{"id":177553,"date":"2019-08-20T18:45:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-20T23:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/08\/20\/patent-troll-patent-troll-patent-troll-patent-troll-%e2%80%8enathan-myhrvold%e2%80%8e\/"},"modified":"2019-08-20T18:45:00","modified_gmt":"2019-08-20T23:45:00","slug":"patent-troll-patent-troll-patent-troll-patent-troll-%e2%80%8enathan-myhrvold%e2%80%8e","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/08\/20\/patent-troll-patent-troll-patent-troll-patent-troll-%e2%80%8enathan-myhrvold%e2%80%8e\/","title":{"rendered":"Patent Troll, Patent Troll, Patent Troll, Patent Troll, \u200eNathan Myhrvold\u200e"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Good news everyone, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eff.org\/deeplinks\/2019\/08\/court-rules-phrase-patent-troll-opinion-not-defamation\">calling someone a &#8220;Patent Troll&#8221; is a constitutionally protected opinion<\/a>, and as such, patent trolls, like Nathan Myhrvold\u200e, (He&#8217;s not a party to this case) cannot sue you for calling them a patent troll:<\/div>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">Free speech in the patent world saw a big win on Friday, when the New Hampshire Supreme Court held that calling someone a \u201cpatent troll\u201d doesn\u2019t constitute defamation. The court\u2019s opinion [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.eff.org\/files\/2019\/08\/20\/automated_transactions_decision.pdf\">PDF<\/a>] is good news for critics of abusive patent litigation, and anyone who values robust public debate around patent policy. The opinion represents a loss for Automated Transactions, LLC (ATL), a patent assertion entity that sued [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.eff.org\/files\/2018\/04\/12\/atl-v-aba-complaint.pdf\">PDF<\/a>] more than a dozen people and trade groups claiming it was defamed. <\/p>\n<p>EFF worked together with the ACLU of New Hampshire to file an amicus brief [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.eff.org\/files\/2018\/09\/18\/eff_aclu-nh_amicus_brief_-_atl_v_aba.pdf\">PDF<\/a>] in this case, explaining that the lower court judge got this case right when he ruled against ATL. That decision gave wide latitude for public debate about important policy issues\u2014even when the debate veers into harsh language. We\u2019re glad the New Hampshire Supreme Court agreed. <\/p>\n<p>Last week\u2019s ruling court notes that \u201cpatent troll\u201d is a phrase used to describe \u201ca class of patent owners who do not provide end products or services themselves, but who do demand royalties as a price for authorizing the work of others.\u201d However, the justices note that \u201cpatent troll\u201d has no clear settled definition. For instance, some observers of the patent world would exclude particular entities, like individual inventors or universities, from the moniker \u201cpatent troll.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Because of this, when ATL\u2019s many critics call it a \u201cpatent troll,\u201d they are expressing their subjective opinions. Differences of opinion about many things\u2014including patent lawsuits\u2014cannot and should not be settled with a defamation lawsuit.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Personally, I would call ATL a bunch of pig felching patent trolling rat bastards, which I think is protected too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Good news everyone, calling someone a &#8220;Patent Troll&#8221; is a constitutionally protected opinion, and as such, patent trolls, like Nathan Myhrvold\u200e, (He&#8217;s not a party to this case) cannot sue you for calling them a patent troll: Free speech in the patent world saw a big win on Friday, when the New Hampshire Supreme Court &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[413,428,407,429],"class_list":["post-177553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-civil-rights","tag-ip","tag-justice","tag-patent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177553"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177553\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}