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Patent Blackmail
from the there-should-be-a-law... dept
There should be a law against filing frivolous patent suits. That's the only way we're ever going to stop things like the following ridiculous set of patent lawsuits. There's a company that owns a few patents that they claim shows they own ecommerce. If you sell anything on the web, they feel you owe them a licensing fee. They're looking for $30,000. They handpicked 11 different small e-commerce sites to go after first. This is, of course, a form of blackmail. For most companies to fight this in court, it will cost them more than $30,000. So, the "smart" thing for a small company to do is to just settle - and this lawyer will go on threatening more companies and raking in the money. Luckily, some people realize the fight is worth it, and are taking the company on - but it's not likely to stop them from doing the same exact thing again with some other ridiculous patents.
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How would a law help?
You'd still have to hire a lawyer to go in front of a judge to determine whether the suit was frivolous or malicious, so you would still incur a cost, and if the decision went against you you'd be right back where you started. I don't know what the answer to this is, but more laws never seem to actually help all that much.
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And for my next patent...
I believe I am going to patent the process of turning on a computer. All I need to use is very vague and very "glitzy" words and push it through the patent office. Then every time someone turns on a computer, I charge them a licensing fee. Of course, I will not require a licensing fee for machines with open-source operating systems on them, and will negotiate simple licensing agreements (read "free, but limited") with home users, non-for-profit and educational institutions (except those set up by Microsoft, i.e. BSA, etc.) Then I'll patent the process of turning off a computer. Oh, and I noticed the man on top hasn't patented breathing oxygen, so I'll patent it too, and then give away the licenses to everyone except lawyers, who will have to pay $0.001 per breath.
I mean, while the government is giving away stupid patents, we might as well monopolize on them for our favor.
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Re: And for my next patent...
I'll do you one better, I'll patent the business plan of creating a company that makes money by acquiring questionable patents then suing everyone for gobs of money....Then I'll use the patent to sue these guys...
Heehee...would this be ironic recursion?
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