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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."
The first case i'd support Halliburton for. Think of it, they get this patent, and anyone who trolls patents are in violation.
Its a self obsoleting patent. Eventually they will bankrupt all the other trolls and have little left but hang up their hats.
The methods of figuring out trade secrets are almost always illegal, and can be sued over.
Though as long as it's not illegal, and it meets all the 102 requirements and is not obvious, it will probably be granted.
It may or may not be legal; the patent office and the courts have (finally) started to take a dim view of "business method" and other types of patents that circumvent the original intent of the patent system.
It is obvious, and there exists substantial prior art -- if not, people wouldn't have immediately had a ready-made phrase ("patent troll") to describe what the patent covers.
No doubt buried in the requirements is something that Halliburton hopes will make this bullshit business method patent different from all the other bullshit business method patents, but I'm actually hopeful that they'll get the smackdown they deserve.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
I don't get it though, the US system is 'first to invent'. So you invent something, keep it as a trade secret, Halliburton reverse engineers and patents it, Halliburton sues you, you produce copious quantities of documentation showing that you invented it first and walk out of the room with their patent under your arm.
In the mean time, they can't get this patent elsewhere because the first-to-file world doesn't recognise business method patents. Or do they propose to patent in the US a method of patent trolling in the rest of the world.
What have I missed?
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