Patenting patent trolling

(via Patently-O) Halliburton (yes, THAT Halliburton) has made a patent application for patent trolling. Enjoy USPTO application 20080270152, which protects a method for "Patent Acquisition and Assertion by a (Non-Inventor) First Party Against a Second Party".

The abstract reads:

"Methods for a first party to acquire and assert a patent property against a second party are disclosed. The methods include obtaining an equity interest in the patent property. The methods further include writing a claim within the scope of the patent property. The claim is written to cover a product of the second party where the product includes a secret aspect. The methods further include filing the claim with a patent office. The methods sometimes include offering a license of the patent property to the second party after the patent property issues as a patent with the claim. The methods sometimes include asserting infringement of the claim by the second party after the patent property issues as a patent with the claim. The methods sometimes include negotiating a cross-license with the second party based on the assertion of infringement of the claim, where under the cross-license the first party obtains a license to an intellectual property right from the second party. The methods sometime include attempting to obtain a monetary settlement from the second party based on the assertion of infringement of the claim."

Even more delightful is the flowchart describing the claims:

Looks like someone is tired of paying out to patent trolls, Halliburton was famously involved in the software patent case of Halliburton v Smith.

I don't know, I would like an examiner with a good sense of humour to get this one and grant the claim. It would be delightfully ironic to have patent trolls sued for patent infringement :)