How Covid-19 does not stand up vs. the past stats.

June 2019, well before the coronoa virus pandemic, HELEN BRANSWELL wrote this article for Stanews,

The last pandemic was a ‘quiet killer.’ Ten years after swine flu, no one can predict the next one.

(https://www.statnews.com/2019/06/11/h1n1-swine-flu-10-years-later/)

some excerpts:

Since it started circulating in the spring of 2009, H1N1 has infected about 100 million Americans, killing about 75,000 and sending 936,000 to the hospital, the CDC estimates. Another virus, H3N2, is responsible for more infections, but “in terms of the severity, H1 is kind of this quiet killer,” said Dr. Daniel Jernigan, head the CDC’s flu division.

A study published in 2013 suggested between 123,000 and 200,000 people globally may have died as a result of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. 

From the US CDC:

1968 Pandemic (H3N2 virus). The estimated number of deaths was 1 million worldwide and about 100,000 in the United States.

1957-1958 Pandemic (H2N2 virus). The estimated number of deaths was 1.1 million worldwide and 116,000 in the United States.

1918 Pandemic (H1N1 virus). It is estimated that about 500 million people or one-third of the world’s population became infected with this virus. The number of deaths was estimated to be at least 50 million worldwide with about 675,000 occurring in the United States.

So it all makes this covid-19 thing look whipped up by the media. It is all so convenient for its governing politics and governments.

Soviet Assets In The White House

Armand Hammer was a known Soviet asset and Al Gore's father worked for him at Occidental Petroleum after vigorously defending him on the Senate floor from charges of espionage. Al Gore Jr. personally profited from his father's relationship with Armand Hammer.

Sen. Ted Kennedy approached Yuri Andropov with a proposed deal to help the Russians deal with Ronald Reagan if they would help the Democrat party in its campaign against Reagan.

While a student in England Bill Clinton took a trip to the Soviet Union and later, as president, allowed a massive missile technology transfer to communist China.

The idea that there have been Russian assets in the Whitehouse is not so crazy but maybe we should not put Trump at the top of that list.
(from https://www.reddit.com/r/intelligence/comments/8xeh6f/_/e22yuly)

The impotence of alternative medicine

The world has no chocie but agree that all that Chinese folk medicine, and all the alternative medicine, has been just a bunch of bunk and excrement after the Corvid-19 pandemic.
What could be the fitting punishment for all the crooks that cheated people out of their money under the pretense of offering them treatment and medicine?
Maybe burrowing the concept from the bunk of homeopathy, the punishment should be like the offense, feed the homeopaths with all the inventory of their snake oil, make the Chinese charlatans eat rotten intestines from the butcher's market in Wuhan.

The criminology analysis of the coronavirus pandemic.

lots of time invested in preparing the article. Very methodical. I can't describe the punchline of it all. The illness is like a contagious flu, maybe as contagious as the previous seasons. Elderly people are at risk, and will be convenient scare statistics if they die.

So like in everything, there must be someone or some entity which is unusually interested in it, as in motive. Using the criminology rule of thumb, Motive-Means-Opportunity.

I'd say, the attempt to subvert or change authority. In US it is convenient for the leftists and democrats, because the US health care can't take care of people still with inadequate coverage.

Maybe China initially did something to stop the freedom protests, but that was in Hong Kong, and Wuhan is the epicenter. But the streets have been cleared.

i'd say the MMO rule of thumb sticks to Soros.

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca

This discovery in the kitchen

Out of all glassware coming out of China, maybe this one is not Chinese, because it is sturdy. Even its looks suggest bountiful glass. Blink Max, it says on the bottom, and I have never seen or heard about it before. I do not even know how it got here.

This Is The Crux of Religion Of FRAO and Health Business Charlatans.

The Free Radical craze and the worship of Anti Oxidants has become the bread and butter of the health concern charlatancy. The key word of the FRAO religion is still "theory" started by pre-web sitting in public libraries, and then reading each other's web cobweb fantasy science sites.

