Halliburton Applies For Patent-Trolling Patent 244
An anonymous reader writes "Halliburton, the company many folks know as Dick Cheney's previous employer, has apparently taken an interest in methods of patent trolling. In fact, according to Techdirt, the company has applied for a patent on patent trolling. Specifically, it's applied for a patent on the process of finding a company that protected an invention via trade secret, figuring out what that secret is, patenting it ... and then suing the original company. Hopefully, the patent office rejects this patent, because I somehow doubt that Halliburton is trying to get the patent as a way to block others from patent trolling."
Re:This (Score:1, Informative)
Text of claim 1 from the patent application
A method for a non-inventor first party to acquire and assert a patent property against a second party, the method including the first party performing the following acts:obtaining an equity interest in the patent property;writing a claim within the scope of the patent property, the claim being written to cover a product of the second party, where the product includes a secret aspect, the secret aspect including an unobservable aspect, where writing the claim includes performing research using a computer to convert the unobservable aspect to an observable aspect;filing the claim with a patent office;offering a license of the patent property to the second party after the patent property issues as a patent with the claim; andattempting to obtain a monetary settlement from the second party based on the assertion of infringement of the claim.
Re:Like Radar Detecting (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Like Radar Detecting (Score:3, Informative)
The sales guys at those places are rarely picked for technical knowledge, just their willingness to upsell anything, and try to get people excited about their products.
Case in point: I was looking at some Sony ultra-mini laptop with a ULV Intel chip in it, and I had one of the salesguys come up to me and try to tell me it has a Pentium 4 in it. And this is well after the Intel Core series was being shipped in volume.
I tell my family to not trust anything they say... they're trying to make a sale. The only way to get a good product is to do the research yourself, or talk to someone you actually trust.
From TLWA (Score:5, Informative)
Although patents normally go to the first inventor under a first-to-file system, an inventor who keeps the information secret or just does not publish generally loses the right to the patent and also does not establish prior art. Without prior art, a later inventor can get a valid patent on the same invention and then apply it against earlier inventor(s). All this is easily prevented simply by recognizing the invention and applying for a patent, or by publishing details of how to practice the invention, thus creating prior art.
Emphasis mine.