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Patent Troll Basics

November 2nd, 2010

If you’ve heard the term patent troll but are not sure what it means, then you’re in the right place. A patent troll, sometimes called a patent pirate, is a company or other entity, sometimes an individual that uses patent law to enforce patents against potential offenders in exchange for a payout. This practice is questionable, but current patent law allows it.

Click here to contact a patent law attorney

Patent trolls have no interest in using the patents they obtain for anything except as bartering power with large companies. Sometimes patent trolls purchase patents from companies that are willing to sell due to the fact that they never made what they had patented. In other cases, patents are bought in bulk quantities from companies going out of business or bankrupt.

The reason patent trolling is so lucrative, especially in hotspots like Tyler, Texas, is because it is very common for the patent troll that holds the patent to win in a lawsuit, which can sometimes mean payouts of millions of dollars with very little work being done by the patent troll.

Obviously, patent trolling is of questionable ethics but that only matters so much. The real problem is that current patent law allows patent holders to go after other entities even if they haven’t acted on their patent. Being the owner of the patent, even if you never used it, puts you in a position to barter with large companies with the threat of taking them to court for patent infringement. No company wants to deal with a patent infringement case and many cannot afford it period. Thus, patent trolls usually are able to “bully” the companies into paying an outside of court settlement.

Click here to contact a patent law attorney

East Texas Intellectual Property Rights Law

October 26th, 2010
Patent Harbor LLC

Patent Harbor LLC

Today I was at the Regions Bank building in downtown Tyler to see a lawyer. I didn’t quite stop all the way at a stop sign and there was a police man watching the whole thing. I received a ticket for not stopping completely at a stop sign and so I bit the bullet and took my traffic citation and told the police officer “thank you for serving”.

Although I hated getting a ticket for what I would consider a technicality they risk their lives every day and perform a very necessary service people like me just aren’t cut out for. So I thanked the police officer which I believe everyone should do.

Click here to contact a patent law attorney

I drove on after signing that I may appear in court for my traffic citation and drove up to the Regions Bank building in downtown Tyler Texas. I road the elevator up to the 8th floor to speak with an attorney that handles traffic tickets. While up there I noticed a locked office door with a sign that read “Patent Harbor LLC”.

I spoke to a woman on this same floor who says that hardly ever is someone there. She said they rent the office but no one is ever there except on rare occasions. When people do show up it is a big throng of people and has the feel of a Hollywood movie.

I mentioned the catch phrase, “patent troll” and she had no idea what this was or what these companies do. She was completely in the dark about “patent trolls” as her law firm did not handle cases like this. She said there were several other empty rented offices like this in the Regions Bank building and she has heard they are similar type of businesses.

Regions Bank Tyler TX

Regions Bank Patent Troll Building

I looked into Patent Harbor LLC a little further by doing a Google search and they are suing quite a few big name companies over patent infringement. Many would say this is another case of patent troll litigation where a company buys patents not ever intending to make anything from the patents but to generate revenue by suing large established companies with millions of dollars. I however do not know all the facts in this specific case and will remain opinion-less on who the guilty party is. If you happen to know if Patent Harbor is or is not a patent troll please feel free to comment below.

Only a few short weeks ago Apple lost a patent infringement lawsuit against an alleged patent troll and was ordered to pay over $600 million dollars in the lawsuit.

Click here to contact a patent law attorney

The reason you will see empty locked offices in Tyler Texas rented by out of town patent holding companies who setup business in Tyler is based on the theory that the Texas Eastern District Court
often sides with the plaintiff in these cases in a jury trial setting.

Some say the judges are corrupt and others say the juries in East Texas simply do not understand the complexity of these cases which is why large companies like Apple have to pay millions of dollars to what some call “Patent Trolls”.

Whether Patent Harbor LLC is a patent troll or not is not for me to determine as I do not know the facts of this case in great detail. I do find it curious how many lawsuits regarding patent infringement are purposefully tried in Tyler and East Texas.

More on Patent Harbor LLC

RFC Case Number: P-P10-361A
Court Case Number: 6:10-cv-00361-LED
File Date: Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Plaintiff: Patent Harbor, LLC

Plaintiff Counsel: Keith A. Rutherford, John C. Cain, Scott Reese of Wong Cabello Lutsch Rutherford & Brucculeri LLP
T. John Ward Jr. of Ward & Smith Law Firm

Defendant: Audiovox Corporation
Radioshack Corporation
Vizio, Inc.
Klipsch, LLC
Klipsch Group
GPX, Inc.
DPI, Inc.
Sherwood America Incorporated
Imation Corporation
Sharp Electronics Corporation
Haier America Trading LLC
Best Buy Co., Inc.
Denon Electronics (USA), LLC
Harmon International Industries, Inc.
Initial Technology, Inc.
JVC Americas Corporation
Onkyo USA Corporation
Panasonic Corporation of North America
Philips Electronics North America Corporation
Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc.
Samsung Electronics America, Inc.
Samsung C&T America, Inc.
Toshiba America, Inc.
Toshiba America Consumer Products LLC.,
Venturer Electronics, Inc.
Yamaha Corporation of America
Yamaha Electronics Corproation, USA

Cause: 35:271 Patent Infringement
Court: Texas Eastern District Court
Judge: Judge Leonard Davis

Why Exactly You Should Be Concerned About Patent Infringement

The word “intellectual” gives a pretty good clue as to what intellectual property rights law covers: ideas. More importantly, East Texas intellectual property rights law covers original ideas. Obviously, intellectual property law covers a very broad spectrum. Anything from books to machines to company logos falls under intellectual property law.

Intellectual property rights law plays quite a role in East Texas. Because intellectual property law protects creators with original ideas from others trying to benefit from their work, it encourages individuals to come up with new products and ideas. Within intellectual property rights law, there are three main subcategories. These include copyrights, patents, and trademarks. While all of these are pretty similar, they have their differences as well. Copyright law usually protects expressive artwork. It gives owners of the copyright exclusive rights to reproduce, display, or perform the work and punishes those who infringe by law. Patent law protects inventions and gives the creator exclusive rights, but only for a limited amount of time. After the time period is up, anyone can reproduce or copy the work. Last, trademark law deals with the logos, names, and identifying marks of products and companies.

Click here to contact a patent law attorney

East Texas intellectual property rights law is very strict when it comes to violations. It is very important to hire a lawyer specializing in intellectual property rights law if you are forced to go to court for infringement or to pursue an infringement against you.

Apple Given a Patent Lawsuit Penalty of $625.5 million dollars by a Tyler Texas Federal Jury

October 6th, 2010
Apple Patent Infringement Case Tyler Texas

Apple

As we have been writing about over the last several months, Tyler and East Texas are considered dumb hillbilly areas that offer large advantages for patent trolls to file patent infringement lawsuits and win.

Just a few months ago VirnetX of Tyler won $106 million against Microsoft so this is not at all uncommon around here.

Click here to contact a patent law attorney

It was reported today that a federal jury in Tyler Texas awarded a company located in Tyler Texas by the name of Mirror Worlds LLC $625.5 million dollars as a judgement against Apple for infringing on their patents.

Of course if they really did do something wrong they should have to pay some type of penalty. What is often the case with patent outfits like this is to find that the company is simply a patent clearing house. The company buys up patents with the sole motive being to find large companies infringing on the patent and profit from lawsuits. Often a company like this hasn’t a single physical product they actually sell.

An example would be to where a patent company buys up some patents that they already know are being infringed upon with the express purpose of making income through litigation. These patent trolls do not wish to make something with the patent they bought but are looking to sue as many large corporations as they can.

You must also consider that it is not all bad what the patent troll is doing as some engineers and scientists that have made these patents contractually sell their patents to large patent companies like this to basically handle the litigation for them. So in a way these patent clearing houses offer a service to legitimate inventors of a product, software, or service that may or may not have ever been developed.

This patent trolling makes millions and millions of dollars for these companies as well as their lawyers. Not only does the patent troll need to open up a business in Tyler or East Texas to pursue litigation here but their lawyer must be local counsel.

Click here to contact a patent law attorney

Although there will likely be a larger law firm outside of Tyler and possibly in another state working on the case they will retain local counsel here to pursue the matter in court.

There were 3 patents involved in this court case that Mirror Worlds LLC claim Apple infringed on. This comes out to $208.5 million per violation. Apple calls this lawsuit “triple dipping” if they actually collect all the 3 penalties.

The case is being appealed by Apple and will likely have some of the infringements and penalty’s knocked down and reduced but will still leave the patent troll company with millions of dollars for both themselves and their lawyers.

Once again Tyler Texas jury’s have proven to be gullible hillbilly idiots. My best guess is that most of the jury simply do not understand the complexities of the technological patents being discussed in court and are lulled into believing the patent trolls sob story.