All the talk can still be boiled down to the fact that every biochemical in the living cell has a free radical phase, and maybe several such phases, as it arrives at its final destination of the Krebs cycle, or a cell building block. For example, intermediate molecules that form cell wall, hemoglobin, lipids, all go through a split second long stage of being a free radical.

Free radicals swimming free in a body means the body is dead. The acidity-basicity of a living organism is precise. Even a small amount of any free radical means that a healthy organism will have plenty of the buffer system to absorb it, just like any spike of acid or base, without any need for the health charlatancy's concepts of body defense, friendly substances, good herbs, etc.

The buffer system of a living organism is the ever present, major three or four acids: phosphoric, carbonic, acetic, and citric, with their corresponding electrolytes. IV drips always use any of these safely, other than saline, which does not participate in metabolism.

Anti oxidants can't just always be ready to hang around and immediately neutralize free radicals. Anti oxidants are different molecules, and can't have the 100% functionality in the insane soup of a living organism, balanced at a specific acidity, and having a unique organic makeup, i.e., proteins being anionic and cationic, lipids being unfriendly to water-soluble molecules.

To add to the soup are the white blood cells, which are self-defense amoebas, which hunt for any material that triggered the body's alarm as having a foreign surface.

So the general public is overdosing on vitamin c, a prime antioxidant, but it is not active in every part of the body, or cell, or won't even get to all cells. Because if there's too much of it, the natural buffer chemistry kicks in and the vitamin c is made harmless, but still theoretically available to perform as a vitamin.
Same goes for vitamin E. It is oil-soluble. It is very safe to remember that it would function in a lipid process or material of a cell. It will not be floating around in the watery soup, just waiting for the always water-soluble free radical.

Carcinogenic events don't necessarily start with free radicals, as the religion claims. A strong, high frequency radiation (starting with UV, which damages skin, then the penetrating X-rays, gamma rays, and neutron radiation) does it by forcing logical errors in DNA operations, which nearly always involve RNA, and rely on specific enzymes to perform copy-paste and error checking functions. Only nuclear explosions, nuclear contamination, ingestion would produce free radicals, in the genetic material included, but that means a significant damage on the scale of a Chernobyl cleanup and staff exposure, and that means most of metabolism is in damaged, and imminent death.

Errors in the DNA operations most of the time happen without sub molecular damage. It would mean that a molecule might be mistaken for the DNA base pairs A-T, G-C, the zipper like teeth of the dna's zipper-like helix, or might block the pairing. The molecule could be naphthalene, benzene, or nicotine, etc. The radiation may change a change in a copy-paste enzyme's protein chain, like cap a site with a hydrogen instead of a -CH3, or -CH3 instead of -NH2. Same might be done to any of the base pairs.

Another intellectually dishonest silence is about the lymphatic system, and about the shedding of body materials. Contrary to the charlatans' language of cleaning body, or blood, it is theoretically impossible to do by means of any chemical. The body is a precisely tuned chemical soup. Any chemical or biochemical intrusion means death.
The real cleaning is done by the lymphatic system. One of the ABC's of self-cleaning is capping an old mass of protein, or a cell with glucose, or some other biochemical in the body. The capped mass is naturally ducted to and by the lymphatic system, to other locales, or, engulfed by a white blood cell, like a macrophage, or discarded. The glucose capped old hemoglobin has been measured in blood tests(HbA1c) for quite some time. But the intellectual dishonest charlatans overlooked this, or it was beyond them, being a step too far ahead of their rationale.

If anything is shed inside intestines then it is digested, or eaten by the friendly bacteria, or expelled in the toilet.
If cells are shed outside the body, then they are dandruff, chaff, and are washed off in the shower.
Nothing just sheds off inside the body the way the charlatans claim.

So any guru of the FRAO is a fraud, or a liar, or a thief. I don't know why they would not be.

Breaking Bad Chemistry

So sad that the imagination of visual arts trivializes the evil and mixes it with science.

