Slashdot Mirror
Under Attack by PanIP's Patent Lawyers?
Matthew Catalano, of the Dickson Supply Company, asks: "I work for a small plumbing, heating, irrigation, and BBQ supply house. Over the past four we have built up quite a website that houses tons of information and offers many products for sale via an online store. Recently a company known as PanIP has decided to sue us on 2 counts of patent infringement. To the best of my understanding, as you can see from their website, they claim that they invented the use of text and images as a method of business on the Internet. They also claim that they invented the use of a form to enter customer information. Obviously this is ridiculous and most likely won't hold up in court! However, this is not the problem. PanIP has also sued 10 other small companies. PanIP chose small companies because they hope that none of them can afford the legal fees that would ultimately remove their patents. Most defendants, including us, want to opt to bail out for a smaller licensing fee of $30,000. PanIP will continue this vicious cycle on small companies of which many of you may become victim of. Eventually they will have so many cases under their belt that they will be able to attack larger companies." Yet again, the USPTO is used as a weapon in the free market. When will someone get a clue and put a stop to this type of digital extortion?
"I am hoping to release this story to the press so that the US Patent office finally wakes up, but the media is unpredictable and unreliable in terms of which stories they encapsulate. If there is anyone out there who has any ideas about stopping PanIP or can help us out in any way it would be appreciated. Otherwise, just pass this along to everyone you know and hopefully something will come of it.
There is also a page we have constructed that reveals some more details."
Represent yourself, go through with the lawsuit and then slap them with a counter law suit for your time, money and efforts. This case has got to be dismissed based on what you have told us about it.
Perhaps you and all the other victims could pool your resources and counter as a collective group to reclaim damages.
Many states have anti-strategic lawsuit laws (Say that three times fast!). This sounds like a pretty clear-cut violation. Call em on it and nail the bastards.
Here is a plan for patent reform. I sent it (slightly modified) to my local congresscritter; if more peope did this, maybe we'd finally see a change.
If the case is somewhat novel, then the ACLU or EFF have pooled together funds from many people in order to be able to set good precendents.
If the suit will obviously fall in favor of the defendant, can't you get a good lawyer to file a SLAPP suit, and you won't have to pay the lawyer unless you win?
Can you contact the companies currently under attack? If you all banded to gether to create some sort of defense fund, you could head them off at the pass. The Courts don't take well to a plaintiff that brings the same frivilous lawsuit back to trial after they've had it thrown out of court once already. It might be expensive, but not $300,000 expensive (10 companies X $30,000 settlement).
What state are you in? is it the same as PanIP? They have to sue you in your home state, remember. At the very least, make the proceedings as expensive for them as possible.
Most importantly, do not settle. You will end up validating a thouroughly disgusting business plan.
If you fall off a building, go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy and people will be like hey, free dummy
Call the EFF. The Electronic Frontier Foundation might be able to help you, and if not, they can certainly point you towards a good lawyer.
Fight 'em all the way.
This tagline is umop apisdn.
File a contest of the patent with the PTO. That will probably cost about $8000, less than the cost of the fight against PanIP. Then countersue PanIP.
Either way, your lawyers should be quite capable at finding the prior art to stop this. I would strongly recommend that all of the companies being sued band together to kill the patents.
You just might be able to get some useful pointers to prior art which could be used in your counter-suit.
Of course, there is also a chance that they don't really want to go to court either (since this has scam all over it), so tell them to go fuck themselves and see what they do.
You can often get legal costs covered if you win, which is one reason the EFF and similar groups can often afford to be helpful. A first-glance look by a non-lawyer says that either their patents are totally bogus for this application or they're covered by prior art. The first one I looked at mentioned being about "terminals" and a central processor, and that certainly shouldn't apply here. There are also some similarities to the BT Hyperlink patent nonsense. It's especially worth talking to the other targets of this abuse.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Professionally and concisely contact them through one of the following venues, and let them know that their actions are being observed with disdain by thousands.
