Thousands of pure software patents are granted in
the EU each year by
calling the software patent a
"computer implemented invention". By the time a
defendant is asking for JMOL, at least £100,000 has
gone done the toilet, and
cannot be fished back out
because the troll will be bankrupt. The troll's
brother
will be back the next day with another invalid patent.
(A director of a
bankrupt company cannot become
director of a new company, but can remain
director of an existing one. All he has to do
is split a safe company into
two, and he has a new
shell to go trolling with.)
What we need is an
existing law that gets trolls
into prison today. The racketeering laws are an
obvious
first choice. The other place to look are the laws
concerning
"innocent unless proven guilty", and "cruel
and unusual punishment": before a
jury gets anywhere
near a verdict, the defendant has already had to take
days
away from his business reading simple
computing techniques translated into
opaque
patent language. Patent lawyers may enjoy that, but
for everyone else
it is torture.
Another line of defence is where the plaintive asks
for
$4,000,000,000 when a reasonable license should be
under $100,000 if
the defendant is actually infringing
a valid patent. Even at ten times
reasonable, that is
$3,999,000,000 of fraud.
There is no point
discussing how to define what is
and is not patentable with a patent lawyer.
They will
just invent some new terms in patent language describe
non-patentable subject matter, and claim because the
words are different the
patent must be granted.
Instead of arguing in terms where they are expert,
move the discussion to places they do not want to go,
like the damage they
cause and "why aren't you in
prison?".
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