Stumbled on a two clips from the Breaking Bad series, capturing my memories of work in chem labs, human resources and the importance of coffee therefor:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ83kt4a2-A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RVwaHkkPyw

Selfiecopter and Arduino

Belatedly posting: the guy (Mark Rober) stumbled on the simple secret used on Youtube for earning money by being an advertising associate. In the selfiecopter fake it is all about links to the motor and electronics purchasing. The ultimate truth is no longer important, the money is in the non-obvious combination of half-truths in media, ideas, presentation and hardware.




This is a sort of a high pop science. The miniaturization and electronic control is hi tech. They used Arduino printed circuit, and it is the center piece of  electronics part of Israel's matriculation exams. Extremely hard. But nice to see it being used so comfortably in the video.

American vs Soviet school reading, thoughts on.

Looking back retroactively,  I see that the USSR reading was too narrow minded and encyclopedic. The US reading was very open.

American school reading
(https://photos.app.goo.gl/CU3orsqEGp17aSnv8)

I imagined what the kids did in their free time. The USSR kids played less, and were less socialized. The American kids read imaginative material, even the theatricized geography lessons.

Then you look at the outcome. The US reading included the Victorian tales of conniving princesses, but that prepared children some basic skills ind dealing with social life. The USSR life and economy was based on the stories of the Russian suffering through the lesson of theoretical communism. The super smart USSR reading was powerless in the face of the American mindgame of nuclear strategy and star wars. The mindset cannot fathom the business savvy of the game and the culture of golf. Cannot educate itself out of the oil-gas revenue addiction and rescue the economy.

The Ivan reading book was written at the peak of the perceived fear of the USSR's missile and military, when the US really had the advantage and also in strategic bombers. B-52s still flying, Soviet bombers all broken up long time ago. etc etc

To buy or not to buy WordLogic

BUY: J. David Stewart, Analyst and Publisher, of the The Stewart Report (see this post) - A 25-year veteran of Wall Street, J. David Stewart is also a private professional investor, stock analyst and publisher of The Stewart Report (now in its 15th year of continuous publication). His acumen as an analyst specializing in small and micro-cap securities has earned him wide media attention, including feature stories in: Money, Fortune and Entrepreneur. He's also been quoted in The Washington Post, The Financial Post, The New York Times, The Financial Digest, Investor's Business Daily, The Dick Davis Digest and Barron's. The impact of his thinking is regularly reported in wire service dispatches by CBS Market Watch, Reuters, Bloomberg and Dow Jones News Service, and he is a frequent guest on national radio and television shows, including CNN. WordLogic Corporation's chart is one of the strongest I've seen in months. Admittedly, the recent market environment has resulted in a lot of very sickly looking stock charts, so I've been seeing some pretty bad stuff - but this picture would look outstanding even if I had nothing but bull-market winners to compare it to. After giving up roughly 90 percent of its value during the broad swoon that befell the entire market during 2008, WordLogic started bucking the general trend in early November and spent the next two months building a solid base from which to launch a New Year's rally - one that easily penetrated the short- (20-day), intermediate- (40-day) and long-term (180-day) moving averages, as well as a declining trend line that had represented minor upside resistance for more than six months. Since the beginning of the year, the stock has gained more than 200 percent, culminating on January 20 with a gap opening and subsequent move that tested the major resistance around 85 cents. Given the strong recent rally, I'd look for the stock to fail in this first attempt to break through that barrier, retrace to fill the gap on some short-term profit taking, then launch a rebound that will not only crack the major resistance but carry all the way to the $1.05-$1.10 level. If that takes some time, new resistance could build beyond that point - but if the stock gets there quickly, a further move carrying back to the 52-week high should follow close behind. The former Managing Editor of The Los Angeles Times Syndicate, Larry D. Spears has served as editor for America's foremost political and economic columnists, including Pulitzer Prize-winner Art Buchwald. As Editor of the Hume MoneyLetter, he polished the works of financial luminaries ranging from J. David Stewart to Wall Street Week host Louis Rukeyser and former U.S. Treasury Secretary William Simon. He also authored and edited "The SuperInvestor Files" for Hume Publishing and created the "100 Steps to Wealth" home-study course for Money Magazine. Currently, he is Editor-in-Chief for The Stewart Report and continues to specialize in the use of technical analysis and options trading, having authored four books on those subjects.

