Here's what Lorraine Woellert opined in BeavisWeek on April 8, 2005:

Patents have become too easy to get, and the current judicial culture makes them all-too-convenient to defend in court as well.

The situation has put many businesses at the mercy of so-called "patent trolls," outfits that exist solely to buy up hundreds or thousands of obscure patents with the expectation that they'll eventually manage to extract lucrative licensing agreements from businesses in need of the technology, or sue for infringement if they can't.

Everyone has a right to protect his or her intellectual property. But the underfunded, hidebound patent office consistently errs on the side of approving questionable grants, and the specialized Federal Circuit Court, created in 1982 to hear nothing but patent appeals, often shows bias toward intellectual-property owners.

Patents being "easy to get", like some kind of a cheap date, will doubtlessly leave every last patent prosecutor wondering why it's hard work to them.

Lorraine scams the "current judicial culture" for making patents "all-too-convenient to defend in court", like all you have to do is belly up to the bar with a money wad of a few million and some spare change.

If the patent office were hidebound, it would be curmudgeonly in granting patents, just the opposite of the accusation flung. Lorraine's as loose with her adjectives as she is with her grasp of reality.

As to "consistently errs on the side of approving questionable grants", Lorraine must be relying upon the same intelligence experts who built the case for invading Iraq based upon weapons of mass destruction.

But my favorite is Lorraine accusing the Federal Circuit Court of showing "bias toward intellectual-property owners." Gee, Lorraine, that wouldn't have anything to do with the law, now would it?!

Spencer E. Ante and Justin Hibbard raised the specter of false credentials and dodgy dealings by Ampex in the April 18, 2005 issue of BeavisWeek.

There are a number of unanswered questions about the continuing value of Ampex' patents and about the leadership of Edward J. Bramson, a press-shy British financier who serves as the company's chief executive.

Ultimately, the big complaint is that Bramson has turned Ampex into a cash cow by monetizing its patents, that limey bastard. And "press-shy" - why, to a reporter, that's as bad as being a child pornographer.

Ron E. Shulman is "a partner in the Palo Alto (Calif.) office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, specializes in defending companies against infringement lawsuits." According to BeavisWeek, Ron is "The Patent Guy" (from the April 11, 2005 issue). Here's Ron on Ampex:

Ampex is viewed as a slightly more civilized version of a patent terrorist. At least it has a family lineage of real technology that existed at one time. People respected Ampex. It did real stuff. [Now] what it is doing is no different from what other patent trolls do.

"Real technology that existed at one time." Well, one way that I can think of to make real technology lucrative is to patent it. I got that idea from some fool geezer named Aristotle, who once said: "The way to make money is to get, if you can, a monopoly for yourself."

Ron, who constantly acts on behalf of defendants in patent infringement cases, reminds me of the car repairman I once went to who thought that the car manufacturers built junk, because day-in, day-out, all he saw were cars needing repair and maintenance.

BeavisWeek appears to suffer a consistent failure of appreciation that patents are an exercisable intellectual property right, where money may change hands to settle things. Ampex seems to have been a convenient whipping post to flog with their ignorance.

Here is the letter Mr. Bramson sent to BeavisWeek in reply to the flogging, which BeavisWeek declined to publish -

April 14, 2005

The Editor
BusinessWeek
1221 Avenue of The Americas
New York, New York 10020

Dear Sir,

BusinessWeek has recently given significant coverage to Ampex's highly successful patent licensing program. Unfortunately, we did not feel it was appropriate to conduct an interview with you prior to the filing of our 10-K report with the SEC and your publishing schedule did not allow you to wait. Having now seen the articles which were informative and, in general, balanced, we would like to provide some comments.

The stories may leave the reader with the impression that patent licensing is a recent development for Ampex. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth, as we have actively licensed our patents since 1968. The majority of the best known names in consumer electronics are our licensees and have been for many years. Our patents generated hundreds of millions of dollars of income for us before we received our first dollar of royalty income from digital still cameras late last year.

It is true that we have recently initiated some high-profile patent lawsuits. However, the number of patent suits that we have been involved in is very small in the context of more than 35 years of licensing history. By far, the majority of license agreements that we have put in place result solely from the reasonable give-and-take of negotiation. The decades-long relationships that we have maintained with many of our licensees are testimony to the fact that they view our dealings with them to be mutually beneficial and I do not think that "patent terrorist" is a term that can fairly be applied to Ampex.

A more thoughtful approach might focus on the good that, on balance, patents and also copyrights confer on our society. The patents that Ampex has received were developed by an absolutely outstanding group of electronics engineers, and their inventions are found in many products that we all now benefit from. Income from our patents provides salaries for the people who work with us today and continued pension benefits for those who are now retired. It would surely be unfair to these people and to our shareholders not to obtain a reasonable return on their efforts. That is why, on the rare occasions that we are called upon, we vigorously and equitably enforce our intellectual property rights.

Unlike many companies nowadays, Ampex has always manufactured most of its products in the United States. In part, this has been made possible by the existence of our patent portfolio. If patent enforcement becomes more difficult, the "outsourcing" of engineering and intellectual property jobs to other countries will, inevitably, follow in the footsteps of manufacturing employment. Abuses of patents probably do occur occasionally, but I believe that commentators and critics should carefully consider the adverse implications for our country of a change in public policy towards an anti-patent bias.

BusinessWeek also quotes a source suggesting that Ampex should make public, copies of our license agreements. Based on certain exceptions that apply to companies like Ampex, we believe that this is not required, and in my years with the company it has not previously been raised as an issue. In our public filings, including our forthcoming 10-K report, we make a good faith effort to disclose and, as importantly, to explain clearly all of the information about our patent licenses that an investor might reasonably expect.

The magazine's mention of a loan to a company owned by me to buy shares of Ampex is accurate but incomplete. It might be helpful to add that these shares were purchased directly from Ampex in 1995, for a combination of cash and a note, to create a performance incentive in place of bonuses or option grants. From 1992 to 2000 I received neither options nor bonuses and the shares were eventually forfeited. My personal cash outlay to pay for the shares was such that Ampex received more money from me than the total of all cash compensation that it has paid to me from 1992 until today.

The website that mentioned me in connection with Goldman Sachs is not, in fact, mine as suggested in the article. The reference, which was to a period in the early 1970s, should have made it clear that I was then on assignment and not an employee. This will be done in the future. Finally, I admit to being a British immigrant but my mother, now deceased, was an American and I am totally devoted to my adopted home.

We appreciate your coverage of Ampex's recent successes and the efforts that you have made to present both sides of the story. I hope that this letter adds some additional flavor and balance. I realize that you have limited space but I would ask that, if you do elect to print this letter, you will do so in its entirety.

Yours sincerely,

Edward Bramson
 

Thanks to Dan McGlinchey for tipping me off and inspiring this posting.