Justice Department's Top Terrorism Prosecutor Goes Patent Troll
from the sad-state-of-affairs dept
We've certainly had our issues with the way the Justice Department has dealt with certain terrorism "threats" -- specifically with its "thwarting" of its own bomb plots, and ridiculously amateurish attempts to create informants, who often made situations worse, not better. However, assistant attorney general for national security, David Kris, generally had a very good reputation, and a history of standing up to his bosses when he thought they were going too far -- earning admiration even from those who normally disagree with the DOJ. So it was a bit of a surprise to many people to see him step down after just two years on the job.And while his expertise was supposedly in national security law, and you could see how that could be put to good use in private practice, instead it appears that Kris has decided to go patent troll. He has joined uber patent troll, Intellectual Ventures as its new General Counsel... just as the company has finally started suing companies for not agreeing to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to gain protection from its giant patent portfolio. While I certainly didn't agree with Kris on many of his positions, pretty much everyone agreed that he was really smart and thoughtful on a lot of these subjects. It seems that having his talents go to the world's biggest patent troll in an effort to disrupt innovation by putting a toll on it is a huge waste of talent that could have been put to productive, rather than destructive, use.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: david kris, national security, patents
Companies: intellectual ventures
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
OR maybe I'm just a little crazy.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
All about the money
I doesn't matter how smart you are when it comes to law, if your offered a deal you cant refuse it would be stupid to pass it up.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: All about the money
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: All about the money
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: All about the money
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: All about the money
Actually, society will benefit because the large patent ripoff companies will have to start buying patents they use. inventors will prosper instead of being driven into bankruptcy. There will be fewer paid bloggers fronting for disreputable large corporations.
Think of IV like Chemo. Big companies will be sick as hell while the poison kills off the malignant parts but if it does not kill them they will be better off.
What is funny about this is that these companies are being sickened by their own poison.
Once the companies are cured they will buy all those patents themselves. They will have a very good reason to out bid IV.
Ronald J. Riley,
President - www.PIAUSA.org - RJR at PIAUSA.org
Other Affiliations:
Executive Director - www.InventorEd.org - RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow - www.PatentPolicy.org
President - Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (202) 318-1595 - 9 am to 9 pm EST.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: All about the money
IV buys patents.
Poisons the patent pool.
Companies incentive is to buy patents.
Poisons the business pool.
**Missing a few steps**
Cured?
How the hell does that make any sense. How the hell is any business (notably start-ups) intend to break into any market where there's enough sustainable demand with this model?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: All about the money
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: All about the money
What's the price tag on your self respect?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: All about the money
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Ha! I'm guessing you've never looked at the dreck that IV has patented. It's the opposite of what you say. So much of it is ideas already in the public domain that they've locked up.
We've pointed to multiple studies that have shown the supposed "disclosure" aspect of patents does not work. Relying on that as a defense of IV is sad and a statement from a position of ignorance.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Mike Masnick Not Qualified To Comment On Patents
Mike,
Surely IV's dreck is far more inventive than anything you have done. There is no question that Nathan P. Myhrvold is orders of magnitude smarter that you. The difference in intellectual capacity is so great that you are incapable of grasping it. On one hand we have a thinly veiled PR hack and on the other a genius.
Ronald J. Riley,
President - www.PIAUSA.org - RJR at PIAUSA.org
Other Affiliations:
Executive Director - www.InventorEd.org - RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow - www.PatentPolicy.org
President - Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (202) 318-1595 - 9 am to 9 pm EST.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Mike Masnick Not Qualified To Comment On Patents
Just making sure we are all keeping score!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Mike Masnick Not Qualified To Comment On Patents
they are smarter then though.. check
appeal to antithesis and believing both are true for an Orwellian spin(in example "It's the opposite of what you say"... check
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Mike Masnick Not Qualified To Comment On Patents
Ronald J. Riley,
President - www.PIAUSA.org - RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director - www.InventorEd.org - RJR at InvEd.org
Washington, DC
Direct (202) 318-1595 - 9 am to 9 pm EST.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Mike Masnick Not Qualified To Comment On Patents
Not that you will ever provide one, of course.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Mike Masnick Not Qualified To Comment On Patents
The difference in intellectual capacity is so great that you are incapable of grasping it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Mike Masnick Not Qualified To Comment On Patents
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Mike Masnick Not Qualified To Comment On Patents
We shipped a new batch of Electrified Monorail controllers a few weeks ago. They became a worldwide standard. Some of the systems are over twenty years onld now and they are still working well.
