There are always patent lawsuits and challenges happening around the country. But the new trend in patent suits — from major, established drug companies to fly-by-night outfits alike — seems to be an attempt to get a leg up by using tribal sovereignty to avoid certain parts of the process. [More]
patent trolls
Federal Court Confirms: Patent Troll Doesn’t Control The Entire Idea Of “Podcasting”
By 8.7.17
The idea of recording audio and video shows and then posting them online seems rather common-sense, and thousands of people were doing it around the world long before anyone ever coined the term “podcast.” Yet that didn’t stop one company from demanding payment from broadcasters, claiming it holds the patent on the very concept of podcasting. Hopefully this particular piece of trolling has come to an end, with a federal appeals court affirming a previous decision that this patent was trying to protect an invention that already existed. [More]
Patent Troll Sues Netflix, Claiming It Owns The Idea Of Downloading Videos
By 2.6.17
While it took years for Netflix to finally decide to offer the option of downloading videos for offline viewing, it’s not like the company hadn’t thought about the concept. Now Netflix and others are being targeted by a patent troll who claims to have a patent over the basic idea of downloading video from the internet. [More]
Patent Troll Sues Basically Anyone Who Notifies You When Your Package Ships
By 10.28.16 — Updated: 11.1.16
It’s a process most of us are familiar with, by now: you buy something online, and you get two emails from the site you bought it from. The first is an order confirmation, with an invoice, order number, or order summary in it. The second, a few hours or days later, is a shipping notification: a heads’ up that the package is coming your way, with info about what carrier is bringing it and when you can expect your goods to land at your doorstep. [More]
Company Claiming Patent On Online Voting Ordered To Pay Legal Fees After Suing Hobbyist Photo Site
By 4.1.16
Last year, a small hobbyist photo-sharing website decided to fight back against a lawsuit alleging that it infringed on a bizarre patent covering virtually the entire concept of online voting. The patent-holder plaintiff subsequently dropped the case after a heavy-hitting advocacy organization got involved, but the court has ordered the plaintiff to fork over thousands of dollars in legal fees for its “unreasonable” conduct. [More]
U.S. Patent Office: Patent Troll Does Not Entirely Own Concept of “Podcasting”
By 4.10.15
“Podcasting” might as well have been the word of the year in 2014, when “Serial” shot the form straight to the top of the pop-culture buzz charts for a few months. But while everyone in America was plugging in earbuds and trying to decide whodunit, the U.S. Patent Office had the more important end of the challenge: deciding who actually owns the patent for the idea of podcasting. [More]
Hobbyist Photo-Sharing Site Defends Itself Against Company With A Patent On Online Voting
By 2.17.15
Patents are intended to protect the developers of specific concepts. That’s why you don’t see a patent for “thing that can treat diseases,” but for individual medicines and devices. Last summer, the Supreme Court confirmed you can’t simply patent a generic idea just because you apply it to a computer. But a small photo-sharing site is being sued for infringing on a patent that arguably covers a vast range of vote-for-your-favorite competitions. [More]
U.S. Patent Office To Decide Whether Patent Troll Company Actually Owns Podcasting
By 12.15.14
Podcasts are simply the done thing, in 2014: everyone’s taking their modern update on the radio show with them on the go. One company out there, seeing all the dollar signs, now claims that they invented and patented podcasting 18 years ago, and is suing anyone not paying them license fees. But consumer tech advocates are fighting back, and hoping to get regulators to make the patent trolls crawl back under their bridge. [More]
You Can’t Just Patent An Idea — You Actually Have To Make A Thing, Supreme Court Rules
By 6.19.14
The Supreme Court today issued rulings on a handful of cases. One was about two companies nobody’s ever really heard of, arguing over patents for software to manage banking transactions. The details of the patents themselves, and the transactions they deal with, are kind of complicated and insidery — but they’re also not necessarily that important. The broader implications of the ruling, and the legal precedent the Court set with it, though, will have an impact for years to come. [More]
Lawmakers Aim To Stop Patent Trolls From Shaking Down Businesses For Using Basic Office Equipment
By 11.8.13
We’ve written before about the lowest level of patent troll, the kind that claims to have a patent on some widely used technology — like photocopying or scanning — and instead of targeting the companies that make products that allegedly violate those patents, they try to bully small businesses into paying thousands of dollars for the use of basic office equipment. [More]
Patent Trolls Demanding $1,000/Employee From Businesses That Dare To Use A Scanner
By 1.3.13
Sick of going up against huge companies that have teams of experienced lawyers at their disposal, patent trolls are apparently turning to smaller companies and demanding bizarre royalty payments simply for using basic office technology on which the trolls claim they have the patent. [More]
