It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. In 2013, patent trolls continued to run rampant, suing everyone from app developers to small businesses to podcasters.
Beginning in 2011, a patent troll named Innovatio IP Ventures, LLP, began a massive shakedown campaign. Armed with some patents purchased from Broadcom, Innovatio sent thousands of letters targeting hotels and cafes that provide Wi-Fi for customers. The troll demanded as much as $2,500 per location. Router manufacturer Cisco stepped in to defend its customers and yesterday settled with Innovatio for just 3.2 cents a unit.
Patent trolls are having a bad week. Today the New York Attorney General announced it had reached a settlement with MPHJ, the so-called scanner troll. That deal, not entirely unlike the one already in place in Minnesota, is great news for New Yorkers who have found themselves facing the notorious patent troll as well as anyone planning to do business in the Empire State.
To the extent there's a poster child for patent abuse, it's MPHJ, the infamous "scanner troll." This week's revelations show us for the first time just how much damage the patent troll has caused. Hint: it's a lot.
MPHJ owns a handful of patents, which it claims covers the basic technology for scanning documents to email. You read that right—simply scanning documents to email.
This is a guest post from Advanced Image Direct detailing their encounter with a patent troll.
My company, Advance Image Direct, is a direct mail company. We are required by the United States Post Office (USPS) to include "intelligent mail barcodes" (IMB) on the mail we produce. The IMB is the barcode below the recipient address on postal mail. It contains the mail recipient's address, zip code, and the mailer ID—information the post office needs for delivering mail efficiently and tracking purposes.
Today we learned just how determined the patent troll Lodsys is to avoid a ruling on the merits of its claims. When software security company Kaspersky Lab refused to surrender, Lodsys settled for nothing (yes, you read that right—absolutely nothing) rather than take its claims to trial.
Minnesota is the latest state to join the fight against patent tolls. It announced yesterday that it reached a settlement with the "scanner troll," who claims to own the technology for scanning documents to email and has been demanding that companies large and small who use this widely available technology pay up.
Hillary Foss is a marketing associate at FindTheBest, which recently received a demand letter.
Todd Moore is a mobile developer and founder of TMSOFT. This is crossposted from his own blog.
Lodsys has dismissed the patent infringement lawsuit it filed against my company TMSOFT. The dismissal is with prejudice which means they can never sue my company again for infringing its patents. I did not have to pay any money to Lodsys or sign a license agreement. I also did not sign a confidentially agreement so I’m free to talk about this matter.
