Patent law is getting tax crazy

International Herald Tribune ^ | October 19, 2006 | Floyd Norris

[dickmc]

OK folks you can't make this stuff up. The patent office is going crazy! First, obvious software patents, and now this:

"As the American tax law gets more and more complicated, lawyers have come up with one more way to make life difficult for taxpayers:
Now you may face a patent infringement suit if you use a tax strategy that someone else thought of first."
.....

[dickmc]

"I can't even imagine what it will be like in 5 or 10 years," said Dennis Drabkin, a tax lawyer with Jones Day in Dallas, "if anytime a lawyer or accountant gives tax advice, they have to find out if there is a patent on this."
.....
There is even one case pending in U.S. court in Connecticut, in which an organization called the Tax Strategies Group complains that John Rowe, the chairman and former chief executive of Aetna, infringed on its patent by using a certain type of trust to minimize taxes on profits from stock options. The group wants Rowe to be barred from using that strategy unless he buys a license from it."
.....
"So now we can have lobbying over whether all can benefit from what the lobbyists accomplished earlier.
Ain't democracy great?"

[snowsislander]

I am still waiting on the first lawyer to patent a legal defense strategy, such as the "Twinkie" defense.

[MarkL]

I am still waiting on the first lawyer to patent a legal defense strategy, such as the "Twinkie" defense.

And I'm still waiting to see a defense of the man who murders a lawyer say, "He was a lawyer, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. He just needed killing!"

Mark

[pabianice]

A patent is basically toilet paper unless you have major $$$ to back it up.

[traviskicks]

...?





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[lesser_satan]

I'll help set up a defense fund for that individual!