New Bill Would Stop Patent Trolls From Hiding Behind Shell Companies
from the about-time dept
We've talked in the past about how patent trolling operations love to use shell companies to hide who actually owns the patents. Intellectual Ventures has thousands of shells, but it's even worse in many cases when it's smaller trolls, where no one has any idea who's actually behind the trolling. You may remember a few years back, when Reddit, Digg, Fark, Slashdot and others were sued over a bogus patent held by a shell company called "Gooseberry Natural Resources LLC," and we wondered if the collective communities behind those sites might be able to figure out who actually owned the patent in question. But even those hive minds failed to turn up much of use.Thankfully, Rep. Ted Deutch has introduced a bill that would require a true disclosure of the owners of patents that are being used in litigation. Specifically, the bill would require a much clearer accounting of who "any real party in interest" would be concerning any patent. Failure to do so would mean that it would limit the ability of those patent owners to collect on any damages. Specifically, patent owners can only collect on damages that occur after the true owners of the patent are disclosed. This would help a tremendous amount, since so much in the patent troll world today is done in incredibly shady ways. It is believed that a very large number of patent trolling operations are actually run by patent lawyers themselves, who saw how lucrative it was, but who don't want to be publicly identified with their trolling. Forcing the actual owners to identify themselves would be a big help in making sure that people actually understand what's happening with patent trolling.
It's interesting to see Congress suddenly interested in patent reform again, even if in a piecemeal fashion. After spending nearly a decade fighting over a "comprehensive" patent reform bill that became the America Invents Act (a watered-down, mostly useless, bill) we kept hearing people say that patent reform was "done" in Congress. But in the past few months, three key bills have been introduced, each targeting the patent trolling problem. There was Rep. DeFazio's SHIELD Act, which would make it easier to shift fees and make trolls responsible for the costs of bogus lawsuits. Then, a few weeks ago, there was Senator Schumer's bill to make it easier to get tech patents reviewed relatively quickly by the USPTO to see if we can throw out more bad patents. And now this bill, called the End Anonymous Patents Act, from Rep. Deutch.
So far, none of the bills has received much momentum, but it's good to see that more and more people in Congress are realizing that the patent system is incredibly broken, and that trolls are a big part of that.
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Filed Under: anonymity, patent trolls, patents, shell companies, ted deutch
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Anonymity to hide when bringing a lawsuit against someone inhibits their ability to defend themselves.
Context try in sometime it makes the world less confusing.
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But, but, but zero tolerance!
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How can you possibly expect to sue someone for breaking a patent without actually a) declaring what the patent is (Microsoft pay heed!) and b) saying who has a financial interest (even if it is only to the court officials)?
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Hmmm.. Maybe anonymity doesn't work for lawsuits.
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If the system could be changed, do away with trolling entirely!
And yet again, Mike has identified problem with present system is LAWYERS and other get-rich-quick grifters, not the system as such.
But in practice tiny changes are MORE difficult than HUGE changes! You need widespread Populist appeal, not a few pointy-headed policy wonks! So I skip over low-level weenie-ing and tweaks to simple honest confiscatory taxes on unearned income -- as used to be before The Rich and their pet "economists" put over the giant scam that lower tax rates on upper incomes would help the poor. -- WELL, hasn't, and as the US sinks into police state the correlation with tax cuts is enough to show causation.
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Re: If the system could be changed, do away with trolling entirely!
Most lawmakers are lawyers, THAT is the problem.
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Re: If the system could be changed, do away with trolling entirely!
But won't the "you have to make product" test make patents a lot less valuable? Independent inventors of mass produced products will *never* be able to get a patent, because, for example, it will be impossible to make a pop-tart baking system in their garage. This will inhibit the best kind of invention, the corporate-developed, mass-marketed thinger.
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Re: If the system could be changed, do away with trolling entirely!
I work for a company that calls dibs on anything I invent for as long as I work here. Walking away and taking that idea with me is considered theft even though I would be the one who did all the sweat-of-the-brow inventing.
