Judge Bans The Term 'Patent Troll' -- And The History Of Patent Sharking...
from the not-in-my-courtroom dept
As I've mentioned in the past, I'm no fan of the phrase "patent trolls," though it sometimes does serve a useful purpose. It does seem unnecessarily biasing -- and without a clear definition many people jump to the use of the phrase when it's really not appropriate. Thus, it should come as little surprise to hear that a judge (in East Texas, of course) has told a defendant he may not refer to the plaintiff suing him as a "patent troll." This actually is quite reasonable for a variety of reasons. Obviously, the term has extremely negative connotations without a clear definition, opening it up to serious misuse. Also, there isn't anything illegal about being a patent troll anyway (yet). It is bad for innovation and it's bad for the patent system -- but the reason such actions are so popular is that, for the most part, they are perfectly (if ridiculously) legal. With that in mind, focusing on name calling clearly isn't the best way to get out of the lawsuit. Still, it is rather amusing that things would reach such a level that this would even merit a judge ruling on the term.Speaking of what to call folks who buy up dormant patents and then use them to sue actual practitioners, a friend just sent me a fascinating research paper looking at an eerie parallel to patent fights in the 19th century, when so-called "patent sharks" (seriously) bought up a bunch of dormant patents on farm equipment and then went around suing farmers who were unknowingly infringing. Yes, the similarities are striking. In fact, the parallels go even further. Right before this happened, there had been some changes in what the patent office considered patentable (just as business models and software have only recently been considered patentable). Also, other industries outside the farm equipment industry fought back to prevent any real patent reform from being enacted -- just as others outside the tech industry are now fighting against today's patent reform. Based on all of this, the paper recommends that history teaches us the way to get rid of patent trolls is the same way that the government got rid of patent sharks: get rid of the patents they prey on -- meaning (in this case) getting rid of software and business model patents.
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Filed Under: east texas, patent troll
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Fair enough
Although, I do disagree on one point. About there not being a clear definition of what a patent troll is.
For example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_troll
This gives a very clear picture of what is considered to be a patent troll, and is the first place a large percentage of people would look for such a definition.
I'm not going into the whole Wikipedia debate, but if it is drawn up this clearly on such a mass-used site, I would consider that a definition.
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Re: Fair enough
In short, Wikipedia's definitions are rarely considered "official" documentation of anything, and thus, are unfortunately unlikely to be taken seriously in a courtroom.
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Re:
If the judge was tired of hearing the term 'patent troll' in his courtroom he can order the people involved to stop using the 'slanderous' term in his presence.
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OK...fine
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Re: OK...fine
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To Chris
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That being said, a patent on a business model is not a good idea. Software probably could be covered via copyright, but not sure if that improves anything.
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seriously.
oops, did I just infringe on your right to be illiterate?
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Cease and Desist order
Thank you,
Mr. Shark, ESQ
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Not that simple, dude
I almost forgot that this is techdirt when I started to read your post - the first part is entirely reasonable.
True, the term "patent troll" is being applied to pretty much each and every non-manufactoring plaintiff in patent cases.
That means that everyone without a manufactoring facility in China is a troll, or will become a troll shortly when his domestic manufactoring business becomes unprofitable
(I am talking about high-tech here, you know "Proudly designed by Apple in California, Made in China" ipoddish type of things...)
Besides, the man who came up with this "patent troll" nonsense, Peter Detkin, is now a troll himself, a megatroll, I should say...
But the second part of your post speaks volumes about your ignorance...
Dude, I am no fan of patents on "one-click" etc. but you just can't eliminate "software" patents because they are impossible to define.
Any definition will just lead to an enourmous legal loophole taking down a huge chunk of (hardware) semiconductor patents and countless other fields.
It is equivalent to the complete distruction of the patent system.
Just read this FAQ:
http://www.ipjur.com/01.php3
This is as close as you can get to the truth.
And it was written by a real lawyer, BTW, not a techdirt junky...
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Re: Not that simple, dude
"On the other hand, the primary source of value of a computer program is its behaviour or functionality, not its text."
The primary source of value in a program like Excel or Word or any accounting package is not any fancy algorithms that were invented to make it work but in the grunt work of generating millions of lines of relatively error free code that someone took the time to write.
If we are going to have a real debate about the extent to which algorithms or programming ideas should be patentable, if at all, then we are going to need something much much better than the article you link to.
On the main point raised by the Techdirt article:
I wonder if the Plaintiff or its lawyers have been referring (as Mr. Riley and angry dude routinely do in these cases) to the Defendant as a "thief" who has "stolen" the Plaintiff's property. If so, then the Defendants should be permitted, if they so choose, to use the appropriate reciprocal term and refer to the Plaintiff and its lawyers as "extortionists" who are trying to "shakedown" productive, successful companies.
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the legal basis for the term troll
for those of you unfamiliar with the case, the gruff brothers (tree of them) mr. troll sought to exact a toll for crossing a bridge that for which his property rights were unclear.
not only was the patent case thrown out of court, mr troll was also thrown off his bridge and into the creek by the eldest brother gruff.
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Is 'Judicial Troll' a legit term now?
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Sorry Joe, you are not qualified in this area
"The primary source of value in a program like Excel or Word or any accounting package is not any fancy algorithms that were invented to make it work but in the grunt work of generating millions of lines of relatively error free code that someone took the time to write."
Come on, Joe,
Don't you realize that you simply can't write a crap like MSWord without someone first doing all the necessary preparatory work, a lot of it,,
like coming up with all those sorting and hashing algorithms, linked lists, object oriented programming, compilers, GUI elements, etc .etc. etvc.
Who did all of this work ? MShit and Billy Gates ?
Guess not
They only hired a bunch of code monkeys to make them a few billions
Better yet, expoit all those open-source junkies to write your valuable millions of junk code for free, as IBM does
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Re: Sorry Joe, you are not qualified in this area
like coming up with all those sorting and hashing algorithms, linked lists, object oriented programming, compilers, GUI elements, etc .etc. etvc.
I know that there are a whole body of standard programming tools that are used, which are all old (and many were old before I started programming in 1973) and were in the public domain from the start. To say that the value resides in those standard building blocks and not in the finished product is a bit like saying that value in Shakespeare's MacBeth is in the phrase "damn spot" and not in the work as a whole.
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What is wrong with trolls
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"troll" is too mild
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Re:
I am a monster with a big hairy dick
Bend over, little jim, i'm gonna f*** your remaining little brains out
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