The French network company Alcatel acts like, well, a French company, going after anyone and everyone with their crappy patents, this author having personally been more than a wee bit instrumental in invalidating some of the little stinkers currently stewing in litigation. Last month, Alcatel asserted seven patents against Microsoft. Alcatel recently acquired Lucent. Microsoft considers the Alcatel assertion just piling on from the Lucent case. Last week, the Empire struck back with a counterclaim of 10 of its own patents, claiming it, Microsoft, had been irreparably harmed. Yeah, right, whatever.

Amazon got nasty today in its counterclaim against IBM, accusing IBM of deceiving the USPTO in prosecution of its asserted patents, hiding prior art patents. A PBAI judge had chided IBM for not being forthcoming with prior art. According to Amazon, IBM tried to get the negative comments stricken from the prosecution history, unsuccessfully. Amazon's counterclaim also asserted three online shopping recommendation patents of its own: 6,266,649; 6,912,505; & 7,113,917.

IBM had stung Amazon by claiming that Amazon's business model was built on IBM patents. Amazon snorted, "in your dreams." Actually, they boringly snorted, "no basis in fact." With a bit more pizzazz, Amazon characterized IBM as "an old company built on business principles and innovations of the past." Pay no attention to the fact that IBM continues to top the list of companies getting U.S. patents year after year, and spends $6 billion a year on patent R&D.

A lot of court-filed hot air, fiction not so polite. You crazy kids knock yourself out.