By Sydney Sullivan

If you really want to revive SAVE the economy… Either the Congressional legislature or the courts are going to have to confiscate the bank patents.

Those on the cutting edge of foreclosure defense realize that the “new” securitization system was completely patented from the cradle to the grave in the USPTO… as if to make it appear legal. From the very inception of securitization starting with the Fannie Mae 1003 loan application software to the Wells Fargo targeted sales system… to foreclosure, REO and beyond …each and every step has been developed by some sharp IT guy and likely the idea and eventual purpose, patent and use was created from an idea by the higher-ups.

If the fraudulent foreclosure scheme, a defunct economy and the lack of any meaningful indictments within the TBTF cabal is bothersome… even in lieu of the huge fines, penalties and settlements for fraudulent activities that would send the average individual to the hoosegow for 150 years (just ask Mr. Madoff), then think about this: Okay, you don’t want to indict them – then confiscate the patents that the banks are using to perpetrate the fraud… ’cause they are still operating business as usual. Settlements, fines and penalties just become a cost of doing business – and guess what?! In most cases these “settlements” are tax deductible.

The business structure of securitization is relatively “new” as indicated by the patents of the 1990’s to the present. Most of which as they relate to the last crash occurred around the turn of the century (late 1990s) along with deregulation and the loss of Glass-Steagall. Think about this – these are not traditional mortgages – these are NTMs (nontraditional mortgages – per Sheila Bair in Bull By the Horns). Where are the laws for quasi-securities?

Ronald Mann recently wrote on the ScotusBlog for Bloomberg that the United States Supreme Court is faced with a patent decision that should come out maybe by June 2014.

“The Justices have danced around the question for years,” writes Mann.  “Critics (including a decided majority of academic analysts) have bemoaned the drag on innovation for decades.  And when the Supreme Court granted review in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, there was a prospect that the Court would shed some much-needed light on the question whether (or when) the Patent Act authorizes patents on software (more specifically, on computer-implemented inventions). [. . .]

The biggest problem with Alice’s case (presented by Carter Phillips) is its similarity to Bilski v. Kappos, a 2010 case in which the Court invalidated a patent on a method of hedging.  So it was no surprise that Justice Ginsburg interrupted Phillips less than a minute into his argument to ask how the case differs from Bilski.”

Apparently, the courts have a history of invalidating patents – and frankly, where there are patents associated with the business operation of crimes (fraud, money laundering and the crash of the economy among them), don’t you think the courts ought to be able to have the business system software identified and confiscated? Here is an interesting overview of Bilski.

If the banksters continue to use the same software patents, albeit redesigned with each crooked phase of their scheme – how can we expect to put an end to it? So what if the courts, SEC or the administration fine the banks or allow them to settle rather than go to prison?! That’s like spanking a meth dealer and sending him back to the meth lab. Duh, ya really think he’s going to close up shop?

This was an enlightening passage Mr. Mann included from the hearing before the Supreme Court:

“Justice Breyer, for one, seemed most unwilling to accept Phillips’s distinction between his patent and the abstract idea that it implements.  Displaying his penchant for memorable hypotheticals, he analogized the patent in this case to ancient Egyptian practices:

Imagine King Tut sitting in front of the pyramid where all his gold is stored, and he has the habit of giving chits away.  Good for the gold, which is given at the end of the day.  And he hires a man with an abacus, and when the abacus keeping track sees that he’s given away more gold than he has in storage, he says, stop.

When Phillips responded that this was a “caricature,” Justice Breyer rejoined: “Of course it’s a caricature.  It’s a caricature designed to suggest that there is an abstract idea here.  It’s called solvency. And what you do is you take the idea of solvency and you say apply it.  And you say apply it through the computer.”

Sounds as if Justice Breyer understands that the “ideas” are what are being patented.

Mann continues: “Another pervasively critical strain of questioning raised the concern that Alice’s patent, at bottom, could be viewed as a simple combination of an unpatentable idea with the computer.  So, for example, Justice Kennedy pressed the view that nothing about the computer’s role in the patent was innovative: “If you describe that to a second-year college class in engineering and said . . . here’s my idea, now you go home and you program over this weekend, my guess is that that would be fairly easy to program. . . .  So the fact that the computer is involved, . . . it seems to me, is necessary to make it work.  But . . . the innovative aspect is certainly not in the creation of the program to make that work.  All you’re talking about is – if I can use the word – an “idea.”  [. . .]

Justice Breyer circled back again, late in Phillips’s argument, expanding on Justice Kennedy’s concern that the patent is nothing more than implementing an idea on a computer:

If you simply say, take an idea that’s abstract and implement it on a computer . . . there is a risk that you will take business in the United States . . . and instead of having competition on price, service and better production methods, we’ll have competition on who has the best patent lawyer.  . . . And if you go the other way and say never, then what you do is you rule out real inventions with computers.  . . . And so in those 42 briefs, there are a number of suggestions as to how to go between Scylla and Charybdis.  . . . I need to know what in your opinion is the best way of sailing between these two serious harms. [. . .]

Solicitor General Donald Verrilli had a slightly rougher time, trying to articulate the boundary drawn in the brief filed by his office on behalf of the Patent and Trademark Office.  His basic view was simple enough, that “[a]n abstract idea does not become patent-eligible merely by tacking on an instruction to use a computer to carry it out.”  The patent would be appropriate only if the claims provided a “meaningful limit” to a claim of the entire idea.  Taken on its face, that standard could almost be the same as the standard offered by Phillips for Alice Corp.”

Don’t you wonder how many of these bank patents Donald Verrilli has actually reviewed? Well, if you’ve studied any of these bank patents – you’re going to love this:

“But Justice Breyer (the author of Mayo) pressed Verrilli on his notion that the boundary between “abstract” and “innovative” should draw a line between “business” and “technology” (which would easily exclude the Alice Corp. patent).  For example, Breyer challenged Verrilli to explain why a “computer improvement that, in fact, leads to an improvement in harvesting cotton” is patentable, but a “computer improvement that leads to an improvement in the method of selling bonds over the telephone” is not,” simplifies Mann.

Sounds as if the Supreme Court might be on the lookout for a good case regarding the patenting of corruption via the computer… in its “seamless automation” that that the cabal has instituted. Read more HERE.

As Justice Kennedy noted – an engineering class could take an idea and create a program.

Could this be why there are so many suicided IT guys? Yes, a computer program is devised by someone, for something. The intent would be in the structure of the program. Now, if you are just an IT guy and some big wig is telling you his idea of how to make the system operate; for example, say – “tap into the emails of the bank and create a program designed to allow a person to view these emails… he’s asking the IT guy to create a program – is the program illegal or the operation of it?

Only the IT guys can testify who requested the design of the program and who was operating it. This securitization is a “seamless automation” – from the cradle to the grave… The computer system approved the loan… Not necessarily a human. Who requested the design of the system? Then knowing what it would do – who bought and signed up for the licenses to use it?

Fannie had the 1003 application software created, then provided it to the banks. It appears to completely erode any notion of privacy… So, who is ultimately responsible for the invasion… The design requester …the user …or the IT guy?

And one last thought – “if you can’t perceive it – you can’t project it…”

Thanks to Alina, Deb and Wendy … and of course Stingy Jack (who will always be our patent guru of inspiration).