How trashy are Apple's iPhone Patents?

Very excrement-like, since they didn't ask me to do the patentability searches :-) But more seriously, the February 9th issue of Barrons has an article on Apple's iPhone patents, with Apple COO Tim Cook quoting as stating that Apple won't stand for having its IP ripped off (with hints that the intended target is Palm, though Apple doesn't mind ripping off inventors). However the same article quotes San Francisco investment analyst Pablo Perez-Fernandez as raising doubts about the strength of Apple's iPhone patent portfolio, much of which focuses on touchscreen technology:

He asserts that the U.S. Patent Office "may have not observed the requirements of innovation on number of occasions", that the legal owner of key multi-touch technologies may be the University of Delaware, and that "the essential discoveries embedded in Apple's products were the result of the work of academics from the university now employed at Apple."

He goes on:

Apple didn't invent transparent, capacitive multitouch sensors that could be overlaid on screens; "that honor went to ATT's famous Bell Laboratories back in the mid-1980s."

His conclusion: while Apple's patents are probably infringed by competitors, the competitors could strike back on invalidity grounds. And I suspect he is right. Despite all of the bull's shirt from the big companies that complain about crappy patents that issue, they are all notorious for routinely submitting crappy patents with inadequate prior art references.

How electronic medical records will become another mini-bubble

One component of Obama's recovery plan is to pour billions into electronic medical records. There are already tons of patents in this field, and lots of venture capital. But Forbes editor Lee Gomes, in the 12 January edition of Forbes, page 43, argues that doing so might make medicine more inefficient, i.e., more costly. "But the notion they're a panacea is a symptom of the fixation with high-tech gadgets that's part of the (healthcare) problem in the first place." Sounds like the PTO - fixing engineering management at the PTO is not a tech problem.

More on WordLogic and The Second of Nine Sisters

WordLogic could vigorously pursue an Olympic-sized pool of legal targets, all of whom will be swimming in litigation. For this very reason, WordLogic has intentionally forestalled litigation against the other offenders until a second, "sister patent" is formally granted. Cumulatively, the Company has nine IP's: There's the one patent that's already been approved, and eight patents that are still pending. Patent pending number two is a close sister patent to the one already granted. Evanshen said it's also for a classical deep-search, content-seeking, predictive, algorithm-based software technology for advanced word recognition - except this one's supercharged. That makes it a powerful playing piece, one that both strengthens and broadens the overall coverage of Company's intellectual property - and therefore its suit against Mercedes-Benz. Technically, in its current state of legal flux, the sister patent is still pending - but it's pending fast! Let me explain: In reviewing the online application - which is the right of the patent applicant - Evanshen told me last week that activity in the file's movement within the U.S. Patent Office suggested that "approval was imminent". He was correct. As part of Tuesday's news release, the Company was able to announce, "The United States Patent and Trademark Office has put WordLogic's second patent pending in a position of allowance. The Company's patent attorneys have filed the necessary response required to have this second patent pending allowed. The Company considers this development significantly important, firstly as an additional asset increasing the value of the Company and secondly with regard to the importance it will have in settling this case. "I, as co-owner of Stewart/Abbott Medical and a U.S. patent that's now pending, all I can say is this: "Man, I sure hope we get a letter like that!" To be in a "position of allowance" means you're all but home, the deal is all but done and you're just waiting for the ink to dry. For WordLogic Corporation, it means: 1) The boundaries of the existing suit are about to extend favorably; and, 2) The case against Mercedes will be much easier to win. This does NOT mean WordLogic needs the sister patent to be victorious or that it needs a second trigger to fire the first gun. No, patent number two is simply extra ammunition to win the case. And I believe it will. And, when it does, defendants in all future cases will fall like dominos, the damage verdicts will become almost predictable and the courtrooms will pay off like casinos. There is a lot in the wind right now, and much of it could send this stock soaring to previously unseen heights. Regardless of the "End Game" and how it's played out, Evanshen is looking at a surprising number of opportunities. It's a fairly complex decision tree, but each of the potential decisions is incredibly lucrative - and virtually all of them could play nicely into the hands of stockholders. The momentum at this point is considerable. Within a month or three, I could easily see the stock returning to its 52-week high of $1.90. Longer term, an out-of-court settlement with Mercedes-Benz or a deep-pocket buyout offer from one of the Googles or Microsofts of the world would certainly put the stock back at its 60-week high of $4.30 - and even that could easily turn out to be the valuation understatement of 2009.

