Texas Patent Troll
I don't personally own any patents but perhaps I should reconsider. If you own a patent, you can sue people for infringing on it. You don't have to actually create anything valuable. You just sue people and make money. You'd think it sounds crazy but it's happening! People known as "patent trolls" are buying patents for the sole purpose of suing others. One guy in Texas owns a patent and sent out 9,000 letter demanding $1000. The violation? He claimed to have patents that cover any networked "scan-to-email" function.
Patent That Could Kill Agile is for Sale
On December 8, Penn State is looking to sell a few patents it owns. One of the patents for sale is US Patent No. 8,442,839, entitled "Agent-based collaborative recognition-primed decision-making." The lead inventors are PSU professors John Yen and Michael McNeese. The patent essentially describes different ways that people work together to solve a problem.
Patent Abstract
Collaborative agents for simulating teamwork (CAST) are provided with a recognition-primed decision (RPD) model, thereby enhancing analysis through linking and sharing information using knowledge and experience distributed among team members. The RPD model is integrated within a CAST architecture to the extent that agents can proactively seek and fuse information to enhance the quality and timeliness of the decision-making process. The approach, which is applicable to both human assistants and virtual teammates, can approximately track human's decision-making process and effectively interact with human users...
Thoughts
So, at the low cost of $5,000, you could theoretically buy the patent and then sue anyone using a collaborative agent (could be software or even physical boards) that helps people make better decisions and share information with team members. Essentially, you could require all Agile teams to pay a licensing fee.
Questions
Should Agile Alliance, Scrum Alliance, PMI, or some other body buy this stupid patent?
Should VersionOne, Rally, and Microsoft join forces to share this patent?
What would you do?
Image: Pictofigo