Microsoft's Intense Lobbying Works: Goodlatte To Drop Plan To Allow For Faster Review Of Bad Software Patents
from the bad-patents-live-on dept
Last week, we wrote about Microsoft's intense, and somewhat dishonest, lobbying to try to remove one aspect of proposed patent reform: the covered business methods program, which would have allowed approved technology patents to get reviewed by the Patent Office much more quickly. It was based on Senator Chuck Schumer's plan, which enabled the same feature for patents related to financial services. Many have seen that Schumer's effort was somewhat successful in stopping bad financial services patents, and so it makes sense to do the same thing for software as well. In fact, it makes more sense, since so many patent lawsuits and patent troll shakedowns involve software-related patents.There's simply no legitimate reason to be against covered business method reviews unless you have a lot of really bad patents. Microsoft, along with Qualcomm, IBM, Apple and a few others, really lobbied hard against allowing this expansion -- while tons of startups and entrepreneurs (the people who actually are hit with bogus patent lawsuits all the time -- lobbied hard for it. Guess who won? Rep. Bob Goodlatte, who introduced the patent reform bill in the House, is now about to strip this provision from his bill.
So, if you're an entrepreneur killed by bogus patent lawsuits from giant legacy players, thank Microsoft.
Oh, and to the PR guy from Microsoft who sent me a laughable email trying to argue that Microsoft is supportive of patent reform and that my post was unfair because I didn't mention that: next time stay on topic. Yes, Microsoft supports some forms of patent reform. Just the kind that stops trolls from hitting it directly. What it doesn't support is the kind of patent reform that would stop Microsoft's all too common practice of shaking down all sorts of innovators and entrepreneurs with crazy patent licensing demands from its bundle of patents. No, Microsoft isn't a patent troll, but it is a patent bully with a lot of bad patents, which apparently it's scared that real innovators might invalidate a lot of those patents under a covered business method review.
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Filed Under: bob goodlatte, covered business models, patent reform, patents, software patents
Companies: microsoft
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The question is...
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Thus, patent bully.
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On the contrary, that is a very common, if not the generally accepted, definition of patent troll. The euphemism for it is "non practicing entity", meaning an organization that doesn't actually do business, but just asserts patents.
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Keep "troll" what we need it to be, people to who NO VALUE. They are the worst of the bad.
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Shoot the Lobbyists, metaphorically
Pardon my use of commas, as more complex punctuation is beyond my current ken.
* Yeah right!
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Re: Shoot the Lobbyists, metaphorically
As for copyright this http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CEEQFjAC &url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.copyrightreform.eu%2Fsites%2Fcopyrightreform.eu%2Ffiles%2FThe_Case_for_Cop yright_Reform.pdf&ei=CLqLUtSgKIqEyAH5nIHIDQ&usg=AFQjCNFGLtvog5ah1gt7gPwAHnu7WLJGTQ&sig2= XQHCV4v3VioUjlZ3VMi7Hw&bvm=bv.56643336,d.aWc is a good start. There should also be penalties for copy fraud (claiming copyright for public domain material, claiming copyrights fasley, …), as well as elimination of statutory damages.
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Re: Re: Shoot the Lobbyists, metaphorically
Doing those two things would be a huge step forward in meaningful patent reform, but there's a lot more bathwater in the patent pool than that! If reform is limited to those two actions, it would be woefully incomplete.
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Re: Re: Re: Shoot the Lobbyists, metaphorically
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How things change.
Bill Gates, 1991
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Microsoft's dinosaur hasn't changed a bit, apart from the loss of cutting edge technology and change from positive PR to lawsuit trolls.
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Innovators vs litigators
(... especially if they suggest that extorting {ahem, excuse me, I meant to say "earning" -- honest} large profits is the most suitable measure for such things.
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Patents
Imagine if they could get Amazon and Google and thousands of other large internet entities to join force to lobby,using their customer base to put pressure on lawmakers, they could completely rule the lawmakers and pay them enough to stop MS and APL and others from winning every time there is competition to buy a law change in the US.
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Re: Patents
Kind of messed up priorities if you ask me.
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Why is Microsoft Called out in the subject line?
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Re: Why is Microsoft Called out in the subject line?
Last week's article on their bogus front group, in which only companies very very close to Microsoft signed on to a letter, should put any questions to rest about that.
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One holds a trademark. TD, maybe OK, but probably unnecessary and almost certainly no creating a likelihood of confusion in the real world. Assert that trademark. Scum of the earth bully.
One holds a copyright. TD, maybe OK, but having one kinda sucks because you likely used things others had created before. Assert that copyright. A culture killing, scum of the earth bully.
Perhaps it is just me, but there seems to be a trend here.
