Patent Trolls and Lawyers
Can we just nuke them all and let <$DEITY$> sort them out? Please...
Cisco must by now be getting sick of acting as defender-by-proxy of the entire computer networking industry, with yet another pile of ex-Nortel patents being wrapped up in a lawsuit delivered to San Jose. Spherix, once a biotech and now a patent toll-collector, picked more than 100 former Nortel patents from troll-in-chief …
Method and apparatus for encapsulating services for transportation over metallic physical mediums
How does this shit pass? Seriously, isn't that the literal description of the internet? Maybe I should patent encapsulating services and vioce in packets for transportation over radio interfaces and go after every cell phone company.
Fibre optic appears to go round the issue of a metallic connection, perhaps someone should patent the use of a combined path involving hybrid solutions?
Mind you even Bell should turn in his grave at the thought of prior art. Did no one in the USPTO ever go to school, or should that be skule to help them understand?
Most of these topics look like prior art, things that were developed in the 1980s that nobody bothered to patent because a) you couldn't patent software then, b) you can't patent math (legally; the USPTO now lets you patent pretty much anything and leaves it to the courts to fix), and c) nobody would adopt a patented technology. Nortel probably got these as defensive patents, in case some troll tried to use them against it. Now the trolls have the patents. There should be huge penalties for filing such obviously-bad patents. Although it frankly is good business for me since I help fight them for a living.
While Cruel and Unusual Punishment for trolls like this is very tempting, it wouldn't change anything, unless the system changes and this type of case is only presented to judges who actually have a clue about proper IP, and the toolkit to snuff these cases as soon as they appear.
Preferably by sentencing the offending lawyers to [x years] of assigned, mandatory pro-bono work.
The quality of writing in these is at $SHITE level - both technical and legal. Unnecessary verbiage, unnecessary limitations to specific topics, 90 degrees sideways examples, attempt to represent prior art as original by adding GMPLS to it, etc. Once again shows the differences between US and Eu patent system - there is no way in hell something like this will pass the Eu patent process.
There is no way most of these will stand up in court. Even in Eastern Texas. Pity it takes a court to sort out their (in)validity.