Support a Bounty for Prior Art

Was slightly involved with an effort regarding patent trolls.  Very long since I touched on this.   Push obviousness.   Like this approach. Agree its the way to go.  PTO needs to be evolved.   Which reminded me of:   Trolls are 'Non practicing entities'   MUCH more at the link, though business-IP technical.

Project Jengo Redux: Cloudflare’s Prior Art Search Bounty Returns

04/26/2021, By Doug Kramer  in Cloudflare's Blog. 

Here we go again.

On March 15, Cloudflare was sued by a patent troll called Sable Networks — a company that doesn’t appear to have operated a real business in nearly ten years — relying on patents that don’t come close to the nature of our business or the services we provide. This is the second time we’ve faced a patent troll lawsuit.

As readers of the blog (or followers of tech press such as ZDNet and TechCrunch) will remember, back in 2017 Cloudflare responded aggressively to our first encounter with a patent troll, Blackbird Technologies, making clear we wouldn’t simply go along and agree to a nuisance settlement as part of what we considered an unfair, unjust, and inefficient system that throttled innovation and threatened emerging companies. If you don’t want to read all of our previous blog posts on the issue, you can watch the scathing criticisms of patent trolling provided by John Oliver or the writers of Silicon Valley.

We committed to fighting back against patent trolls in a way that would turn the normal incentive structure on its head. In addition to defending the case aggressively in the courts, we also founded Project Jengo — a crowdsourced effort to find evidence of prior art to invalidate all of Blackbird’s patents, not only the one asserted against Cloudflare. It was a great success — we won the lawsuit, invalidated one of the patent troll’s other patents, and published prior art on 31 of Blackbird’s patents that anyone could use to challenge those patents or to make it easier to defend against overbroad assertion of those patents. And most importantly, Blackbird Technologies went from being one of the most prolific patent trolls in the United States to shrinking its staff and filing many fewer cases.

We’re going to do it again. And we need your help.

Turning the Tables — A $100,000 Bounty for Prior Art  ..... '

Patent Troll Loses Podcast Fight

Was slightly involved with research for patent litigation that dealt with trolls,  so follow recent activity in this area, in particular regarding prior art.    Quite a bit of detail at the link regarding podcasting prior art.  The patent system has to be fixed.

Personal Audio loses its appeal for podcasting patent   by Brian Heater
A year after taking up the case, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has ruled in favor of the Electronic Frontier Foundation in its challenge against podcasting patent troll, Personal Audio. The decision is a massive relief for the vibrant and ever-growing medium, which has been operated under the threat of lawsuit for a number of years.  .... " 

A Blow to Patent Trolls

Was involved in a very small way in the actions of a patent troll, an Opinion piece by Evan Schuman on changes in the legal system that could stop them.  Will this work?  I know lawyers on both sides running the numbers.  Instructive thoughts:

 A potentially fatal blow against patent troll
Forcing law firms to pay defendants’ legal bills could undermine the business model of patent trolls ... " 

Combatting Patent Trolls

I recently commented on patent trolls.  I have been on the receiving end of being threatened by patent trolls.  I was informed that there is now an advertising effort underway to stop the madness, called Stop Bad Patents.  Sponsored by companies I have worked with, like FMI and EFF.      In the retail space, see FMI's view.  And the useful definitions and comments of EFF.

Trolls and Copyrights

A judicial case addresses the right to re-post. But I don't think this is the last we will hear about fair-use in blogs.

Disarming Internet Trolls

A cognitive therapy method to disarming Internet Trolls. A method that differs from the old approach of not feeding them.