I’m at this stage where writing about developing my suspension system is getting in the way of actually developing my suspension system. So I’m shutting the hell up about it for a while. For the three guys out there who care, don’t worry: if something interesting happens, I’ll let you know. And I’ll still be moving dots and lines around on a computer screen and obsessing about every quarter millimeter. I just won’t be bothering to screen capture that crap to post it here constantly. Dots are being moved though.
All the focus on suspension designs has reminded me of an NPR article my wife forwarded to me a few weeks ago. Basically, a few companies–most notably IBM and Halliburton–are trying to patent the act of being a patent troll. Here’s an excerpt from IBM’s troll application, as reported by NPR:
A system and methods for extracting value from a portfolio of assets, for example a patent portfolio, are described. By granting floating privileges described herein, a portfolio owner can extend an opportunity for obtaining an interest in selected assets from the portfolio to a client who lacks the resources to accumulate and maintain such a portfolio, in return for an annuity stream to the portfolio owner.”
I have little love for IBM, and Halliburton seems about as close to the Devil’s official corporation as I can imagine, but clearly someone in each of their legal departments has a useless creative writing degree (like me), and I applaud their initiative. In case you don’t know, the M.O. of a patent trolls is to patent a bunch of imaginary products and then charge anyone who decides to genuinely make one of those things. In a special piece of mind-blowing meta-legal kung fu, these companies are seeking to patent the patent troll process. That’s fucking evil genius.
So when someone with no working prototype and only some vague-ass drawings (like me, right now) of a product tries to sue IBM for, say, inventing that product, IBM could conceivably counter-sue them for violating their patent–the one on being a troll.
Doesn’t look like these attempts are going anywhere, but, I’ve experienced the “work” of a patent troll once upon a time (we had to remove all products from our retail web site that bore the phrase “stealth”–including some WTB saddles at the time–because some douchenozzle claimed to have ownership of that word). Having seen one at work, sitting a pile of his own filth under the bridge of someone else’s idea, I wouldn’t mind seeing their asses crushed under the diabolical weight of some giant legal departments and their professionally trained assholes.
The question, of course–should one of these happen to get through–is could I then patent the act of patenting the act of patent trolling? Might be easier at that point to just patent the act of applying for patents, though that one might be a little tough to get approved.