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."

Comments

hmm...

[MorderVonAllem]

...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...

Re:hmm...

[TheMCP]

Moreover, their attempt to patent this procedure would seem to indicate that they were knowingly violating prior art, in fact intentionally doing so, which would seem to imply that they could be charged with fraud or something similar.

I'm surprised they filed this patent attempt, and that their lawyers let it happen - it's like saying "I would like explicit government recognition of my plans to violate the law to ensure that when I do so everyone will recognize exactly what I did."

Re:This

[Corpuscavernosa]

Seriously hilarious. Though as long as it's not illegal, and it meets all the 102 requirements and is not obvious, it will probably be granted.

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.

In re Bilski

[John Hasler]

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.

Re:Need a better search function.

[gnick]

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.

Re:This

[hedwards]

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.

Re:This

[Daniel Dvorkin]

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.