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Lawyer Puts $10k Bounty on Blogger's Identity
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Raymond Niro of Niro Scavone Haller & Niro is fighting back against criticism from the Patent Troll Tracker blog by offering a $10,000 bounty for the identity of the person behind it. He thinks the blogger might work for Microsoft, Intel, or has connections to a 'serial infringer' and that could 'color' what they say."
This reminds me of the time Richard Stallman offered a half eaten french fry and all the change he could find in all the couches of MIT's student commons area for the identity of an Anonymous Coward on Slashdot that called him a "tree hugging bearded hippie."
My work here is dung.
Truth is a defense for libel. So long as the blogger in question has not made any actual false statements, and has couched all opinions as such, rather than as facts--then he should STFU and GBTW.
But then, if he's a patent troll, he's rather defined as "not being able to STFU and do something useful," now, is he?
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
CowboyNeal. Isn't that the answer to everything around here?
(Attention lawyers: I'm _kidding_! Put the subpoena down!)
Thanks! I hadn't heard of this blog before, but now that the $10k bounty has been offered, I know about it. Great publicity!
"Is he an employee with Intel or Microsoft? Does he have a connection with serial infringers? I think that would color what he has to say."
This is douchebag lawyer speak for "companies that spend money researching, developing and selling products." Unlike his clients who think up obvious ideas and rush to file a patent, without ever doing a bit of work. It's scumbags like this that exacerbate the terrible state of our patent system. I for one can't wait until there's real reform and this guy's out of business.
I would hope an attorney of Mr. Niro's stature and experience would realize he has no right nor legal recourse against this anonymous blogger. I suspect that had the blogger written anything libelous, Mr. Niro would have already brought suit.
Since Mr. Niro has not brought legal proceedings against this blogger, I can only quote the next best legal authority on this matter:
Ha, Ha!
The blogger could write them a letter disclosing his own identity, cash in the $10k himself, and when they publish the letter sue them for infringing upon his copyright on the letter.
As a state gets corrupt, its laws multiply; the most corrupt states have the most numerous laws. (Tacitus, Annales 3:27)
I thought America was the "land of the free"
That's a common mondegreen... it's actually "Land of the FEE". Don't sweat it, I used to believe it was "free" myself.
Patriot - A fan of expanding government power and spending while not wanting to pay higher taxes.
Can I have the $10,000 now?
I would have reservations if I was a Native American.
You mean that Americans (who happened to be black) invented them. I don't mean anything derogatory by that, but making such distinctions only serves to demean those individuals and their works. The implication is that there's something so noteworthy about a black person achieving anything of substance that their race must be mentioned. Of course black people have made significant contributions to our society, our culture and our technology. So have French, Greeks, Germans, Italians, Russians, Czechs and millions of others of all nationalities. Why does their ethnic background matter so much to some people? They were all citizens of this great nation, all helped to make it what it is today. That should be enough.
... she came to the U.S. about twenty-five years ago from that continent, earned her citizenship, and has the right to call herself an African-American. But she doesn't. She calls herself an American and she's proud of that. This is her country now. As for me, I was born here, but I don't go around brandishing my ethnic roots. That would be complicated, since I'd be something like a "Greek-Irish-German-with-some-other-stuff-mixed-in-American". Not so easy on the ears.
My girlfriend is a true African-American
She told me flatly that she could cure all of them of their desire to be called "African Americans" by the simple expedient of sending them to her home country for a few months. Most of them would come back here and would count themselves lucky to be Americans. Bad as things can be for many people in the United States, there are places that are worse. Much worse.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I really don't see the problem, do you? I'm certain it will all be legal, so there's nothing to worry about. No. Really.
I'll arrest anyone who doesn't tell me who this Anonymous Coward is.
- The D.A.
A friend of mine was born and raised in Africa, by white parents who were also born and raised in Afica. He has now moved to the US. Does that qualify him as African-American?
Vigilantism is not only necessary, it is justified. We need to seek out the personal information of this lawyer, his entire firm, and the President and board of directors of the companies that employ them. Publish their names, home addresses, any phone numbers that can be found, their license plate numbers, the names of their family members, the schools their children attend. Everything. This is War, ladies and gentlemen. Of a more dire and extreme sort than any in history. Only by securing true strategic objectives can the enemy be worn down. We must destroy not just his willingness, but his ability to fight. Destroy the ability of those who drive the conflict to live their lives in the most basic way and victory is assured.
We, the greater whole of society, are everywhere. We surround them. We can destroy them. All that is required is the will.
I hate to steal karma, but there's a comment on PTT's blog that was so insightful that I felt it serves as useful food for thought. It was a comment left last thursday by one using the pen name "ipreactionary", all credit goes to him:
[http://trolltracker.blogspot.com/2008/01/j-carl-cooper-and-technology-licensing.html]:
"As a practicing patent attorney with a large corporation, I can see why PTT and other commentators might want not to divulge their name. His anonymity works for me, because the subject of our interest shouldn't be who PTT is, but rather whether the US patent system is functioning effectively and fairly. And PTT's remarks on patent predators aren't any less germane because the sharks are identified by name, and he/she isn't. Forget that it's Niro (or Acacia, or whoever) that PTT comments on, and focus on the fact that they and others are manipulating an imperfect system to the detriment of both the system and its participants.
BTW, there are those who might defend the abuses written of here as nothing more than "arbitrage". I don't agree. Arbitrage smooths out market irregularities caused by assymetrical information or unbalanced supply and demand. It is ethical, and even helpful, where a market is efficient and the market rules are clear and fairly enforced. The swamp of legal, political, technical and economic uncertainties that trolls are rooting around in (and helping muddy up) is more like an armed prospectors' land-grab than what the patent system set out to be: A reward of exclusivity in return for the useful sharing of information. Vigorous enforcement of patents on trivial or useless "inventions", by contingency-fee opportunists, doesn't make them any less trivial and useless. And bundling or accumulating them under shell corporations, the better to leverage them against companies for whom the expected value of a loss at trial (however unlikely) exceeds the price of a settlement, does nothing to better the "market" for IP. It doesn't promote adoption or commercialisation of technology. It doesn't raise capital in support of yet more innovation. It doesn't improve the function of the patent system. It's extortion, pure and simple.
This isn't an abstract, theoretical discussion. It won't be long before Congress, made up of individuals who understand neither the purpose nor the functioning of the US patent system, begins to tinker with it as if it were a tax code with which additional revenues could be extracted and assets could be more equitably redistributed. Trolls cheapen the patent system in a way that makes legislative erosion even more likely. The abuses PTT writes about call the patent monopoly and its proponents into disrepute, and thereby weaken the rights appropriately reserved under other patents to those who really have made a technical contribution to society. As far as I'm concerned, PTT can call the trolls by name. The moneys they've extracted from productive members of society should be enough consolation for them.
Blog on, PTT!
"
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
You're totally right. We've all got so caught up in all the arguing and bickering that we've forgotten what's really important. What's really important is which god you believe in.
GLORX 3:16
His number is (312) 236-0733. Call him and give him theories. I think everyone should.
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