The "S" Class Action Suit (WordLogic In Reverse)x50

In a tobacco suit or other class-action case (such as the asbestos litigation that leveled Johns Manville), you have several hundred people teaming together to sue a major corporation. If they win, lots of little people get lots of checks that they think are big. In the final analysis, though, only the attorneys score big. By comparison, we have one plaintiff - WordLogic Corporation - which is positioning itself to attack as many as 50 companies worldwide. If successful against Mercedes - as it was against Hewlett-Packard - tiny WordLogic stands to be awarded millions upon millions, year after year, with each consecutive victory setting a precedent to win the next - and to win it more easily. Case law is predicated on legal precedent - and, to some extent, WordLogic already has one. Before the Company even went public - and while the patent was still pending - CEO Evanshen won an out-of-court settlement against Hewlett-Packard for $2 million. Technically, the suit was for trademark infringement. Had the patent already been granted, as it now has been, Evanshen believes WordLogic would have received "probably ten times that $2 million amount." In time, dozens of other suits, worth dozens, if not hundreds of millions in damages each, will likely be filed against defendants with names that are just as recognizable as Mercedes-Benz - especially if WordLogic defeats Mercedes-Benz.

The $360 Million-Dollar Door Ding

Obviously, I couldn't begin to put a per-share value on the suit without some idea as to the value of the suit itself. To do that, I needed to know more about the cars with pirated WordLogic software. A lesser professional would have gone to the web, not me. Driven by the dedicated, relentless Southern California work ethic so closely associated with sleepy beach towns, I left work a little early (10 a.m.) to visit Mercedes-Benz of Laguna Niguel (the eleventh largest M-B dealer in the world) because I didn't want to chance a slow Internet connection. To save time, I also chose an uber-fast car to test drive: A race-inspired, "Silver Arrow"-colored 2009 AMG SL63. With a 6.2 liter, 525 HP V-8 motor tied to a seven-speed gear box, it can do zero to 60 in 4.2 seconds, has a top speed of 155 MPH (limited by an electronic "governor"), and is therefore worth every penny of its $152,665 price tag. That sounds like a large sum of money until you realize that M-B of Laguna Niguel sports a lavish "Customer Comfort" area with sumptuous leather chairs to sit in while you rest your wallet and sip complimentary Starbucks coffee as they hand wash your car ... any time you want ... free. So, it all works out. Right? Right! Opulent dealership set-ups such as this - coupled with seriously flawed logic patterns of car guys such as myself - enabled Mercedes-Benz to sell 1,034,700 automobiles in the first 11 months of 2008. December will be reported shortly and raise the figure a bit, but let's just say they are doing one million cars annually. Of those, Andre, my salesman, said about one-third are of the S-Class variety (which are the models with the COMMAND System as standard equipment), suggesting that over 300,000 M-B cars leave showrooms each year with WordLogic technology on board. That was the first number I needed to ascribe a value to the suit. Furthermore, in Mercedes cars that don't include it, the package with the COMMAND system option costs $2,950 additional - that being the second figure I needed. Until Tuesday morning (when the Company issued a news release covering this topic), I guesstimated that at least $200 of that $2,950 could/would/should have been paid in software licensing fees to WordLogic Corporation. Therefore, based on 300,000 Mercedes models sold annually with WordLogic software on board, and with that software worth at least $200, the infringement deprived WordLogic of something like $60 million each year. It was explained to me that, by law, the suit is allowed to go back two years, so that's $120 million in damages right there. However, since M-B knowingly ignored the patent and built COMMAND-equipped cars anyway, WordLogic is entitled to sue for three times that amount. That, according to my math is a $360 million "door ding" against Mercedes - and trust me, I'm good at math. Apparently, I'm a fairly good guesser, too: In the Tuesday news release I just alluded to, the Company said it is seeking "8.6 percent in royalties on the sales of the infringing product that sells for approximately $3,000 to $5,000 per car," and that "treble damages" apply to those models sold "in 2007, 2008, and 2009." Comparatively then, WordLogic's in-house formula equates to low-end damages of about $464.4 million. We'll play it conservative though and use my $360 million number as we compare it to the Company's capital structure. WordLogic has just over 30 million shares outstanding, meaning the suit, on a per-share basis, could deliver shareholders approximately $12 per share in cash. The stock is presently priced under a buck. Now it's your turn to do the math. Remember: Mercedes-Benz is two names, but it's just one company and this is just one patent infringement suit. Truth is, this patent is being blatantly infringed on daily - all over the world! How many devices incorporate predictive text messaging? How many other multi-billion-dollar corporate machines are running on this software? What might be the total amount of damages? Your guess is as good as mine, and I'm sure the aggregate numbers are probably far too large for any of us to believe.

