Admitted Patent Troll Finds The Phrase 'Shell Entity' Offensive
from the oh-really? dept
You may recall last year that we wrote about a patent lawsuit where the judge banned the use of the word "patent troll." That seemed reasonable enough, since it's clearly a negatively loaded phrase. However, it looks like some patent attorneys are trying to go even further with that concept. Ray Niro, in defending Scott Harris (who, you may recall, licensed his own patents to be used in lawsuits against his own firms' clients), is demanding that the phrase "shell entities" not be used either, claiming that they, too, are used negatively. That's because, like so many patent holders these days, Harris used shell companies to hold the patents and to sue companies. Of course, "shell entities" is a descriptive term, not one that is clearly designed as an insult like "patent troll."Besides, this seems quite rich, coming in defense of Harris, who used to own the website ImAPatentTroll.com. And, indeed, the lawyers on the other side of the case wasted no time in pointing this out:
Additionally, the Motion to Strike asserts that the term 'shell entity' is synonymous, in this context, with the term "patent troll." Significantly, Mr. Harris, even while at Fish & Richardson, sponsored a website, imapatenttroll.com, in which he proudly and openly referred to himself as a "patent troll." Truth is an absolute defense.Separately, it is also rather amusing to see patent system defenders get upset about the phrase "patent trolls" when they're so quick to refer to any sort of patent reform as "patent deform", companies in favor of patent reform "The Piracy Coalition," while, of course, insisting that any individual in favor of patent reform a "shill."
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Filed Under: lawsuits, offensive words, patent trolls, patents, ray niro, scott harris, shell entity
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Re: trolls indeed
No they should not be treated the same, as they're not like any other kind of property.
"trolling" would be a bit tougher to do with real estate and copyright due to their nature.
Patent trolls notoriously take ideas (obvious or not), patent them, and instead of trying to profit from their invention, wait for someone else to get rich off the idea, then sue them for "damages" that don't exist.
With copyright, you actually have to create something for your property right to exist. If you could copyright, "A story about a villian who uses a knife to kill blonde women in new york" without having to actually write the story, then you would most certainly see copyright trolls.
Patents give you right to property that doesn't exist -- not even (necessarily) virtually.
For real estate, it's physical (therefore finite) property -- not even infinitely reproducible like things covered by copyright. The powers that be generally want real estate to exist before you claim ownership of it.
The RE analog would be, "I hereby claim ownership of any future additional area of Virginia," and then suing the people that extended their beach for occupying 'your' land.
Basically, the reason you don't see copyright and RE trolls are because they really can't exist in the same way as patent trolls do.
The closest thing i might give you on copyright trools might be the infinite-extention proponents http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act
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