The law itself permitted broader patents and patents on software, so your argument is invalid.
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Re: If the system could be changed, do away with trolling entirely!
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Coles Notes
Basically, random Senators and House members suggest all sorts of odd legislation, often only so that in the next election they can claim to have championed a cause. Few of these personal bills make it past getting posted as a proposal, they die on the order table at the end of every session like most of the other crap. With 600+ elected grandstanders, the order papers are crowded with this sort of stuff.
So Coles Note: nothing like this has a hope of passing any time soon.
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And another...
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Great
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Need to add copyright owners to the list!
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more dissembling by Masnick
“patent troll”
infringers and their paid puppets’ definition of ‘patent troll’:
anyone who has the nerve to sue us for stealing their invention
The patent system now teeters on the brink of lawlessness. Call it what you will...patent hoarder, patent troll, non-practicing entity, shell company, etc. It all means one thing: “we’re using your invention and we’re not going to stop or pay”. This is just dissembling by large invention thieves and their paid puppets to kill any inventor support system. It is purely about legalizing theft. The fact is, many of the large multinationals and their puppets who defame inventors in this way themselves make no products in the US or create any American jobs and it is their continued blatant theft which makes it impossible for the true creators to do so. To them the only patents that are legitimate are their own -if they have any.
It’s about property rights. They should not only be for the rich and powerful. Our founders: Jefferson, Franklin, Madison and others felt so strongly about the rights of inventors that they included inventors rights to their creations and discoveries in the Constitution. They understood the trade off. Inventors are given a limited monopoly and in turn society gets the benefits of their inventions (telephone, computer, airplane, automobile, lighting, etc) into perpetuity and the jobs the commercialization of those inventions bring. For 200 years the patent system has not only fueled the US economy, but the world’s. If we weaken the patent system we force inventors underground like Stradivarius (anyone know how to make a Stradivarius violin?) and in turn weaken our economy and job creation. Worse yet, we destroy the American dream -the ability to prosper from our ingenuity for the benefit of our children and communities. Who knows who the next Alexander Graham Bell will be. It could be your son or daughter. It could be you. To kill or weaken the patent system is to kill their futures. Show me a country with weak or ineffective property rights and I’ll show you a weak economy with high unemployment. If we cannot own the product of our minds or labors, what can we be said to truly own. Life and liberty are fundamentally tied to and in fact based on property rights. Our very lives are inseparably tied to our property. Large multinational corporations are on the brink of destroying the American dream -our ability to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps from the working classes by building our own companies while making better futures for our children and our communities.
Prior to eBay v Mercexchange, small entities had a viable chance at commercializing their inventions. If the defendant was found guilty, an injunction was most always issued. Then the inventor small entity could enjoy the exclusive use of his invention in commercializing it. Unfortunately, injunctions are often no longer available to small entity inventors because of the Supreme Court decision so we have no fair chance to compete with much larger entities who are now free to use our inventions. Essentially, large infringers now have your gun and all the bullets. Worse yet, inability to commercialize means those same small entities will not be hiring new employees to roll out their products and services. And now those same parties who killed injunctions for small entities and thus blocked their chance at commercializing now complain that small entity inventors are not commercializing. They created the problem and now they want to blame small entities for it. What dissembling! If you don’t like this state of affairs (your unemployment is running out), tell your Congress member. Then maybe we can get some sense back into the patent system with injunctions fully enforceable on all infringers by all patentees, large and small.
Those wishing to help fight big business giveaways should contact us as below and join the fight as we are building a network of inventors and other stakeholders to lobby Congress to restore property rights for all patent owners -large and small.
For the truth about trolls, please see http://truereform.piausa.org/default.html#pt.
http://www.hoover.org/publications/defining-ideas/article/142741
http://ssrn.com/abstract=1792442
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Re: more dissembling by Masnick
And yes, I know I shouldn't feed the trolls but it's been that sort of week.
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Weigh in on this bill on Popvox
https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/113/hr2024
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