This shouldn't be on slashdot . . . yet. The article merely talks about what his own attorneys are planning on arguing in court. I think he has a solid case, but let me know when a court hands down a real opinion.

The USPTO does not provide a single link for inventors or companies who have developed and patented technology to defend their rights. Not one. These types of entities deserve some sort of guidance as well.

thankfully PUBPAT won't have to defend itself against patent infringement for its website: any patents reading on this 1993-looking site have long since expired.

http://bacolicio.us/http://science.slashdot.org/story/14/01/14/1914225/chinese-firm-can-now-produce-500-cloned-pigs-per-year

transfer patents to holding company with no assets, lose lawsuit, get big lawyer fee bill from opposing side, bankruptcy, game over try again with new shell company

Soverain is the assignee, meaning they bought the patents from somebody else. The original patentee is Open Market, Inc. http://www.openmarket.com/ is potentially their website (they provide checkout software). So the patents were originally filed by a practicing software company.

insightful.

Oh you mean like the Federal Circuit?

OIN is a very active patent buyer/aggregator. If members get hit, they have a massive portfolio to fire back with.

This doesn't necessarily do away with patent assertion entities (trolls). Many PAEs are not actually the original inventors/assignees of the patents, but rather buy them later on and begin filing infringement lawsuits. This requirement would, however, reduce the number of startups-turned-trolls who filed and were granted patents but never followed through with development. It also might make the provisional application system more useful, allowing start-ups to file provisionals to establish priority, but also requiring them to develop a working prototype before granting a utility patent.

I use vitamin D software to monitor the webcams in my apartment. http://www.vitamindinc.com/ It does a pretty good job detecting whether something is a person or not, and you can configure it to send you an email when it detects something. It also only records video surrounding an event. The starter version is free and has some restrictions in terms of total cameras, but its not that expensive overall. Presumably a place that has a "restricted zone" has a security budget more than $0.

clearwater, not clearview. my mistake.

It isn't owned by AT&T, though it was the original assignee. As you can see here, its changed hands a number of times: http://assignments.uspto.gov/assignments/q?db=pat&pat=5506866 Most recently (5/2012) the patent was assigned to "Clearview Innovations" Its info is listed here: http://assignments.uspto.gov/assignments/q?db=pat&asned=CLEARWATER%20INNOVATIONS,%20LLC It's possible that there was some unrecorded assignment after that, but based on available information from USPTO, Clearview is the current owner.

This is just wrong. I work with individual inventors all the time in order to help them sell or license their portfolios. Regardless of how the buyers or licensees plan on using the invention, at the end of the day the inventor has money in his or her pocket, and many use the funds to continue working on new projects. They have no doubt reaped the benefits of their patents, without litigation.

This isn't a submarine patent. It's a continuation claiming the 2000 priority of its parent, US 6,766,456. A submarine patent is a patent that, for some reason or another, takes a very long time from application filing to issuance, hence "popping up" like a submarine. This patent actually made it through the USPTO in under a year.