Ronald J. Riley,
President - www.PIAUSA.org - RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director - www.InventorEd.org - RJR at InvEd.org
Washington, DC
Direct (202) 318-1595 - 9 am to 9 pm EST.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Mike Masnick Not Qualified To Comment On Patents
Don't patents expire in 20 years?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Mike Masnick Not Qualified To Comment On Patents
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Mike Masnick Not Qualified To Comment On Patents
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Is IV more ethical than TechDIRT?
We have an epidemic of big companies building their fortunes based on intentional serial infringement of others inventions. The thieves like to talk about "patent trolls" to mask the fact that they are committing larceny on the grandest of scales.
As a result of their counting on people not being able to defend their patent property rights and the difficulty of an inventor being able to draw investors to pay for them to defend their property rights those companies have intentionally left patents which they should have acquired on the market.
Capitalism always fills market opportunities. Anyone with any common sense understands this. It is hard to blame Intellectual Ventures for stepping into a market opportunity which patent pirating large companies maliciously created.
I am not a fan of Intellectual Ventures (IV). I believe that they do not give inventors a fair shake. But it is a fact that they do treat inventors better than the companies who whine about patent trolls who gave them nothing. All these companies need to do to stop their litigation problems is to buy the patents they need before using them. If they started buying all the patents Intellectual Ventures would wither and die.
Working for IV is most certainly more honorable than working for any member of the Coalition for Patent Piracy & Fairness (a trade association of serial infringers and asset thieves).
Ronald J. Riley,
President - www.PIAUSA.org - RJR at PIAUSA.org
Other Affiliations:
Executive Director - www.InventorEd.org - RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow - www.PatentPolicy.org
President - Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (202) 318-1595 - 9 am to 9 pm EST.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Is IV more ethical than TechDIRT?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Is IV more ethical than TechDIRT?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Is IV more ethical than TechDIRT?
Now that is funny. TechDIRT presents a subset opinions, just those which they like as facts. Then they build sham arguments around their pseudo facts. Isn't this the essence of what PR hacks do?
Logical analysis is wasted in TechDIRT. It goes to show how a herd of TechDIRT lemmings are less than the sum of their parts.
Ronald J. Riley,
President - www.PIAUSA.org - RJR at PIAUSA.org
Other Affiliations:
Executive Director - www.InventorEd.org - RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow - www.PatentPolicy.org
President - Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (202) 318-1595 - 9 am to 9 pm EST.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Is IV more ethical than TechDIRT?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Is IV more ethical than TechDIRT?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Are you a MLM?
Is this like a MLM?
Patents are a small businesses best friend. You use them to protect your market while building a brand. After the patents expire the brand gives you additional protection.
Without the patents some Chinese company knocks off the design and you have nothing of value.
Utah is a state of mostly small business,something Sen. Hatch does not seem to understand or care about. There are many invention based small businesses in Utah. Virtually all of them have much higher profit margins than those who are reselling commodity products made in China.
Ronald J. Riley,
President - www.PIAUSA.org - RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director - www.InventorEd.org - RJR at InvEd.org
Washington, DC
Direct (202) 318-1595 - 9 am to 9 pm EST.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Are you a MLM?
Your doing your job right if there is somebody starts doing it elsewhere. And btw the appeal to the anti-thesis of China will kill my successful business (assuming you entered the market on something marketable) is a flat out self delusion based in fear of the unknown, fear of the knockoff, fear of highest form of flattery? LMAO. Ignorance isn't a faithful friend.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Are you a MLM?
No one is denying that patents help the profit margins of those who hold such patents, that's what monopolies do. But there is almost no evidence that they promote the progress.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Are you a MLM?
The Chinese seem to be perfectly innovative without patents. The U.S., on the other hand, doesn't seem to be very innovative. I see little evidence that they copy us, in fact, most of the evidence suggests that we copy the Chinese and the Japanese a lot more than they copy us. Look at most of the newer medical (and other) technology, most of it is being developed outside the U.S. in case you haven't noticed. Very little gets developed in the U.S. anymore and most of what does get developed often benefits heavily from tax funding.
Others will likely independently come up with those same ideas without you and often have come up with them before the patent holder. Your problem is that you can't compete without the government giving you an unearned, unlevel playing field. You don't want to Chinese and others to out innovate you so your solution is to use litigation to stop them from innovating.
If the Chinese et al can sell a better product than you and outsell you then you deserve to go out of business. Offering a better product at a cheaper price is what innovation is all about. Preventing them from doing so through litigation doesn't advance innovation, it only hinders it by allowing you to make money on a product that would have been obsolete a long time ago had it not been for broken laws preventing competitors from providing a better product and innovating.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]