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EFF, Apache Side With Microsoft In i4i Patent Case
msmoriarty writes "Looks like Microsoft has gained some unlikely allies in its ongoing (and losing) i4i XML patent dispute: the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Apache Software Foundation. The reason? Microsoft has decided the strategy for its Supreme Court appeal will be to argue that the standards of proof in patent cases are too high — this from a company that has thousands of patents it regularly defends. The EFF explains in a blog post why it decided to file the 'friend of the court' brief on Microsoft's side."
Not really. Google doesn't make phones. All they do is provide some specifications and some (open) source code. The people to sue are the people making and selling the products, not someone simply providing the tools to make and sell products.
IOW, if you designed a new engine and patented some aspect of that engine, you don't sue the designer of a competing engine that infringes patents, you sue the car companies that put that engine in their cars.
Not that I normally defend Microsoft's behavior, but they did pick the appropriate defendant in this case.
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I call bullshit.
By what standard is Microsoft a patent troll in that instance (or any other instance)? It makes and sells products that incorporate the claimed features, and it licenses the patents to others. It's as far from a non-practicing entity as you can get. It's also suing a company that definitely has the resources to defend itself. It's not using patents as a cudgel against some upstart competitor.
Someone mentioned that Microsoft only sued one company. The others Android handset makers likely have licenses, especially given that they make Windows Mobile / Windows Phone 7 phones.
I suppose you could define a patent troll as "the patentee in a patent infringement lawsuit," but that's not a very useful definition.
Currently, a patent clerk has less than 4 hours to determine if a patent application should be approved or not.
It depends on how you divide up the allotted hours, but 4 hours might be true only for the simplest of arts (generally mechanical arts in very mature fields).
Examiners get a certain number of hours for (more or less) two reviews of an application. The first review usually results in a non-final rejection, and the second results in either an allowance (resulting in an issued patent), a final rejection (if the examiner did a good job on the non-final rejection), an abandonment (if the applicant fails to respond within the time limit), or an appeal (if the applicant appeals to the BPAI, or Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences, the examiner must respond to the applicant's appeal brief). Each of these is worth a certain amount of credit to the examiner, called "counts", and examiners are supposed to get a certain quota of counts depending on their pay grade, the art they work in, and the number of hours they work.
These two reviews (non-final and final, along with the associated paperwork involved in disposal of the case) are essentially allotted a certain number of hours total. For examiners in simpler mechanical arts at higher pay grades, this number could be around 10, but for new examiners in complicated electrical arts, it could be 40 or more. That's not to say that this is enough time to review these cases, and many newer examiners work substantial amounts of voluntary overtime in order to meet their production requirements.
On a side note, all patent examiners must have a degree in an engineering field. Most of the training for the job is associated with the legal aspects of examining patents, but there is some technical training as well (usually higher-level general stuff to familiarize examiners with certain terms and concepts in the art). Also, examiners are assigned to examine a particular art, and they usually don't switch around much, so over time, they become very knowledgeable about their art. Some arts have a tough time with this because high turnover has kept much of the workforce green, but other arts have examiners with 10-20 years of experience examining patents.