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A Look Behind The Curtain: How A Patent Hoarder Makes Money
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| A few months back, someone sent over some
| details about a legal battle involving
| Peter Boesen, who is both a convicted felon
| in jail and a patent hoarder who licensed
| his patents to a "patent troll" firm to
| assert against tons of tech companies, and
| Niro Scavone, the law firm representing the
| patent company (and the law firm famous
| for, among other things, having been the
| inspiration for the term "patent troll").
`----
http://techdirt.com/articles/20091023/1856126663.shtml
Patent Litigation Weekly: Revealed! How Much Money a "Patent Troll" Makes
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| Most intriguing is the sum paid by Apple to
| settle an SPT suit brought over the iPhone
| in the Eastern District of Texas in 2008:
| $865,000. Without any motions being filed
| after the intial complaint or any
| substantive discovery, a bit more than 30
| percent of that amount, $271,817, went to
| Niro Scavone, which also billed $46,568 in
| expenses. Nearly $40,000 went to someone
| identified as "Ward"--most likely Johnny
| Ward Jr., who served as local counsel to
| SPT in the case. Of what was left, almost
| $109,000 went to SP Technologies, then
| owned by investor Courtney Sherrer, and
| $311,400 went to Boesen.
`----
http://thepriorart.typepad.com/the_prior_art/2009/10/how-much-money-a-patent-troll-makes-sp-technologies.html
Recent:
FSF files brief in Bilski case calling on the Supreme Court to eliminate software patents
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| The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today submitted an amicus
| curiae brief calling on the Supreme Court to affirm that software
| ideas are not patentable. After outlining the positive impact that
| the free software movement and the GNU General Public License (GNU
| GPL) have had on computer use, the brief explains how software
| patents are an obstacle and a danger to software developers.
`----
http://www.fsf.org/news/bilski-supreme-court-brief
SFLC files Bilski brief: Software should not be patentable and don't forget the 1st Amendment
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| The Software Freedom Law Center has now filed its brief in Bilski.
| You can read it online here, as well as download it as a PDF or as
| Postscript. It raises three major points: 1) software is just
| algorithms for computers in human readable terms, and algorithms
| are not patentable; 2) excluding software from patentable subject
| matter encourages innovation in software; and 3) the First
| Amendment prohibits permitting the patenting of abstract ideas. I
| think you'll find that last point the most interesting.
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http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20091002213301495
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