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IBM Seeking 'Patent-Protection-Racket' Patent

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the any-reason-to-bust-kneecaps dept.

theodp writes "Wikipedia defines a protection racket as an extortion scheme whereby a powerful non-governmental organization coerces businesses to pay protection money which allegedly serves to purchase the organization's 'protection' services against various external threats. Compare this to IBM's just-published patent application for 'Extracting Value from a Portfolio of Assets', which describes a process by which 'very large corporations' impress upon smaller businesses that paying for 'the protection of a large defensive patent portfolio' would be 'a prudent business decision' for them to make, 'just like purchasing a fire insurance policy.' Sounds like Fat Tony's been to Law School, eh? Time for IBM to put-their-money-where-their-patent-reform-mouth-is and deep-six this business method patent claim!"

3 of 169 comments (clear)

  1. Perhaps this is a means to stop the practice by PhotoGuy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If IBM receives the patent, then it can disallow others from participating in the practice. This patent alone could be a jury-rigged bit of patent reform, for this particular abuse. (Assuming IBM doesn't go crazy and utilize the patent itself.)

    I'd tend to think this is more their purpose, than to become the master bully.

    --
    Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
  2. Re:Good for small businesses? by the_lesser_gatsby · · Score: 3, Interesting

    But the process doesn't need to be patented. IBM could just offer the service as a business anyway.

  3. Check! And checkmate in three... by mysticgoat · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is a wonderful, delightful piece of work!

    If this patent is to be successfully contested on the basis of prior art, some corporation is going to have to go public with the details of its patent protection racket. That company would be exposing itself to a lot of nasty business risks (possibly RICO, possibly anti-trust measures, more probably loss of sales and market cap, very definitely some image problems). I doubt that there are very many CEOs who would like the risk/benefit ratio of such a plan, especially as this kind of thing could break their personal career even if it is successful in blocking the patent.

    If IBM is awarded the patent, it can use it to publicly expose the backroom details of the MS - SCO deal, the MS - Novell deal, and similar deals where there is good cause to suspect that some form of patent protection was involved. Through lawsuit and discovery, the secret clauses in those contracts would become public. This would stifle a lot of those kinds of activities, which would be a Good Thing for anyone favoring competition of products based on their technical merit.

    IBM could also put the patent in the Linux patent protection pool. I cannot see anything negative for FOSS coming out of that.

    But basically I see this patent as a way of demonstrating just how absurd the entire business model patent structure is.

    Go IBM!