WHY IBM'S KAPPOS IS UNFIT TO BE NEXT PTO DIRECTOR

I am totally opposed to Kappos being appointed as the next PTO Director, for his involvement in multiple IBM efforts over the last ten years to undermine any attempts to improve patent quality. It would be a horrible message to send to inventors to have a lawyer from the most abusive patent playing company, IBM, as head of the PTO. One reason the PTO's backlog is so great is that companies such as IBM flood the PTO with tons of crappy patent applications, to jam up the system making it hard for competitors to get patents that could challenge IBM's markets. Anyone forget IBM's airplane-bathroom-reservation patent? I also post this classic 1997 article from Business Week that pretty much describes how IBM invented trollism (shaking down companies by asserting lots of crappy patents, and some good ones, from their massive portfolio). IBM was a major player in the Software Patent Institute scam (a 1990s effort to deflect any resources from a serious attempt to improve prior art handling at the PTO), and is a major player in the SPI's child, the 2000s scam otherwise known as the Public Patent Peer Review project. For many of these undermining efforts, Kappos was involved. He should not be awarded Directorship of the PTO. Slashdot this week has a summary of criticisms of IBM's attempts to get U.S. bailout money so it can fire U.S. workers and move more of its jobs overseas. "As his company was striving to hide the bodies of its laid off North American workers, IBM CEO Sam Palmisano stood beside president Obama and waxed patriotic: 'We need to reignite growth in our country.', Palmisano said. 'We need to undertake projects that actually will create jobs." While Sam positions IBM to get a slice of the $825 billion stimulus pie, IBM is quietly cutting thousands of jobs and refusing to release the numbers or locations." The country deserves someone coming from some other company to be the next PTO Director, if the next choice is a corporate one. Kappos is a much smarter version of Jon Dudas, and will be as effective, if not more, in overseeing the further degradation of PTO capabilities with regards to patent examination (which again, is in IBM's interests). So everyone, make copies of the BusinessWeek article below, and send it to your Congressional representatives, asking them to not allow any lawyers from IBM to become the next Director of the PTO.

