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RIM Pays Off Wi-LAN To Get Rid Of Another Patent Suit
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| Wi-LAN is a Canadian company that did some early work in the wireless field,
| but was unable to actually make much of a business out of its work, so it
| took the loser's route: it started suing lots of companies for patent
| infringement. It's the same old story: winners innovate, losers litigate --
| and litigate seems to be about all that Wi-LAN does these days.
`----
http://techdirt.com/articles/20080811/1749301946.shtml
Research in Motion and Wi-LAN Settle Litigation
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| Wi-LAN, founded in 1992, is a leading technology innovation and licensing
| company.
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http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/1818186/
Wi-Lan signs patent deal with Research in Motion
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| The Ottawa-based company filed a lawsuit in June alleging that RIM's mobile
| devices and other equipment infringe Wi-Lan patents. Wi-Lan filed the suit in
| the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division
| — a court that is favored by patent-license companies seeking big judgments.
| Wi-Lan also named Motorola and UTStarCom in the case.
`----
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/08/11/business/NA-Canada-RIM-Patent-Deal.php
"I thanked [Compaq's John] Rose for all of his trips to Seattle and his
willingness to distract a lot of time for the lawsuit."
--Bill Gates
Microsoft could recruit more trolls to do lawsuits by proxy.
Recent:
Acacia signs non-exclusive patent license, settlement deal with SPG Solutions -
Quick Facts
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| Acacia Research Corp. announced that its subsidiary, Credit Card Fraud
| Control Corp., has entered into a non-exclusive patent license and settlement
| agreement with SPG Solutions, covering a patent that applies to fraud
| protection technology.
`----
http://www.rttnews.com/Content/QuickFacts.aspx?Node=B1&Id=642786%20&Category=Quick%20Facts
Allied Security Trust -- Let The Patent Wars Begin
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| You may remember a while back I wrote about Vocaltec selling some of its
| patents to what appears to be a firm that will become a patent troll.
|
| [...]
|
| The end result of these moves is likely going to be a bidding war for
| patents. On the one hand there will be VC money fighting to buy patents and
| on the other it will be Allied Security Trust.
|
| If anything, this environment will make it more lucrative for companies with
| valuable patents to sell. This new battle will certainly be interesting to
| watch.
`----
http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/patent/allied-security-trust----let-the-patent-wars-begin.html
Related:
Who is the world's biggest patent troll?
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| In two consecutive days, The Wall Street Journal presented two different
| answers. The first is not surprising: Intellectual Ventures, the brainchild
| of ex-Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold. It's now out "to raise as much as
| $1 billion to help develop and patent inventions, many of them from
| universities in Asia."
`----
http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13505_1-9816163-16.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Playing Microsoft Patent Poker
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| This time though, while Ballmer slinks away to try to con … convince people
| that Microsoft Unified Communications somehow offers people more than what
| Cisco's VOIP (voice over IP) been offering customers for years, a patent
| attack finally launches at Linux. Specifically, IP Innovation, a subsidiary
| of Acacia Technologies Group, has filed a patent infringement claim against
| Linux distributors Novell and Red Hat.
|
| So was it just timing, or was it something more? Let's take a look at the
| players.
`----
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2201579,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03129TX1K0000616
Ideas Are Everywhere... So Why Do We Limit Them?
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| Gladwell uses this to talk up what Myhrvold is doing, suggesting that
| Intellectual Ventures is really about continuing that process, getting those
| ideas out there -- but he misses the much bigger point: if these ideas are
| the natural progression, almost guaranteed to be discovered by someone sooner
| or later, why do we give a monopoly on these ideas to a single discoverer?
| Myhrvold's whole business model is about monopolizing all of these ideas and
| charging others (who may have discovered them totally independently) to
| actually do something with them. Yet, if Gladwell's premise is correct (and
| there's plenty of evidence included in the article), then Myhrvold's efforts
| shouldn't be seen as a big deal. After all, if it wasn't Myhrvold and his
| friends doing it, others would very likely come up with the same thing sooner
| or later.
|
| This is especially highlighted in one anecdote in the article, of Myhrvold
| holding a dinner with a bunch of smart people... and an attorney. The group
| spent dinner talking about a bunch of different random ideas, with no real
| goal or purpose -- just "chewing the rag" as one participant put it. But the
| next day the attorney approached them with a typewritten description of 36
| different inventions that were potentially patentable out of the dinner. When
| a random "chewing the rag" conversation turns up 36 monopolies, something is
| wrong. Those aren't inventions that deserve a monopoly.
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http://techdirt.com/articles/20080507/0114581051.shtml
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