...if they license other patent trolls.

.. which is not patentable .. FAIL

not to mention, under US law, the original inventor, even if kept as a trade secret, is still the inventor, not the first to file a claim

pretty sure this method has been used by corporate patent lawyers for at least 60 years, if not thought of shortly after establishment of USPTO .. so it's not original .. FAIL

again, just a business method attempting to legitamize back engineering of another's invention / trade secret to steal the original inventor's work, which is exactly why some trade secrets are not patented, so the secret details are not divulged .. not unusual in the chemicals industry

That's hillarious. I'm not sure though it's "patent trolling" per se. It's more bizarre. They want to figure out others' technologies, and then turn around and demand money from those people for having invented something but not disclosed how it works. (Most likely, they'll be doing that to other defense contractors. Or, stopping other defense contractors from doing that.)

This is all rather ironic, if you keep in mind that one of the main points of patents isn't to "protect property because what you think of you can stop anyone else from thinking" (yeah right), but to encourage inventors and manufacturers to disclose and document their secrets, so that industry can learn and improve on them. This was at least the selling point during the Industrial Revolution.

... everywhere.

After all, patent trolls are ubiquitous enough that we've even coined the term...

It looks a lot like they want to stop patent trolls from attacking them, possibly because they want to do a bit of infringing. It isn't a valid patent though, they even admit that the method has been used in the past. They do include the following in the patent though:

"The inventor and the assignee of this patent have no intention of applying the techniques described herein offensively but instead intend to use the patent defensively to discourage patent trolls and the like from extortionist practices. "

...to the first post from some twit who thinks he being clever by saying something like, "I'm going to patent the carriage return! You all owe me a brazillion dollars! ha ha ha!"

The USians could just fix their "special" patent system.

It appears the US patent system has eaten it's own tail...

I suspect there might just be some prior art on this one...

It'd be one of those court cases where you hope that both sides loose though...

So only one troll will win. But its the biggest evilest troll . This is company that has cost the lives of soldiers by providing them with faulty gear and just not giving a shit about them.

Given the USPO's past record this must be a sure fire winner.

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20030301

"This has all the hallmarks of infinite recursion. Quick, somebody patent patenting patent trolling."

Ha! I already patented the idea of patenting patenting patent trolling.

Gimme some money you dirty patent infringer, you.

Take someone else's design, and patent it.

There is already prior art here, it's someone else's design, they have the prior art to you writing the patent.

So, this patent only covers the patents which get refused or overturn for prior art. It can't cover the trolls that get away with it (they have 'proven' it was their idea first, honest!). So, the patent doesn't cover a damned useful thing.