretive tactics may finally be coming to an end: a federal judge has ruled, for the second time, that Uniloc must unseal documents about how it licenses its patents.

In 2018 alone, Uniloc filed more than 170 patent infringement lawsuits against a wide array of technology companies that make products we all use. EFF has fought repeatedly for the public’s right to access court documents in patent cases, and we moved to intervene in Uniloc v. Apple—where Apple is arguing that Uniloc doesn't have the right to sue—because the basic facts of patent ownership should not be shrouded in secrecy.

At an earlier hearing on Apple’s motion to dismiss Uniloc’s whole case, Judge Alsup called out Uniloc’s wildly improper sealing requests, saying, “There is no way this deserves to be under seal." He then denied all of the sealing requests, and gave Uniloc a short time to appeal before making the documents public. We hoped that would change Uniloc’s approach to sealing, and afterwards, the company did file public versions of some of the sealed documents. But it still sought to hide information that there was no basis to seal, like the names of companies they had licensed. So EFF renewed its motion to intervene and opposed Uniloc’s motion for reconsideration.


An author from a patent maximalists' publication said (quoting the above judge): "Judge Alsup unloads: "Patent holders tend to demand in litigation a vastly bloated figure in 'reasonably royalties' compared to what they have earned in actual licenses. ... There is a public need to police this litigation gimmick via more public access." https://www.almcms.com/contrib/content/uploads/documents/403/16984/Uniloc-v.-Apple.Alsup-motion-on-reconsideration1.pdf …"

Uncensored Alsup: patent holders are charlatans and frauds. Who other than Iancu defends the trolls? The other Trump appointee, Makan Delrahim. Appointed by the same con man who appointed Iancu (from the firm that used to serve his business). What a "swamp". As Josh from CCIA put it yesterday: "Delrahim again on his “exercising your patent rights should never be an antitrust violation” while completely ignoring the context—when you’ve made commitments as part of an industry-wide coordinating agreement, it can be an antitrust violation to fail to uphold them."

There's a toxic state of affairs when the officials in charge are in the pockets of patent trolls and law firms rather than science and technology. This is the case both in Europe and in the United States (under Trump).

Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsoft's Demise in the Global News Cycle is Rather Telling
It should be noted that Microsoft is, in general, no longer prominent or dominant in news headlines
 
Upcoming Talk by Dr. Richard Stallman: Large Language Models Are Not Artificial Intelligence
LLMs aren't truly intelligent and cannot quite grasp what they spew out
GulagTube is a Burning Platform (Exit YouTube, Invidious Won't Save Us From Google/Alphabet in the Long Run)
Alphabet Agency (Google) sees the future of video as a "skinnerbox" (running Android) that indoctrinates you like TikTok does
Fulfilling the Site's Full Potential
We remain devoted to the aforementioned goal of posting more original material
GNU/Linux Distributions as "Appliances" and DRM Platforms (the Case of ChromeOS and SteamOS)
Is this what we envisioned in the 1980s and 90s?
Gemini Migration and Backup Capsule (Archive)
At the end we'll end up with something a lot better than before and latency should be massively reduced
Links 01/10/2023: Science, Education, and pro-Russia Slovakia Leadership
Links for the day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 01, 2023
IRC logs for Sunday, October 01, 2023
Links 01/10/2023: Climate, Patents, Programming, and More
Links for the day
Apple and Microsoft Problems
half a dozen links
Malware in the Ubuntu Snap Store, Thanks to Canonical Bloatware Mindset
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Gemini Rising
There are 3523 capsules
Richard Stallman Gave a Talk Yesterday, Will Give Another Talk Today, and Will Give Two More Talks in Germany Later This Week
Those cover at least 2 different topics
Beware the Microsoft Sharks
We won't forgive and forget
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, September 30, 2023
IRC logs for Saturday, September 30, 2023
Don't be Afraid of the Command Line, It Might Even be a Friend
There's a tendency to think that only graphical interfaces were made to simplify usage, and any declarative interface is by design raw, inherently unfit for usage
One Positive Note About GNU/Linux Coverage in 2023 (Less Microsoft)
GNU/Linux users do not want this, with very rare exceptions
Snaps Were Never Good at Security, But the Media Coverage is Just Appalling
The media should focus on culling Windows, not making a huge fuss over minor things wrongly attributed to "Linux"
Better Footage of Richard Stallman's Talk Last Week: “Freedom in computing, forty years after starting to really protect it”
Richard Stallman speaks about the cancer situation early in his speech
Links 30/09/2023: A Government Shutdown and More Blizzard Layoffs
Links for the day
Links 30/09/2023: Bing Almost Offloaded Due to Failure/Losses, Nvidia Raided
Links for the day
A Lot of Technological 'Progress' Has Been Nothing But Buzzwords
Free software does not try to excite people people over nothing
Community is the Lifeblood of Freedom in the GNU/Linux World
Removing or undoing the "cancerd" (systemd) is feasible but increasingly difficult
Proprietary Software: Here Today, Gone Tomorrow
Proprietary software has an entirely different mindset, revolving around business models rather than science
Web Hostnames Down to Lowest Number in More Than 7 Years!
the number of hostnames is falling rapidly (they hide this by choosing logarithmic scale)
Over at Tux Machines...
2 days' worth
Richard Stallman Says He Will Probably Live Many More Years
"Richard Stallman has cancer. Fortunately it is slow-growing and manageable follicular lymphona, so he will probably live many more years nonetheless. But he now has to be even more careful not to catch Covid-19."
Quitting 'Clown Computing' and GAFAM is Only the Start
The Web and the Net at large became far too centralised
Stop Begging Companies That Don't Value Your Freedom to Stop Pushing You Around
That's not freedom
They Say Free Software is Like Communism When They, the Proprietary Software Giants, Constantly Pursue Government Bailouts (Subsidies From Taxpayers)
At the moment Ukraine is at most risk due to its dependence on Microsoft (inside its infrastructure)
Social Control Media Has No Future, It Was Always Doomed to Fail (Also Promoted Based on Lies)
Recent events, including developments at Twitter, meant that they lost a lot of their audience and then, in turn, sponsors/advertisers
The forbidden topics
There are forbidden topics in the hacker community
They're Been Trying to 'Kill' Richard Stallman for Years (by Mentally Tormenting Him)
Malicious tongue wanted to do him what had been done to Julian Assange
We Temporarily Have Two Gemini Capsules
They're both authentic and secure, but they're not the same
Consumerism is Lying and Revisionism
We need to reject these liars and charlatans
Links 30/09/2023: Open VFS Framework, CrossOver 23.5, Dianne Feinstein Dies
Links for the day
Security Leftovers
GNU/Linux, Microsoft, and more
Microsoft Down on the World Wide Web, Shows Survey
down by a lot in this category
IRC Proceedings: Friday, September 29, 2023
IRC logs for Friday, September 29, 2023
A Society That Fails Journalists Does Not Deserve Journalism
It's probably too later to save Julian Assange as a working publisher (he might never recover from the mental torture), but as a person and a father we can wish and work towards his release
Almost Nothing To Go With Your Morning's Cup Of Coffee
Newspaper? What newspaper?