Halliburton seeks patent on patent trolling

Halliburton seeks patent on patent trolling

www.theregister.co.uk

Halliburton - the Texas-based company famous for pocketing billions from the war in Iraq - hopes to patent the art of patent trolling.

In an 18-month-old application just released by the US Patent Office, Halliburton attorney Clive D. Menezes seeks exclusive rights to "patent acquisition and assertion by a (non-inventor) first party against a second party."

That's right, the war profiteer wants to patent a means of patenting technology that someone else invented but didn't patent. Its application covers patent trolling against inventions that involve some sort of trade secret:

(visit the link for the full news article)

Just in case anyone is not familiar with the term, 'patent trolling' refers to when someone tries to patent something that someone else already created but, for whatever reason, didn't actually patent themselves. There can be very big money involved in this and a success patent troll could become very wealthy.

However, Halliburton have just raised the stakes in this and have become 'meta-patent trolls' in that they're trying to patent patent trolling.

I'm undecided on this. Potentially, it could be a massive benefit to the American patent industry which is rife with patent trolling as, if Halliburton are successful, it would likely stop future patent trolling as it would be an infringement of Halliburton's patent on patent trolling.

However, this is Halliburton here. It's hard not to see this as some scam of some sort or at least something that they're setting-up to abuse as much as possible.

I wonder whether the act of patenting is actually patented?

www.theregister.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

so would that say i can take patent on patent of patent trolling. this make no sense?
what kind of law are these guys using?

and second is patent trolling normal in the US?

i hope you will update whatever outcome, this is insanity :S

btw great post

There all nuts with greed? I mean come on. Can't the scientists at least have there patents? They already impede upon our future technology enough...

S & F



[edit on 11-11-2008 by Unlimitedpossibilities]

Halliburton?! What a surprise! Anyway, the entire patent system is a mess. I'm not surprised something weird like this has happened.

They sound like a bunch of a parasitic leeches. They should be denied this patent out of stupidity. They are already sucking the life blood out of the tax payer. No one seems to care so I really don't give a f**k either.

Patent law is the bane of humanity, no matter what patent we are talking about. All it does is reduce access to technology. It's artificial scarcity and inflated cost.

For the good of mankind the whole system needs to come down, so we can make rational technological choices, not "economic" ones.

This Halliburton thing just illustrates how preposterous and corrupt the whole system is.

I should just patent reality and name myself God, get rid of all the middle men. All hail me, holder of the universal patent!