HOW IBM INVENTED TROLLISM

Found in BUSINESSWEEK 17 MAR 1997: BIG BLUE IS OUT TO COLLAR SOFTWARE SCOFFLAWS by Ira Sager, Business Week, 17 March 1997, page 34 Big blue holds more software patents than any other company in the world. That's great for bragging rights, but it does little for the bottom line. Now, however, IBM sees money in that trove of intellectual property - and its efforts to collect are making software companies hoping mad. Note: might as well call this date the formal birth at IBM of trollism Lawyers for Big Blue are searching for software companies that it says should be paying royalties but aren't. Over the past several months, IBM has been quietly pursuing patent claims against such well-known software companies as Oracle, Computer Associates, Adobe Systems, Autodesk, Intuit and Informix. IBM is also pressing a software claim against computer maker Sequent Computer Systems. Note: a lesson well learned by many trolls to follow in the years to come. All thanks to IBM. So far, no lawsuits have been filed, but software companies aren't waiting. Several of them are launching a pre-emptive strike, hiring Silicon Valley's star litigator, Gary Reback, a partner at Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich, Rosati. Two years ago, Reback took on Bill Gates. Representing a handful of Silicon Valley companies, he unsuccessfully tried to get the Justice Department to broaden an antitrust investigation of Microsoft. Now, Reback is hurling charges against IBM similar to those he leveled at Microsoft. "IBM shows up the same way someone might might demand protection money.", he says. Officials at the companies confirm that IBM has contacted them, but most refuse to talk publicly. Note: Peter D. - instead of "troll", you should have suggested "goodfellas" Collecting the patent royalties could add millions to IBM's net profits. In 1995 - the last year IBM released figures - the company took in $500 million from royalties on all patents Note: yet it cannot afford to pay for prior art searches for its patent applications software and hardware alike. Insiders say that senior managers Note: this include Kappos? believe that IBM could collect $1 billion a year from its patents. The software makers that have been contacted by IBM aren't yet willing to help Big Blue reach that goal. They maintain that lot of software patents - IBM's included - are too broad and never should have been issued. IBM's pursuit of royalties, they argue, is an abuse of a patent system that is too lax and does not require an applicant to really prove that the software application is unique. Note: of course, while complaining, these companies did nothing to help organize prior art resources and tools to donate to the PTO. IBM contends it's just trying to protect its intellectual property and get a fair return on the $5 billion yearly tab it runs up on research and development. "What Gary Reback is asking us to do is provide an R&D subsidy to our competitors, and we won't do that.", says Marshall Phelps, IBM's attorney in charge of intellectual property and licensing. Note: Phelps moved over to Microsoft, which is now flooding the PTO with its crappy patent applications, while his groomed successor is Kappos. Some companies are afraid that paying now will set a precedent, making it harder to say no later. "If we sign up with IBM today, then what happens in three or five years, when the patent agreement expires?", asks Oracle patent attorney Allen Wagner. With all the skirmishing that lies ahead, this dispute is still in Version 1.0.

The rest of the story on the Microsoft espionage lawsuit

We are frequently (almost always justifiably) outraged about IBM's antics in the patent procurement and/quality debate. While they don't make your rants nearly as often, I place Microsoft in almost the same company as IBM. An interesting case was reported last week based on a lawsuit filed by Microsoft against an ex-employee (who they fired) who had filed a patent infringement suit against a number of Microsoft customers, alleging he had violated his duty to Microsoft by downloading confidential Microsoft documents while a Microsoft employee that he then used in his lawsuits against their customers. Well, as Paul Harvey used to say, here's "the rest of the story". As is almost always the case, when IBM or Microsoft say anything about patents or patent-related litigation, one should receive it with a somewhat jaundiced eye. A useful note: a candidate to be the next PTO Director, Dave Kappos, is a head patent lawyer at IBM. From the Seattle PI, Feb.2, 2009 here is Miki Mullor's reply to the Microsoft lawsuit against him. His statement does not substantively address Microsoft's allegation that he stole Microsoft's confidential and proprietary information for use against the computer manufacturers:

