Google, Verizon, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco, Telefono LM Ericsson, Research in Motion, Qualcomm, Rambus, Microsoft, IBM, Intel and more; none of these companies are usually thought of as team players. Yet they have all joined forces in a kind of anti-patent infringement Justice League, banding together to preserve their intellectual property in a time where patent reform is sorely needed.

What benefit lies in bringing this group of technology giants together for a common cause? Buying power. The companies have determined that one surefire way to fight infringement on patents and intellectual property theft is to create a macro funding partnership that can then buy up intellectual property before it has a chance to haunt them. Think of it as one giant, world wide preemptive strike.

The companies have even given themselves a name, though repeated suggestion of “Justice League” level coolness were rejected in favor of the much more staid Allied Security Trust. What kind of patent infringement is so nefarious as to require a group of this magnitude? Patent trolling, or the practice of registering hundreds of vague, loosely worded patents under a company that is a non-practicing entity solely for the purpose of later filing lawsuits against a larger company for the purpose of making money through alleging patent violation. Think of it as the patent filing equivalent of a domain squatter.

The need for this kind of large scale response to patent abuse outlines the fact that the US Patent system is in desperate need of an overhaul. In fact, companies and individuals have been screaming for such an overhaul for years but the powers that be behind the US Patent and Trademark Office have resisted such a large scale overhaul. They claim it would be too disruptive for their system. My response to that is “Isn’t that the point of an overhaul, to disrupt an existing system for the purpose of making it better?”

Currently the rules for filing patents are lax, and the supporting documentation for a patent often isn’t as strenuous as would be hoped, which is part of how these patent trolls can file so many vague patents. On the other hand, these larger companies control a large share of the market, and some people are crying foul over the alliance, claiming that it shuts out the little guys, the garage inventors, from ever getting an idea off the ground. In my opinion it levels the playing field, giving the little guy more of a chance to make some money by selling their patent to a larger entity. What do you think?

Related:

Entry was posted on Friday, July 4th, 2008 at 6:36 pm under Google, Intel, Legal.

Read more entries by Leslie Poston.
Stumble It!