patent troll or just troll? I have definitely been trolled.

I got an email earlier, which I assumed was just an automated template from the bowels of some patent trolling machine that I had triggered by my keywords...

"Dear Sirs,

I understand Tom Hodder works for this firm. I believe he posted the following advert on PeoplePerHour:
http://www.peopleperhour.com/job/initial-research-on-the-topic-of-using-eeg-embedded-into-mot-240449

He might wish to know that I have been granted a patent on the invention he is seeking information on and I am happy to discuss licencing opportunities.

Regards,

Jonathan Bishop
Inventor of 'Assisting Human Interaction'
Director, Jonathan Bishop Limited"

here is the original

After a quick search, it appears that this guy, Jonathan Bishop, actually holds a patent on something similar (US2013095460 (A1) ― 2013-04-18) *;

"A method of and system for, assisting interaction between a user and at least one other human, which includes receiving (202) action data describing at least one action performed by at least one human. The action data is decoded (204) to generate action-meaning data and the action-meaning data is used (206) to generate (208) user response data relating to how a user should respond to the at least one action."

but weirdly, its looks like the patent was only awarded due to an oversight in the paperwork (last paragraph):

"it is not possible to establish a set of technical features disclosed in the present application which would be novel or inventive, contrarily to the requirements of article 33PCT" 

So I google the guy, and I find this....

"You have reached The Official Website of Jonathan Bishop. I am Internet trolling and cyberbullying expert, as well as being a private online community and e-learning academic in general. More generally I am an information technology executive, researcher and writer. I am the editor of the book, ‘Examining the Concepts, Issues and Implications of Internet Trolling,’" - http://www.jonathanbishop.com/

and then it just gets weirder;

"Dzon@jonathan_bishopI am Dzon - The performing name of @jonathanbishop. Join me for debate, trolling and comedy. I'm Leader of The @PluralistParty and run the @TrollingAcademy." - http://www.trollingacademy.org/#

and

"Hello, my name is Jonathan Bishop. I am known to some for my work as a town and community councillor in the Pontypridd constituency in Wales"  - http://www.jonathanbishop.org.uk/

and

"I also happen to be the leader of a minor party – The Pluralist Party – which aims to remove the ‘party’ from ‘party politics’. The Pluralist Party’s hierarchy of which I am leader is purely administrative without any authority over members. It’s only members are serving councillors and prospective candidates who are autonomous and accountable only to those they represent or whose vote they seek. " - http://www.jonathanbishop.org.uk/

It feels like that bit in the usual  suspects, where verbal kint does a stream of conciousness story about all the things on the wall, and you are left slightly shell shocked, and wondering actually what is real anymore... ;-)


p.s. someone please explain it to me, my brain hurts!

[update]

Here is the filing from the US Patents pdf document:

...damn, I should have spotted that.

If you can't read it, the caption says "The person is being humorous. You are required to respond"

US2013095460 (A1) - note on patent coding;

OK, so you learn something new every day. The suffix codes (A1, A2, .. B1, B2...) etc mean something.

The EU suffix code A1 refers to only a "European patent application published with European search report", and it't only the B1,B2,B3... codes that refer to "European patent specification (granted patent)"

And the US follow a similar naming scheme; where A1 refers to "first publication of application" and only B1 - "patent which was not published as a patent application" or B2 "patent which was prior published as a patent application (US 2002/0068359 A1)" refer to actual patents, rather than just the applications.