IBM holds over 67,000 patents, the most in the world. Pundits know well that IBM does not sell their valuable patents. IBM creates and holds good patents. However, in the late 1990’s, David J. Kappos and James P. Chandler began a “patent trolling” program to attack the industry with IBM patents of little or no value. The objective was to use IBM market power to cajole license settlements from smaller companies who did not want the expense of fighting IBM. The patents sold to Facebook are of little or no other value than for industry harassment purposes by Facebook’s rapacious gaggle of lawyers, including Chandler Law Firm Chartered, Fenwick & West, Cooley Godward, Gibson Dunn, Latham Watkins, Weil Gotshal, Perkins Coie, Orrick Herrington, Skadden Arps, Blank Rome, White & Case and Mayer Brown. Indeed, IBM, Kappos and Chandler are the original “patent trolls.”
IBM, Kappos and Chandler were evidently gifting 750 IBM junk patents to their Eclipse offspring, Facebook, so they too could enjoy the benefits of harassing other technology companies going forward. These companies use their market power and public relations firms to flip the patent troll story into disinformation against real inventors. They accuse real inventors of being the trolls who sue the big company for quick money.
