Patent Trolls Come In All Shapes and Sizes

Micek all but admits that his company has completely stopped writing software. His vague alusions to "improvements" financed by settlement monies already collected not withstanding, he speaks of virtually nothing but IP acquisition and the revenues from it. It's said "From the heart, the mouth speaks," and here it's implications are obvious. Micek's heart is in IP as a revenue model, and thus it will be his primary business plan moving forward, regardless of his assertions to the contrary.<p>If ever there was a more clear case of the patent system encouraging not increases in innovation, but rather ceasing it, I've not heard it.

<i>We had a patent approved two months ago being issued later this month. It’s a fascinating patent, which puts our I.P. into the cloud.</i><p>Oh yay. Now we can add some-obvious-thing <i>in the clooouuudd!</i> to all of the some-obvious-thing but on the intertubes.

It doesn’t take a deep dive to understand the shaky ground for this patent. “That is an absolutely ridiculous claim. If this patent was filed today, it would almost certainly be rejected,” said Elliot Furman, a Manhattan-based patent prosecutor who has worked for firms like Gawker and BuzzFeed. Betabeat sent Mr. Furman a copy of the patent in question for evaluation. “It’s like they tried to patent a time machine, and they told you how big it was, and the color of the seats, but neglected to mention how it travels through time.”

"'We need to face the facts: patent law is killing job creation,' wrote billionaire tech entrepreneur Mark Cuban over the weekend. “If the current administration wants to improve job creation, change patent law and watch jobs among small technology companies develop instantly.”<p>I don't think anyone disputes that "patent law is killing job creation." (Note, however, that one can say that generally about most laws and regulations. Indeed, the FDA "is killing job creation," by making it so hard to sell potentially unsafe drugs and medical devices.) The real question is: "does the current system of patent law 'kill' more or less jobs than a reformed system where software patents are unallowable?"<p>Small-to-medium-sized businesses may flourish, adding some jobs in the process, but could a larger tech company have created more jobs based on software patents it is able to sometimes obtain via the patent office (or otherwise license legitimately or by settlement)?

<i>But many of the investors and founders Betabeat spoke with said patent litigation was a costly expense, one that forced tech companies to spend money on lawyers instead of hiring even more employees. “We need to face the facts: patent law is killing job creation,” wrote billionaire tech entrepreneur Mark Cuban over the weekend. “If the current administration wants to improve job creation, change patent law and watch jobs among small technology companies develop instantly.”</i><p>Unfortunately, as he admits, it's creating plenty of work and jobs for lawyers, which we have a huge glut of. Lots of starving lawyers + burgeoning area of law = feedback effect where patent reform is fiercely opposed by law association lobbyists. Obviously that kind of work does not create wealth, it merely siphons it at best, but that argument might get drowned out in the financial-crisis-driven scramble to keep billable hours pipes full, regardless of the longer term concerns.

These stories always make me wonder about the people who work at the patent office. What are they like? What do they think? Are they mostly young people, old people, tech people, clerical people, Wisconsinites, suburbanites, Mad Men or Squidbillies? What do they know? What were they told? Where do they sit? Do they surf the Internet all day?<p>A lot of patents that get approved are seemingly obvious but clearly, to someone, it wasn't. And that makes me wonder what their life and interests and milieu is like. I suspect that until we're asking that question, the patent system will continue to suck.

A bad day for patent trolls - <a href="http://bit.ly/pYsbjN" rel="nofollow">http://bit.ly/pYsbjN</a>

I wonder how these people sleep at night.