The patents in the dispute were created by Yale professor David Gerlenter. David spun off Mirror Worlds Technologies from the university in 1996 and files the patents in 1999.

I imagine that the current Mirror Worlds LLC entity is no longer owned by the original patent owner, David Gerlenter but was bought by a patent troll. The patent troll than opened up an office in Tyler Texas in order to be able to sue from Tyler Texas so the lawsuit would be decided by an East Texas jury.

Patent Trolling East Texas

Patent Troll

By having patent litigation decided by a Tyler or East Texas judge and jury it is almost a guaranteed win for the patent troll company which is why I suspect Mirror World LLC opened up an office in Tyler Texas.

U.S. District Judge Leonard Davis is considering Apple’s request at this time that Apple does not infringe at least 2 of these patents. He will likely grant this request and lower the penalty amounts on at least 2 of the 3 infringement penalties.

Click here to contact a patent law attorney

The judge will soon hear arguments now on the damages awarded in the case from both sides

Patent Trolling: Abusing The System?

Patent lawyers have taken over the patent trolling industry in a new way by going from an attorney who helps patent holders defend against other companies who are suing them in regards to an infringed patent to these same lawyers buying large swaths of patents themselves and suing companies. You see no one is in a better position to know just how lucrative it is to sue companies that are infringing on patents then the patent litigation attorneys who have both defended and fought and won many of these cases for other companies.

You would think an attorney that worked in the patent infringement industry and has seen all the abuse in this issue would work to reform the industry. This however is not the case and quite a few attorneys that have won and lost some very big patent infringement cases are trying to make revenue themselves by being patent owners. Kind of sounds like the old saying,  “if you can’t beat them join them”, to me.

If you think about it owning a patent is like owning a business and in this case an attorney fighting for these businesses is just an employee who makes a meager amount compared to the patent owning company or the large corporation fighting the lawsuit. The amount of money gets up into the hundreds of millions of dollars so for many this type of power and money is a legacy creating game changer.

Take Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards who was a mesothelioma cancer attorney. His law firm sued very large companies like Corning and others where workers were contaminated by asbestos created products. His law firm made hundreds of millions of dollars and he became wealthy in the process. He eventually became a senator for North Carolina. Coincidentally the Corning plant was an east Texas manufacturing company that was the main culprit in the asbestos poisoning of their workers.

Some of these patent attorneys that once defended companies against claims of infringements by the plaintiffs in a lawsuit are now also buying patents and going after several companies they may have once defended in the past. Considering this attorney will likely make several hundred million dollars in his lawsuits some would say that money has gotten the better of him. I don’t see how this type of thing should be allowed to continue as this would be an obvious and blatant abuse of the patent laws in the United States.

One of these attorneys that has gone from defending litigants to being a plaintiff has bought up over 4,500 patents from a company that makes computer-memory chips. He also has a new law firm that works along side his patent owning company in pursuing litigation against any and all companies that have infringed these patents.

It seems a bit hypocritical to go from defending many of these companies to suing them but hey what do I know I am not an attorney and I will probably never own a patent.

East Texas and Patent Trolling

September 27th, 2010

 

East Texas Patent Troll

East Texas Patent Troll

Over the last few years, East Texas has become one of the most popular spots in the country for patent trolls and others seeking an almost sure win for a patent or copyright infringement case. The district court in East Texas is pretty well known for siding with plaintiffs in patent cases. Traditionally, patent trolls hire specialized patent lawyers to fight their battles for them and to seek out companies or other entities that hold patents they could buy and capitalize on.

So, what do patent trolls do? These companies that are called patent trolls buy up patents from other companies and then hire lawyers to prove infringement. In some cases, lawyers have simply become patent trolls individually thanks to the almost guaranteed or not-so-guaranteed depending on how you look at it payout, especially if you wind up in an East Texas court room. These companies could care less about the patents themselves or the products that could be made from them. Instead, they are simply after the money that they stand to earn by settling a lawsuit out of court.

With such a lenient court system or maybe not when looking further into it, iis it a surprise that Tyler and East Texas houses plenty of patent trolls and has for the last decade or so. Sadly, the companies that have to defend themselves from patent trolls stand to lose the most during a court case. For this reason, these companies instead settle outside of court with the patent troll. In many cases, this was all the patent troll wanted.

If you need to shop for a good patent troll attorney in Tyler Texas this is a good place to start: Tyler Texas Patent Law Attorneys