(via Patently-O) Halliburton (yes, THAT Halliburton) has made a patent application for patent trolling. Enjoy USPTO application 20080270152, which protects a method for “Patent Acquisition and Assertion by a (Non-Inventor) First Party Against a Second Party”.

The abstract reads:

“Methods for a first party to acquire and assert a patent property against a second party are disclosed. The methods include obtaining an equity interest in the patent property. The methods further include writing a claim within the scope of the patent property. The claim is written to cover a product of the second party where the product includes a secret aspect. The methods further include filing the claim with a patent office. The methods sometimes include offering a license of the patent property to the second party after the patent property issues as a patent with the claim. The methods sometimes include asserting infringement of the claim by the second party after the patent property issues as a patent with the claim. The methods sometimes include negotiating a cross-license with the second party based on the assertion of infringement of the claim, where under the cross-license the first party obtains a license to an intellectual property right from the second party. The methods sometime include attempting to obtain a monetary settlement from the second party based on the assertion of infringement of the claim.”

Even more delightful is the flowchart describing the claims:

Looks like someone is tired of paying out to patent trolls, Halliburton was famously involved in the software patent case of Halliburton v Smith.

I don’t know, I would like an examiner with a good sense of humour to get this one and grant the claim. It would be delightfully ironic to have patent trolls sued for patent infringement 🙂

Categories: Patent abuse

1 Comment

Matthew Slyman · March 11, 2011 at 1:35 am

The USPTO should grant the patent. We should be cutting back on government interference in the natural course of free enterprise.

This patent application is for a business process, and I understand that those are patentable in the USA, the land of opportunity where even the little guys in small-town America can make it big-time if they only work hard.

Only… Is that the type of country we can expect the USA to be, in 5-25 years time, if business-process patents continue being granted and litigated? Is that even the type of country the USA is right now?

Or are not most of you economically enslaved to mega-corporations and lawyers?

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