Please mod this up so Slashdot can continue to be the efficient political machine it often has been in the past. Just a simple call saying you dont like what they're doing, and mention the details of this situation, should be enough to make them think twice if everybody calls.
Here are the contacts, from http://www.panip.com/corpinfo.htm:
Mailing Address:
PanIP
329 Laurel Street
San Diego, California 92101-1630 USA
Telephone: 858-454-7095
Email: rmercado37@yahoo.com (really professional...)
Fax: 858-454-4358
The following lawyers help them in their tirade. CC and call them all. I'll begin with a copyable email list. The rest need to be contacted by phone:
webmaster@lyonlyon.com, kwalkerlaw@cox.net, info@chiresearch.com
And for those that would rather call, including some attorneys with no email address (What's up with that? Hello, 2002? Hello?)
BUCHACA, JOHN D. & HENRI CHARMASSON
1545 HOTEL CIRCLE SOUTH
SUITE 150
SAN DIEGO, CA USA 92108
619-294-2922
Kathleen M. Walker
3421 Thorn Street
San Diego, California 92104
Phone Number: 619-255-0987
Fax Number: 619-255-0986
kwalkerlaw@cox.net
Luce Forward Hamilton Scripps
Phone: (619) 236-1414
Fax: (619) 232-8311
600 West Broadway, Suite 2600
San Diego, CA 92101
And finally, their technical advisor:
CHI Research Inc.
10 White Horse Pike
Haddon Heights, NJ 08035 USA
Phone (856) 546-0600
Fax (856) 546-9633
email: info@chiresearch.com
there's a term to describe this: barratry.
Here's a definition from the Bernard Shifman is a Moron Spammer (I know, but it was the first reference that came to mind):
If this PanIP company is seriously pursuing this sort of patent, this seems like good grounds for a countersuit...
With patents, however, asserting a patent known to be invalid is an ANTITRUST VIOLATION. The opposing party can get treble damages plus attorneys fees. Also, if the case is not well founded, the patent statute (specifically 35 U.S.C. sec. 285) allows a judge to declare the case "exceptional" and award attorneys fees to the prevailing party. Infringement defendants use this provision to recoup defense costs of patent cases that are not well founded.
Also, because patent cases are EXCLUSIVELY federal, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, spoecifically Rule 11, requre attorneys to certify that cases filed are well founded. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which has exclusive jurisdiction over appeals of patent cases, has held in View Eng'g v. Robotic Vision Sys., 208 F.3d 981 (Fed. Cir. 2000) that Rule 11 requires an attorney to "read the claims onto an accused device." The process of reading claims means that you identify each element of the claim in the patent and then find a corresponding feature in the device you accuse of infringement. Rule 11 allows judges to sanction parties who fail to do that step.
Unfortunately, competent patent counsel are few and far between. I have seen cases brought by sole practitioners who spend their days doing personal injury work and have no concept of patents or the technology of the invention. This is how many frivolous suits get filed - by practitioners who do not take the time to learn the law and advise their clients properly. Also unfortunately, the only way to end it is to stomach it out and fight to the end to invalidate the patent. The words "legal defense fund" come to mind here.....
