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Battling the Patent Trolls

Posted by Hemos on from the whack-slash-bush-wacked dept.

opus writes "There's an interesting series of articles at law.com on the current situation in patent law, which has become "a money-minting machine for a few patent holders". Includes an article on Peter Detkin, counsel at Intel, who spends much of his time battling patent infringement claims against Intel, and who coined the term "patent troll". Apparently it's not just the geeks who are unhappy with the current state of affairs in patent law."

5 of 206 comments (clear)

  1. right, yeah, no, left..... by syscalls · · Score: 2, Funny

    wait a minute, you say I cannot patent the right to have no rights?

  2. Time to live... by Richard+Bannister · · Score: 3, Funny

    Your suggestion about Time To Live just gave me a silly idea...

    Imagine if the Patent system was operated like that of the DNS system. $70 to register a patent for two years; first come first served! Time to live on the Patent servers might be set at 24 hours, so your patent might temporarily expire if your local patent server crashed...

    GreatPatents.com - the Internet's Number 1 patent marketplace - could sell you the leading patents at discount prices!

    OK, I'll do some work now! :-)

    --
    http://www.themeparks.ie
  3. Patent trolls are harmless... by BIGJIMSLATE · · Score: 1, Funny

    ...compared to your average /. troll.

    I've never wanted to kill someone over a spork until now... ;)

  4. 3 + 1/2 + 1/2 != 5 by agusus · · Score: 2, Funny
    From the law.com article on the lawyer who made $400+ million off the patent settlements:
    --The rumor among Gerald Hosier's fellow lawyers is that he's so rich he owns a fleet of five jets -- speculation Hosier says is over the top.
    "That's an exaggeration," he said. "I have three jets and two smaller planes. One of the jets is quite expensive, the second is moderately expensive and the third, a Czechoslovakian fighter jet, is not very expensive." --

    Ohhhh, Mr. Hosier, rumors can be soo inaccurate! They definitely should have realized that 3 jets and 2 planes is not the same as 5 jets! I mean, if you count the planes as a half jet each, then it only adds up to 4 jets. What an atrocious mistake! ;)
  5. Re:How did this happen? by Black+Parrot · · Score: 2, Funny

    > It appears unsalvagable -- can't we just hit the reset button and start from scratch?

    Yes, if you're refering to the civilization reset button on the US President's "football".

    --
    Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade