I can tell just from the press shots, this thing is a Samsung lawyer’s dream. I’m sure you must be thinking,”Hmm, that’s a weird assumption to make.” but don’t worry, an explanation is forthcoming. We’re going to take a trip, way, way back to the prehistoric times of April 18, 2011: The day Apple claimed ownership of the rectangle.
via The Samsung Galaxy S III: The First Smartphone Designed Entirely By Lawyers.
A recent case shows how patent litigation works. EveryMD sued Facebook over an infringement on hosting a home page, posting comments and rating information.
The company has since decided to pursue patent suits against presidential candidates like Mitt Romney over their Facebook pages. EveryMD did not immediately return FoxNews.com requests for clarification.
via Fark.com founder links patent trolls with ‘terrorists’ | Fox News.
Worlds Inc. owns US patents numbers 8,082,501, 7,493,558, 7,945,856 and 7,181,690 titled “System and Method for Enabling Users to Interact in a Virtual Space” and has additional continuation claims in process before the U.S Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO). These patents relate to computer architecture for three-dimensional graphical multi-user interactive virtual world systems. Such systems are utilized in Massive Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPG).
Whether you love tweet seats or loathe them, you probably never thought they were patentable. But one company, Inselberg Interactive, insists it has already patented the seats, and is pressing Goodspeed Musicals in East Haddam, Connecticut to license their patented platform or desist from hosting “tweet seats” nights
The Mitel Networks suit, filed on March 16, 2012, in the U.S. District Court in Delaware, alleges infringement of two different patents, one for an “automatic web page generator” and another for “pro-active features for telephony.” They date from 1999 and 2007.
And two patent applications filed last week come from Compass Labs and AOL and respectively cover “user interest analysis and systems” and “content publication activity by a user.”
Most every site on the Internet, including this WordPress site, has its web pages generated automatically using a backend database.
“What likely will happen in the short term is Facebook will make a decision as to whether it thinks this lawsuit is having a significant impact on its forthcoming IPO,” Patras said. “If it thinks it is having a significant impact then I suspect Facebook will come to a relatively quick license agreement with Yahoo to make this issue go away. If Facebook concludes it’s not having a significant impact they will fight on and get to the merits of these claims down the road.”
Apple Made A Deal With The Devil No, Worse: A Patent Troll | TechCrunch.
he patents in question:
USPTO #6208879 — Mobile Information Terminal Equipment and Portable Electronic Apparatus
USPTO #6456841 — Mobile Communication Apparatus Notifying User Of Reproduction Waiting Information Effectively
It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
To call upon a neighbour and to say: —
“We invaded you last night–we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away.”And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you’ve only to pay ’em the Dane-geld
And then you’ll get rid of the Dane!It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say: —
“Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away.”And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say: —“We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that pays it is lost!”
–Rudyard Kipling
Click Here
Above Kipling quote came from a comment posted here.
An awkward silence ensued. The blue suits did not even confer among themselves. They just sat there, stonelike. Finally, the chief suit responded. “OK,” he said, “maybe you don’t infringe these seven patents. But we have 10,000 U.S. patents. Do you really want us to go back to Armonk [IBM headquarters in New York] and find seven patents you do infringe? Or do you want to make this easy and just pay us $20 million?”
After a modest bit of negotiation, Sun cut IBM a check, and the blue suits went to the next company on their hit list.
via Patently Absurd – Forbes.com.
Incredible. Article from 2002.