Method and Means for Creating Anti-Gravity Illusion: U.S. 5255452

The patent consists of a system for shoes with a hitch that permit a person on stage to lean forward beyond his or her center of gravity. The shoe comes with two engagement means for raising a hitch mechanism and keeping in place to prevent the person from falling. For a visual image or video, this is similar to Michael Jackson’s famous anti gravity stance in his video Smooth Criminal.

The prior art includes patent U.S. 5042173, which discloses footwear that can be worn by astronauts to assist movement on a zero gravity surface. Prior art also addresses many similar visual affects that are used in media performances and television, but those are different from this.

Amusement Device for Toilet Bowl: U.S. 4773863

This invention was made for interactively engaging the attention of a urinating person.

The device consists of a sensory stimulus that detects urine flow from a human and provides an electrical signal for activating a response. This response could be an audial or visual indicator.

The device essentially captures the attention of users who are not full aware or distracted to not urinate outside toilet bowl or urinal. The main purpose of this invention was for urinals at nightclubs where people could possibly become inebriated. The claim consists of a sensor for detecting urine, indicative response via audio or visual platform, and separate lights emitting a target symbol.

The prior art contains U.S. patent 4044405, which is a target, made of some waterproof paper-like material like polyester or wax inside a toilet bowl. This is obviously different due to the lack of technology and flashy lights.

Intellectual Ventures

Intellectual Ventures, a patent troll that similarly applies and purchases patents and sue product developers for royalties. An article in 2012 said they maybe the largest worldwide patent holder. This troll is a little different in that they themselves not only purchase patents for their own use and launch lawsuits, but also sell them to other smaller trolls. They have launched lawsuits against companies in software security, DRAM and flash memory, and FPGA. In total it’s believed that they have made around 2 billion dollars from licensing and acquiring patents to and from these large companies. There is a well-written article I have posted below that describes how often times the party suing and being sued develop a “cozy relationship” to mutually benefit from, which may lead us to revaluate our views on big corporations and the true meaning of intellectual property.

http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2010/12/09/intellectual-ventures-becomes-patent-troll-public-enemy-1/id=13711/

Digitude Innovations

Digitude Innovations is also listed as one of these patent trolls. If you search online you can find articles relating to Digitude Innovations in cahoots with Apple. One such article title was “Apple Made a Deal With The Devil (No, Worse: A Patent Troll)”. The article states how Apple sold its patents to Digitude Innovations to do its dirty work for them. In a sense instead of Apple telling its employees to find companies or users that infringe their patents, they simply sold them to a patent troll that specializes in that task.

Acacia Research Corporation

Acacia Research Corporation sued Red Hat and Novell for the infringement of three software patents.

An example of one of these patents was U.S. 5072412 – User interface with multiple workspaces for sharing display system objects. The claims include a linking data structure that links the first workspace to the display and a second data structure to the first workspace and so on. Similar to iOS multiple desktops if you have a MAC.

The court ruled that the patents were not only not infringed upon but also invalid. Even though many of may not have heard of Red Hat and Novell, Acacia successfully sued Apple for infringing its patent portfolio and Apple paid the licensing fees.

NTP vs RIM

NTP, a patent holding company, or as we know NPE, sued Research In Motion Ltd for patent infringement. Research in Motion is known to be the maker of Blackberry. This dispute was settled for $612.5M because RIM investors and customers explained that continued business is far more important than one lawsuit. After this dispute the USPTO reviewed the questionable patents of NTP and invalidated or nullified some of them. However, even though this is preventative for the future, I don’t find it fair that RIM ltd still had to pay. Arstechnia, an online forum and site for technology believes NTP is currently attempting to target large mobile phone makers and their allies such as Nokkia, AT&T, and others. Many patent trolls are though to simply target small companies and startups, but here we see that they also target the largest companies in their industry if they can as they would make more money from them.