Claudius Starts Patent War

Paul Allen is financially quite lucky, having been a part of the start of Microsoft.  Nothing he has worked on since Microsoft has panned out, although billions have been invested by Allen.  Through one of his failed companies he has decided to try to sue just about anyone who has been successful where he has failed.

His vehicle is patent trolling, a process where you acquire a patent and try to use it to shake down someone successful.

Paul Allen is quite wealthy and plans to give it "all away."  Of course, as I blogged here, the rich never really give it away, they just require we pay to keep them rich.  Allen is adept at making taxpayers pick up the tab for his toys.  When Washington state taxpayers rejected building him a stadium, he paid for another election, off cycle, that guaranteed he would win.  He got his stadium, taxpayers got the bill.  When he had gathered substantial real estate in one part of Seattle, he had a toy trolley of 1880s technology built from downtown to his property at a cost 4 times what China pays for maglev, again at taxpayers expense, and now, since it is a huge moneyloser, at taxpayer's perpetual expense.

With Allens activities being charged off to taxpayers, and his exploitation of the inherently restraint of trade IPR laws, Microsoft itself is becoming a net deficit for the Seattle area.

IPR makes our management cost more than other places, so it puts us at a disadvantage.  The crazy law promoting IPR requires we pay to provide means for billionaires who want more to somehow improve their legacy.

Oh...  Claudius was the accidental Roman emperor who is portrayed by Latin scholar Robert Graves as so dispirited by his failures in the world around him he positively worked to destroy the society that raised him up.

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