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You oversimplifying TechDirt's positions?
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Besides, in your example the patent would be working as intended and not itself be newsworthy. The invention would be newsworthy.
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Yes, you making bullshit statements based on false assumptions.
Maybe try stopping that.
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Has TD ever stated that an invention described and claimed in a patent is most certainly new (Section 102), useful Section 101), and nonobvious(Section 103)? Not that I have ever seen.
Has TD ever expressed an opinion that a TM was not subject to its "moron in a hurry" rule? Perhaps it has because my recollection is not infallible, but I recall no such instance.
Has TD ever spoken approvingly of an author claiming copyright on a specific work, and then excoriating an infringer and stating that the infringer is getting his/her/its just desserts? If so, I must have missed that headline news.
Bottom line...this site is so anti patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, unfair competition, etc. that in these areas of law one can draw the impression that TD openly advocates their consignment to the trash can.
The comment to which this is directed is so odiferous that is spans from "sea to shining sea".
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As for critiques of given patents most of us are not qualified to do so and apparently neither are the patent examiners. The only two patents I am familiar enough to comment on that are legitimate are Lempel Ziv and GIF. The rest of the software patents make vague too broad clams and are simply means of disguising business methods BS or concepts which are not patentable.
As foe copyright TD is not anti but for reform and fixing obvious abuses like the WB DMCA copyfraud.
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He was saying that is Techdirt's position. I'm pretty sure he's very pro-IP.
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Only if you ignore the numerous times when Mike has overtly stated that he thinks there is a positive role to be played by all of those things.
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"Oh look, there's a valid patent" isn't news.
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It is one thing to express an objective fact based opinion on a particular patent, and quite another to then take that specific instance and launch off into a tirade against all patents in general.
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more dissembling by Masnick
large infringers definition of 'bad sfw patents': those used to sue us
Just because they call it "reform" doesn't mean it is.
"patent reform"...America Invents Act, vers 1.0, 2.0, 3.0...
“This is not a patent reform bill” Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) complained, despite other democrats praising the overhaul. “This is a big corporation patent giveaway that tramples on the right of small inventors.”
Senator Cantwell is right. All these bills do is legalize theft. Just because they call it “reform” doesn’t mean it is. The paid puppets of banks, huge multinationals, and China continue to brain wash and bankrupt America.
They should have called these bills the America STOPS Inventing Act or ASIA, because that’s where they’re sending all our jobs.
The patent bill (vers 1, 2, 3, etc) is nothing less than another monumental federal giveaway for banks, huge multinationals, and China and an off shoring job killing nightmare for America. Even the leading patent expert in China has stated the bill will help them steal our inventions. Congress passed it and Obama signed it. Who are they working for??
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/08/11/former-governors-lobbying-consulting-rev olving-door/2639355/
Patent reform is a fraud on America. Congress and Obama are both to blame. This bill will not do what they claim it will. What it will do is help large multinational corporations maintain their monopolies by robbing and destroying their small entity and startup competitors (so it will do exactly what the large multinationals paid for) and with them the jobs they would have created. They have already damaged the US patent system so that property rights are teetering on lawlessness. This bill will only make it harder and more expensive for small firms to get and enforce their patents. Without patents we cant get funded. In this way large firms are able to play king of the hill and keep their small competitors from reaching the top as they have. Yet small entities create the lion's share of new jobs. According to recent studies by the Kauffman Foundation and economists at the U.S. Census Bureau, “startups aren’t everything when it comes to job growth. They’re the only thing.” Meanwhile, the large multinationals ship more and more jobs overseas. This bill is a wholesale destroyer of US jobs. Those wishing to help fight this bill should contact us as below.
Small entities and inventors have been given far too little voice on this bill when one considers that they rely far more heavily on the patent system than do large firms who can control their markets by their size alone. The smaller the firm, the more they rely on patents -especially startups and individual inventors. Congress and Obama tinkering with patent law while gagging inventors is like a surgeon operating before examining the patient.
Those wishing to help fight big business giveaways and set America on a course for sustainable prosperity, not large corporation lobbied poverty, 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.
Please see http://truereform.piausa.org/default.html for a different/opposing view on patent reform.
https://www.facebook.com/pi.ausa.5
http://piausa.wordpress.com/
http://washingtonexaminer.com/patent-reform-like-most-reforms-in-the-end-benefits-the-biggest-guys-w ith-the-best-lobbyists/article/2524033
http://www.hoover.org/publications/defining-ideas/article/1427 41
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Re: more dissembling by Ronald J. Riley
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Be proud
So what if there are little companies in the margin who are defeted by the system and/or big Companies? They should have done their home work first and make a good risk assessment before challenging the big guys.
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