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Halliburton Applies For Patent-Trolling Patent
An anonymous reader writes "Halliburton, the company many folks know as Dick Cheney's previous employer, has apparently taken an interest in methods of patent trolling. In fact, according to Techdirt, the company has applied for a patent on patent trolling. Specifically, it's applied for a patent on the process of finding a company that protected an invention via trade secret, figuring out what that secret is, patenting it ... and then suing the original company. Hopefully, the patent office rejects this patent, because I somehow doubt that Halliburton is trying to get the patent as a way to block others from patent trolling."
...I would think that the very act of finding "prior art" (the very fact they found an invention) as described in this system would invalidate any patent attempt of the trade-secret...
Maybe the best we can hope for (besides dying in our sleep) is that this kind of slap-in-the-face application can spur some of the much needed reform.
We figured out a long time ago that it's easier to elect seven judges than to elect 132 legislators.
This is a silly business-methods patent application that will certainly be rejected by the PTO after Bilski. And no, a trade secret certainly does not qualify as prior art in the US. Nor should it.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
"Hopefully, the patent office rejects this patent, because I somehow doubt that Halliburton is trying to get the patent as a way to block others from patent trolling."
It's in the USPTO's best interest to grant this patent because their revenue is largely driven by trolls patenting prior art and mechanisms/methods which are obvious to those skilled in the trade/art/science.
Take DAC (digital analog converters) for example: radio was there, then someone came along and said "Zomg! I'm gonna patent using a DAC to send voice over the radio waves using digital" and "ZOMG! I'm gonna use a DAC to send ethernet over the radio!" and so forth. The DAC is a physical implementation and ought to have been given a patent, but the uses for which DACs are implemented are obvious to anyone skilled in the trade and ought to not be granted patents.
But, if the USPTO rejects such patents, where is their job security? Or, if their jobs would still be secure, why, not rubber stamping a patent would require actual WORK. They can't have that now, can they? Just rubber stamp the patent application and let the courts sort it out, letting the little guys go bankrupt in the process.
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It's not "patenting patent trolling" that needs to be non-obvious, it's the action they're trying to patent - "patent trolling". Patent trolling, although it may not have been obvious back when it became a major problem, is now so common as to be laughably obvious. Unfortunately, prior art exists everywhere.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
If the company being targeted by this method has documented their trade secret, even if only internally, they can instantly shut down any infringement litigation by producing said documentation.
Of course, this "outs" their trade secret, but that's not usually fatally crippling.
This sounds like a process that could be done mentally, meaning it involves no technology of any kind. Just recently these types of patents were ruled to be unpatentable, so my guess is this is not a patentable process /IANAL
The methods of figuring out trade secrets are almost always illegal, and can be sued over.
Only if those methods involve illegal methods of corporate espionage. I was recently co-author of a patent for a product with a certain chemical formulation. Some details of the formulation & production were deliberately left out of the patent in order to retain trade secrets. But figuring out those secrets is easy enough by either 1) research or 2) espionage. The former is perfectly legal, but may involve large expenditure of resources - i.e., difficult enough that it might not be worth a company's time and money to re-create the R&D of the original patent.
So in a way, you can see that our current patent system tends to discourages inventors from complete disclosure and tends to incentivize corporate espionage.
Well, IANAL, and in /. tradition I didn't RTFA, but what's the point of applying for patents in cases where you specifically know there's already prior art?
That's a rhetorical question - I don't even want to know the answer.
I doubt it, more likely they'll just take a small piece of each settlement as a licensing fee.
But, it's not like nobody saw this one coming so I'd suspect that it'll get blocked on the grounds of the inherent obviousness of it.
It sounds like you're assuming that Halliburton will indiscriminately go after anyone who violates their patent, thus making patent trolls everywhere tremble in fear. I don't think it will work out that way. What seems more likely is that they'll hold onto it, using it only against their competitors when it's to their advantage and having little effect on the world of patent trolling as a whole -- and meanwhile, setting yet another precedent for the granting of truly horrible patents. The best thing is for this and every other business method patent (and software patent, and patent on a naturally occurring gene, etc.) to be denied until people get the message that patents are intended to cover physical inventions, and nothing else.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
This will make nothing better.
> sue other patent trolls for violation
They aren't going to sue them, they are going to charge a licensing fee.
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Idle hope. There's *far* too much prior art to ever get this patent approved.
OTOH, it *is* the US we're talking about, and Halliburton has a *real* big pile of cash.
If "prior art" actually prevented someone from getting a patent, "patent trolling" would be impossible...
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Just to maybe save you some time, this advertising strategy won't work all that well here, as the moderation system will quickly hide your posts for most users.
Besides, do you really want to spend your life being a shithead?
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Actually, I'm not sure what else it could be used for. A patent on patent trolling can only be used against other patent trolls. If Halliburton wanted to be a patent troll, they wouldn't need a patent to do it. Besides, patent trolls typically don't have any other source of income that can be threatened by their "business", so Halliburton wouldn't really qualify.
It can be used for three purposes: If any patent troll attacks Haliburton, Haliburton may be able to counter sue on grounds of infringement of their patent-trolling patent. This will keep some patent trolls at bay. Second, if any patent troll sues anyone, Haliburton may sue them. I don't think this makes too much business sense. But thirdly, if any patent troll sues anyone, Haliburton can over a license to the company being sued which allows them to use the Haliburton patent and sue anyone who uses it without license. So if you are being sued, instead of paying one million for blackmail to get rid of the patent troll, or five million to defend yourself in court, you might be able to get away with paying Haliburton $200,000 for a license to their patent-trolling patent, and change the financial odds against the patent troll so they go away. That's $200,000 of free money for Haliburton.
Patent trolling is already illegal. Now the clever patent trolls who find loopholes will also be violating patent even if they can avoid violating the laws against patent trolling. Unless they're Haliburton, but let's look at this reasonably: When it comes to patent trolling, Haliburton does at least have a better record than, um, patent trolls...
Between Haliburton and patent trolls, I'd rather have Haliburton holding the patent on patent trolling. I mean... the farmer's been known to kill a few chickens for Sunday dinner, but I'd rather have him guarding the chicken coop than have the fox guarding it...
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
"Why sue when you can license?"
It's Halliburton we are talking about.
Why licensing when you can invade?