Matt Yglesias

AT&T Makes the Case for Patent Reform

Think the current patent process is corrupt, too open to abusive patent-seeking and unduly influenced by corrupt rent-seeking special interests? Well, AT&T is here to disabuse you of that notion:

Photo snapped at Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport.

34 Responses to “AT&T Makes the Case for Patent Reform”

1. strasmangelo jones Says:
   September 1st, 2008 at 8:37 am

   That’s one of the most hilariously self-damning pieces of P.R. I’ve seen in a while. Half my brain is convinced it’s a clever prank.

2. kid bitzer Says:
   September 1st, 2008 at 8:41 am

   mr. yglesias:

   please contact our legal office immediately.

   your use of that photograph without prior authorization from at&t is a violation of copyright and also infringes on several proprietary trademarks.

   unless you immediately remove it from your website, at&t will have no option but to seek legal remedies.

3. Jeffrey Davis Says:
   September 1st, 2008 at 11:08 am

   For what it’s worth, and the views of a single person are indeed pretty nugatory, IP has become so perverted in this country that it’s meaningless. Copyright? Patent? Who cares? Why not simply let corporations vote to give themselves ownership to everything like a king’s vassals?

4. alex Says:
   September 1st, 2008 at 12:34 pm

   Maybe I missed it, but has this blog presented any form of sustained patent reform analysis ever? If not, can someone tell me just what is wrong with the current patent system and how it should be changed? Otherwise this post comes off as a cranky “Government bad!” “Big Corporations Bad!” thoughtless rant.

5. Demosthenes Says:
   September 1st, 2008 at 2:10 pm

   You’re saying that as if it’s a bad thing, alex.

6. Richard Steven Hack Says:
   September 1st, 2008 at 6:20 pm

   Meanwhile, according to Slashdot, Microsoft just got a patent on the “Page Up” and “Page Down” keys on your keyboard, using an image of an IBM keyboard from 1981 as evidence.

   Somebody ask Osama to drop a plane on Redmond, Washington.

7. tps12 Says:
   September 3rd, 2008 at 3:02 pm

   Yeah, probably not a genuine advertisement, but awesome that it’s subtle enough to fly under the radar. The typeface at the bottom resembles the one used here: http://www.justseeds.org/blog/2008/09/solidarity_with_mpls_anticapit.html

8. ronji Says:
   September 3rd, 2008 at 4:05 pm

   hmm, this flickr photo, in much higher res and different display, seems to prove this as not fake…

9. yazoo Says:
   September 4th, 2008 at 5:12 am

   If this high res picture:

   http://www.flickr.com/photos/ari/2793066027/sizes/o/

   You can see at the bottom that it is an advertisement of the AT&T patent departement “AT&T Intellectual Property”.

   See here:

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT&T_Intellectual_Property

   There are probably a lot of patent perpetrators in this “company”.

   I wonder of “AT&T Intellectual Property” is a Non-Producing Entity.

   Maybe someone can send them an email to see what are their “products”: attip@att.com.

10. Andy Says:
    September 4th, 2008 at 4:13 pm

    SSP: McCain advised by software patent and tobacco lobbyists?

    AT&T patent perpetrator tries to censor a blogger about their “pursuit of more patents”

11. Roy Schestowitz Says:
    September 6th, 2008 at 5:53 am

    Go on, AT&T. Make people hate you more.

    http://boycottnovell.com/2008/09/05/introduction-to-at-and-t/

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