Conceivably Tech reports that IBM (IBM) has filed a patent application with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to automates the management of intellectual property. The system that would manage Big Blue’s intellectual property (and others who could afford IBM’s costs) comes with a “defend” module to formulate a strategy in the case of patent infringement.
TechEye says that Big Blue’s patent is designed to automate the patent process from beginning to end including suing other companies that the computer believes are infringing on a copyright. The patent components are divided into a “direct” part, which includes the overall strategy such as R&D, portfolio, filing, budgeting, and forecasting. “Control” covers factors such as market alignment, invention evaluation, IP valuation, and inventor training. “Execute” includes trade secret protection, trademark creation, IP landscaping, technology monitoring, and competitive intelligence. Conceivably Tech quotes the “defend”, “influence” and capitalize modules of the application:
“defending against infringements and invalidations of said IP rights based on said business strategies and monitoring market and competitor actions to develop risk management plans; an influence computer module including a standards influencing unit, a legal and regulatory influencing unit, and a policy influencing unit; and capitalize computer module for identifying potential licensees and potential assignees of said IP rights, and managing licensing negotiations, cross-licensing negotiations, and assignment negotiations based on said business strategies.”
TechEye points out the irony of how the software was created. They point out that an IBMer collected all the experience IBM gained from filing more than 100 patents every week and put the data into a chart. From there Big Blue decided that given the way the IP world is shaping up these days, they should patent IP themselves. Thus IBM has patented the patent process. What they came up with is:
TechEye concludes that IBM’s patent application is really an automated troll. They conclude that if the patent office approves this, then it means that every time you patent something you have to give IBM a fee to see if you did it differently from Big Blue’s process. Otherwise, its software might send you a subpoena.
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This must seem like a god-send to organizations whose business model has de-evolved into patent trolling. Some of these cases I have written about are the CSIRO Wi-Fi patent activities, all the craziness in the smartphone market, and MSFT co-founder Paul Allen’s attempts to sue most of the web.
Gotta give it to IBM, its like TechEye says, “If you can’t beat the trolls, patent the process that creates them.”
Do you believe the U.S. Patent Office is still useful?
Does IBM deserve to collect a tax from every innovator?
Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
One of the hobbies i have taken up is patent troll watching. Thanks to Flowing Data for pointing out work by Mike Bostock which visualizes the data of who is suing who in the mobile patent warfare battles. To see a live version of this data network go to the bl.ocks.org website here.
The data on this chart indicates that Apple is at the heart of mobile patent warfare. Apple (AAPL) has been involved in 9 patent lawsuits. Other prodigious mobile patent litigators include Microsoft (MSFT) with 8 lawsuits, Kodak (KODK) with 7 suits, and newly created Google (GOOG)/Motorola union is involved in 5 mobile patent warfare skirmishes.
