On one level, Greg Aharonian's recent Patently-O essay criticizing a Wall Street Journal article is unsurprising. I'm not surprised that Aharonian doesn't like the media reporting on problems with the patent system. Nobody who reads his patent newsletter will be surprised to find out that the people, companies, and organizations he writes about are judged to be either "idiotic" or "moronic." I'm not surprised to hear, again, that he would prefer a system where technology companies seek his services before developing a new product. But it takes a special kind of... imagination... to suggest that the article should actually have been about how much prior art searchers (like Aharonian) should be paid. He writes:
In short, this is a case that has little to do with tr-lls, but rather is a case that should be the basis for an article on the tactics of prior art searching (how much should small companies spend on searching during patent prosecution versus how much should they spend before entering into negotiations or litigation?).
Remarkable.
I confess to being in love with the way Aharonian takes the 'o' out of troll, in the style of Orthodox Jews who revere the name of God by deleting the middle letter. That is really just too good.
Aharonian isn't revering trolls -- he modifies a bunch various words (e.g. "pron" instead of porn) to avoid spam filters.
Posted by: Matt | August 28, 2008 at 07:35 PM