Happy Friday, Patent Progress readers! Today was a big week for patent news. In case you missed it, on Tuesday the White House came out with a new plan to combat patent trolls — five executive actions and seven legislative proposals — as well as a new study from the Executive Office of the President. Our own Matt Levy had a post breaking down the Administration’s announcement — particularly the overlooked suggestion on “functional claiming” — that is a good starting point for getting up to speed. We’re excited about a lot of this, as are many business and consumer groups. Mashable’s Alex Fitzpatrick also had a great roundup of reactions to the announcement. Amusing coincidence alert: as Jeff John Roberts observed on GigaOM, Intellectual VenturesThe largest patent aggregator, currently holding around 40,000 patents. Closely associated with co-founder Nathan Myhrvold. IV is often viewed as a patent assertion entity, although much of its activities are conducted through spinoffs, and the company is at least nominally in the business of producing inventions in-house. See our posts on Intellectual Ventures. (subject of Matt Levy’s Dear Intellectual VenturesThe largest patent aggregator, currently holding around 40,000 patents. Closely associated with co-founder Nathan Myhrvold. IV is often viewed as a patent assertion entity, although much of its activities are conducted through spinoffs, and the company is at least nominally in the business of producing inventions in-house. See our posts on Intellectual Ventures. series) filed two new lawsuits on Tuesday.
On Monday Tim Wu came out with a great article in the New Yorker, provocatively entitled “How to Make War on Patent Trolls,” in which he discussed the Vermont AG’s new suit against patent troll MPHJ, and suggests FTC action. An excerpt:
It is time to declare total war on patent trolls. The federal government, and the states, should do everything they can to exterminate them and to make anyone regret getting into such crooked work. The existence of trolls is entirely a product of government: they abuse a government program (the patent law), and continue to exist only thanks to government inaction.
Finally, another recent piece of news is last weekend’s long-awaited follow-up episode of This American Life’s When Patents Attack! That, and the original from 2011, are worth a listen.
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