back to article US House and Senate push patent troll bills

The US House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee has voted 33-5 to send a bill to the full House that aims to stop abusive patent lawsuits and so-called patent trolls. The panel approved the measure yesterday that particularly hopes to put a stop to patent-holding firms whose only purpose is to aggressively pursue …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Pig, lipstick, head, sand, bury.

    It's just putting lipstick on the pig that is the USPTO.

    I have said it before, but treating the symptoms is not as effective treating the disease.

    1. BillG
      Meh

      Re: Pig, lipstick, head, sand, bury.

      True. When you have people being granted patents for running a wire through a hole in a coat pocket, that's the USPTO run amok.

    2. jonathanb Silver badge

      Re: Pig, lipstick, head, sand, bury.

      The USPTO is certainly one of the problems, but not the only one.

      We have patent trolls that write to companies telling them they are violating one of their patents, but won't tell them which one. They ask for a licence to cover all the patents in their portfolio, and if the company asks for more details about the patent they are allegedly violating, then the demand increases.

      In many cases, the company isn't violating any of the troll's patents, but it costs more to fight them than it does to pay the licence fee, so basically they are engaging in blackmail.

      Probably to solve this problem, the USA needs to move to a loser pay system for court cases like what happens in the rest of the world.

      1. handle

        Re: Pig, lipstick, head, sand, bury.

        @jonathanb: you perfectly describe Microsoft's behaviour re Linux - I notice it isn't one of the companies reported to be supporting this bill.

        1. Robert Helpmann??
          Childcatcher

          Re: Pig, lipstick, head, sand, bury.

          Microsoft...isn't one of the companies...supporting this bill

          Actually, Microsoft is working against passage.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I would bet serious money

    That this bill will insulate American businesses based in places like Cupertino from foreign suits coming from Seoul. Cuz they're all a drag on the US economy after all.

    1. asdf

      Re: I would bet serious money

      Yeah because of course the US is the only country that would ever favor their native companies. The EU wrote the book on how you do that.

  3. Andy Enderby 1

    Rather like the proposed new law in UK that purports to regulate lobbyists, I thoroughly expect this legislation will do nothing of sort and will in fact preserve the status quo or indeed do the opposite. To many Lawyers and corporations are getting rich abusing those unable to afford to defend themselves and it will continue.

    1. asdf

      yep

      They are counting on the current gridlock and disfunction in Congress to cause this bill to go nowhere but they can still say see we tried but it failed. Maybe in another decade.

  4. btrower

    Leave the Pig au natural

    Strangely enough, I hope this fails because as smurfette has said above, the patent office is a pig. Putting lipstick on it just prolongs the agony.

    The solution to dating this pig is not to dress it up. The solution is to break it off. The uglier it stays the faster we will dump it.

  5. tom dial Silver badge

    Something I think might be useful, in addition to the obvious one of forcing disclosure of patents that are alleged to be infringed is a requirement to allow a defendant who wishes to pursue a patent challenge to completion before a lawsuit can be tried. I seem to recall that some years back RIM was put in a bind where they had to choose between paying a half billion dollars or so and shutting down in the US, based on infringement of one or more patents that ultimately were revoked.

    1. tom dial Silver badge
      Flame

      Seems they already dropped a provision something like this in the House - Thanks, IBM and MS, for your concern.

  6. JLV

    Won't someone think of the children lawyers?

    1. cyrus
      Windows

      Re:

      My wife's family has put the lawyer's kids through college (granted not over patents). There's thinking of the lawyers and their children fer ya.

  7. asdf
    Thumb Down

    f__k lawyers

    >The tens of billions of dollars spent on settlements and litigation expenses associated with abusive patent suits represent truly wasted capital

    Not for the lawyers who also happen to write the laws (majority of lawmakers anyway). Want to know why things are the the way they are, two words, billable hours. How does one profession put a tax on every other profession you ask? Be the profession in charge of the law of the land.

  8. Neoc

    Goodlatte ?

    As opposed to Badcoffee?

  9. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Coat

    I don't suppose Sen Goodlatte's bill was co-sponsored by a Sen. Zuccero?

    What better than a sugar rush in good coffee?

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