Stupid Patent Of The Month: Carrying Trays On A Cart
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As you head home for the holidays, perhaps passing through a checkpoint or two, take some time to think about U.S. Patent No. 6,888,460, "Advertising trays for security screening." The owner of this patent, SecurityPoint Holdings, Inc., has sued the United States government for infringement. SecurityPoint recently won a trial on validity [PDF] and the case will now proceed to a damages phase. So, unless the validity decision gets overturned on appeal, we'll soon be paying tax dollars for the idea of moving trays on carts.Although the title of the patent mentions advertising, some of its claims do not require any ads at all. In fact, the patent is so broad it reads on almost any system of using trays and carts at a checkpoint. The first claim of the patent (with limitations labeled), reads as follows:1. A method comprising:[a] positioning a first tray cart containing trays at the proximate end of a scanning device through which objects may be passed, wherein said scanning device comprises a proximate end and a distal end,[b] removing a tray from said first tray cart,[c] passing said tray through said scanning device from said proximate end through to said distal end,[d] providing a second tray cart at said distal end of said scanning device,[e] receiving said tray passed through said scanning device in said second tray cart, and[f] moving said second cart to said proximate end of said scanning device so that said trays in said second cart be passed through said scanning device at said proximate end. In plain English, this claim means: send trays through a checkpoint and use two carts to move the trays back and forth. As is common with patents, the claim uses obtuse language for ordinary things. For example, the word-salad at limitation [f] pretty much just says: "use a cart to move trays from the end of the checkpoint back to the start."In a trial before the Court of Federal Claims, the government argued that this claim was obvious because moving trays using carts was well-known in many contexts. The court disagreed. The court suggested that even if using carts to move trays was well-known, the government needed prior art specifically for security checkpoints (arguably the government had such evidence, but the court disagreed on that point too).In fairness to SecurityPoint, evidence at trial suggested that it had developed a good system for managing trays and carts within the confined space of an airport security checkpoint. But the patent's claims are far broader than any specific solution. This is something we often see in patent law: someone develops a (fairly narrow) innovation, but then broadly claims it, capturing things that are well-known or banal. This sort of claiming hurts follow-on inventors who develop their own ideas that wouldn't infringe any narrower claim, and weren't invented by the patent holder. But because the broader claim is allowed, their own inventions become infringing. Here, claim 1 is not limited to any particular kind of cart, tray, or scanner. The claim really reads on using a couple of carts to move trays and, in our view, should have been found obvious.Together with Public Knowledge, we recently filed an amicus brief [PDF] asking the Supreme Court to consider the obviousness standard in patent law. We argue that, as applied by the Federal Circuit, obviousness law has abandoned common sense. Specifically, we argue that the Federal Circuit has failed to apply a Supreme Court case called KSR v. Teleflex that calls for a flexible, common sense approach. We hope the Supreme Court takes that case. If it does, it might help us save some tax dollars that would otherwise have gone to SecurityPoint. Unfortunately, whatever happens, we'll likely still be stuck waiting at airport checkpoints.Reposted from EFF'sStupid Patent of the Month series.
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posted at: 12:00am on 24-Dec-2016
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Merry Christmas: Kamala Harris Files Brand New Criminal Charges Against Backpage Execs After Last Ones Were Tossed Out
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Never let it be said that Kamala Harris gives up after being told her totally bogus legal crusade is totally bogus. She's now filed brand new charges against the execs who run Backpage.com -- despite having the very same lawsuit thrown out a few weeks ago. As you may recall, for years, Harris (and some other state Attorneys General) have been crusading against the classified website Backpage, because some of its users use it to post illegal prostitution ads. As has been explained dozens of times, the proper thing to do in those situations is to use that information to go after those actually breaking the law. Instead, Harris and others have whined about their desire to put Backpage execs in jail instead (which won't actually stop any illegal activity -- since it will just move to another site).
Let's be crystal clear here: California Attorney General Kamala Harris (who in just a few weeks will become a US Senator) knows that she has no legal basis for arresting the execs behind Backpage. How do we know she knows this? Because three years ago she signed a letter whining about how she had no legal authority to arrest Backpage because it's (rightly) protected by Section 230 of the CDA, saying that you can't blame a site for the actions of its users. So it did seem weird, back in October, when Harris -- along with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton -- decided to arrest Backpage's execs anyway, and charge them with "pimping." As we note at the time, the criminal complaint against them was laughable and almost completely bogus. Not only was Backpage protected by CDA 230, but the actual investigation into Backpage undercut the case they were bringing, because it showed a willingness by Backpage to delete prostitution ads when brought to their attention by law enforcement, and to block those users from reposting.
So it was no surprise at all when the court quickly tossed all the charges against the execs, and told Harris to take it up with Congress... which, of course, is where she'll be in a month. However, not content to just try to change the laws, Harris has chosen to file brand new charges against the three execs, Carl Ferrer, Michael Lacy, and James Larkin. The press release from Harris claims that the reason for the new charges is that she's "uncovered new evidence" but that's a load of hogwash.
The new charges still include bogus "pimping" charges, but now also have a bunch of "money laundering" charges as well. And that sounds scary, but once again the details look to be complete bullshit. Basically, the "money laundering" is that Backpage set up a separate operation to handle billing, after American Express (under pressure from grandstanding politicians) said it no longer wanted to work with Backpage. So, the lawsuit argues, Backpage set up a sort of shell corporation to accept AmEx charges, without it looking like they were coming from Backpage. But in order for it to be money laundering, it has to involve a situation where the money itself is coming from illegal activity, and over and over and over and over again the courts have said that Backpage's activity is not illegal. In fact, that's what a court told Harris just two weeks ago.
This is a frightening abuse of power to harass a company just because Harris doesn't like how people use that company, and because she and her staff can't be bothered to do the actual law enforcement work of using that information to go after the actual lawbreakers. It's shameful.
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