Category Archives: patent

Halliburton, patent

Abuse of the System

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I don’t know about you, but I tend to keep an eye on the technical news. Every once in a while, something passes by that I have a hard time believing. Today is one of those days. Of course, it involves everyone’s second most favorite villain (only because Microsoft won that race long ago). Without further ado, I give you the Halliburton of the day as reported in Slashdot :

Halliburton, the company many folks know as Dick Cheney’s previous employer, has apparently taken an interest in methods of patent trolling. In fact, according to Techdirt, the company has applied for a patent on patent trolling. Specifically, it’s applied for a patent on the process of finding a company that protected an invention via trade secret, figuring out what that secret is, patenting it … and then suing the original company.



So there you have it. A patent designed to raid other people’s patentable stuff and then legally rape them with their own tools. What I have begun referring to as a Halliburton.


I have been through the process of applying for a “process” patent. I cannot believe this kind of abuse of the patent system will acceptable to the intellectual property community. The USPTO may very well grant the patent, but I hope that the legal battles involved in enforcement would favor the original trade secret organization. I understand that protection of an invention via trade secret is open to loss by disclosure. Not only losing the crown jewel, but having to pay royalties to a raider who used this process for using your own crown jewel just seems wrong.


What do you think?

censorship, microsoft, patent

Big Brother

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It had to happen. Given the Chinese demands on companies doing business in mainland China, someone was going to come up with automatic censorship.  And now it appears that the great unwashed god of computers is heading in with all guns blazing:

On Tuesday, the USPTO awarded Microsoft a patent for the Automatic Censorship of Audio Data for Broadcast, an invention that addresses ‘producing censored speech that has been altered so that undesired words or phrases are either unintelligible or inaudible.’ (From slashdot )

The patent discusses several options, from replacing the offensive words with less offensive ones to replacing the undesired word with a tone or blocking it completely. You always heard the rumors that that Microsoft was “Big Brother”, but now you have the automated “Big Brother” direct from the the computer.

It will be interesting to see what impact this development will have on talk radio, etc. Will it eliminate the delay loop in favor of a rather lengthy dictionary of offensive terms? Will the FCC have to get involved to allow its use?  Am I just insane?