I am the inventor of U.S. Patent No. 6,411,941 relating to software anti-piracy technology, and Ancora is my company. I applied for my patent in 1998. In 2002, the patent issued from the United States Patent and Trademark Office. In 2003, I approached Microsoft and had several talks with a Microsoft lawyer and employees of Microsoft's AntiPiracy group about my invention and the benefits Microsoft could realize by using it. Microsoft declined and said they had no interest in my invention. We ceased business operations at Ancora in 2005, and Microsoft was the first company to extend me an employment offer. I accepted. When I joined Microsoft, I notified them in writing of Ancora and my patent in both my resume and in my employment agreement. In its complaint against me, Microsoft withheld the portions of these key documents that show this. At the same time I was employed at Microsoft, but unknown to me, Microsoft was developing what is now known as "OEM Activation." OEM Activation is installed on computers made by HP, Dell, Toshiba and others ... to prevent piracy of Microsoft's Windows Vista software installed on those computers. This work was being done in a different department at Microsoft. OEM Activation is a blatant copy of my invention. In June 2008, my company Ancora filed a patent infringement lawsuit against HP, Dell and Toshiba in the federal court in Los Angeles. Microsoft fired me for trying to protect my own invention --- an invention I told them about before they ever hired me. Recently, Microsoft filed a retaliation suit against me personally in Seattle. Microsoft accuses me of lying, deceit, fraud and misappropriation. These are shameful, dishonest attacks on my character by Microsoft - the company that stole my idea in the first place. Their attacks are untrue, and they hurt me and my family. Microsoft basically admits stealing my idea in the complaint they filed because they are asking for a license to my patent. Microsoft would only need a license to my patent if they were infringing it in the first place. My patent case in Los Angeles has been going on for several months now with substantial progress. Clearly, Microsoft and the PC OEMs realized that they have no defense on the merits of the patent case.

IBM defines the US Patent Law

IBM DECLARES WHAT IT THINKS 35 USC 101 REALLY MEANS Much as I love bashing IBM - they are so nefarious - I have to tip my hat to their claim drafters, who always do fun things with claim language. Just this week IBM was awarded a crappy software patent (memory storage pool allocation citing no non-patent prior art), with some fun language - here's U.S. Patent No. 7487322:

1. An article of manufacture including program logic on a computer readable storage medium(...)

This claim is classic in its contempt for 101 caselaw, because it directly attacks the nonsense of 101 caselaw (nonsense that all flows from the legal sewage otherwise known as Gottschalk v. Benson): is an executable computer program on a media an "article of manufacture"? Anyone who knows anything about the computer science or commercial software (a group which excludes much of the CAFC and SCOTUS) would say - sure - software is manufactured and sold as an article. Nothing wrong with this language. Or not, if you ask the Bilski crowd. Such language helps emphasize that Congress has to address the fact that the fundamental statutes of IP law (35 USC 101, 103 and 17 USC 102) will remain constitutionally vague until Congress defines what it means by such terms as "article of manufacture"- a definitional problem NOT the role of the courts to do.

The War in Germany and WordLogic

According to CEO Evanshen, the people at Mercedes-Benz appreciated WordLogic's software superiority in assisting with driver operation of the GPS-based navigation system, and incorporated into their cars. But, they "forgot" to pay for it. So in 2005, WordLogic Corporation filed suit. Despite that, Benz continued using the software and eventually bundled it with a Harmon/Kardon Logic 7 sound system, Bluetooth cell-phone support (including a phone book), and made it a cabin-tech feature for all of its prestigious "S-Class" automobiles. In showrooms, the portion of the multimedia package that controls everything is known as the "COMMAND" system. Every component in the multimedia package is intuitively accessed using COMMAND's predictive software - software that Evanshen, the inventors and the attorneys steadfastly maintain is WordLogic's IP. Evanshen also told me that "... because the German car maker (actually he might have called it a "lawless beast") was made fully aware of the patent and ignored it anyway, treble (legalese for triple) damages are in order." The suit against Mercedes-Benz is "unspecified" as far as the dollar amount of damages being sought. If I understand my attorney correctly, an unspecified claim is a "tort claim", wherein the amount to be awarded is left to the Court to determine. This is usually the case when there are claims that don't have an exact value figure. "Plaintiff has been damaged in the amount to be proven or decided at trial," is an example of how the initial complaint might be phrased. Suits of this nature can also claim for "General Damages", which include future losses and cannot be decided - not today, anyway - by calculating receipts, etc.