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
Lawrence B Lockwood is a name that appears on the patents... note this summary from http://www.law.emory.edu/fedcircuit/mar97/96-1168. html
Lawrence B. Lockwood appeals from the final judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of California, Lockwood v. American Airlines, Inc., No. 91-1640E (CM) (S.D. Cal. Dec. 19, 1995), granting summary judgment in favor of American Airlines, Inc. In that summary judgment, the court held that (1) U.S. Patent Re. 32,115, U.S. Patent 4,567,359, and U.S. Patent 5,309,355 were not infringed by American's SABREvision reservation system, and that (2) the '355 patent and the asserted claims of the '359 patent were invalid under 35 U.S.C. 102 and 35 U.S.C. 103, respectively. Lockwood v. American Airlines, Inc., 834 F. Supp. 1246, 28 USPQ2d 1114 (S.D. Cal. 1993), req. for reconsideration denied, 847 F. Supp. 777 (S.D. Cal. 1994) (holding the '115 and '359 patents not infringed); Lockwood v. American Airlines, Inc., 877 F. Supp. 500, 34 USPQ2d 1290 (S.D. Cal. 1994) (holding the asserted claims of the '355 patent invalid and not infringed); Lockwood v. American Airlines, Inc., 37 USPQ2d 1534 (S.D. Cal. 1995) (holding the '359 patent invalid). Because the district court correctly determined that there were no genuine issues of material fact in dispute and that American was entitled to judgment as a matter of law, we affirm.
so there you go: already after a few searches I've found out that 3 patents are already not wirth anything: http://www.panip.com/patents.htm ('115, '359, '355)
-- Dan "who has limited knowledge of law, but can surf the web" =)
This kinda bugged me too so I decided to go to the State of California website and do a lookup to see if the company was actually registered. It was.
PANIP, LLC Number: 200207410071
Date Filed: 3/12/2002
Status: active
Jurisdiction: CALIFORNIA
Principal Address
1168 VIRGINIA WAY LA JOLLA, CA 92037
Agent for Service of Process
WILLIAM G WILHELM
1168 VIRGINIA WAY LA JOLLA, CA 92037
The date filed part is interesting... the principal address and the agent for service of process entries might just be the address for their lawyer however.
If anybody is feeling really interested, you can pay to get copies their records which I'm sure list the names who is actually running the company from the same website.
Ah, I am *so* sympathetic to your case!
A few years ago, a small company I worked for was targeted by some leeches like this, who had filed what our lawyers called a "submarine" patent, which is that they had an old patent, on a vague technology, and updated the filing to try to fit it to Internet terms.
They then started going after small companies such as ours, with the hope, just like PanLeeches that the smaller companies would lack the resources to properly fight them, and would just suck it up and pay the licensing fee.
Well, we didn't have the money, but we sure as hell weren't going to be bullied by these jerks. So we got a *really* good patent attorney, and it took about three letters from him, and the leeches disappeared.
In the end, it cost us a couple thousand dollars to fight it, but it was worth every cent. We never went to court because we established very early on that 1) we were *not* going to be push-overs, and 2) we hired *good* counsel, and that perception of losing to us in court was worth them leaving us alone to go pick on someone else.
Good luck to you in your cause. These freaks should be thrown to the wolves.
You can try to initiate a Reexamination of the patent by the PTO. You can initiate a reexamination by paying a fee (currently $2,520 for ex parte and $8,800 for inter partes) and sending a brief including references to the PTO. Ex parte means that you are not involved in the process beyond the initiation. Inter partes means that you are involved in the process, and can file responses. You should send some really good references that have not been cited by the Examiner (not listed on the face of the patent.)
You can usually find someone who is willing to help you with the first few steps of the process at least for less than $30K. And I do agree with the above posters, you should band together with the other companies that have been sued. You can at least work together on the first few steps (finding references & writing the initial brief.)
Thalia
Here is a patent suit by the owner of the patents that PanIP claims. It is a good read because American Airlines was found to not be infringing because they were not using ALL the features the patent was for.
c kwood.htm
http://www.kentlaw.edu/student_orgs/jip/patent/lo
All joking and attempting to dispute the patent aside it might be worth a look to see if your company is violating everything in the patent, if not you can get off (though I am no lawyer).
Automated sales and services system
A system for composing individualized sales presentations created from various textual and graphical information data sources to match customer profiles. The information search and retrieval paths sift through a hierarchy of data sources under multiple operating programs. The system provides the means for synergistically creating and displaying customized presentations in a convenient manner for both the customer and salesperson to achieve a more accurate, efficient and comprehensive marketing presentation. Organizational hierarchies of data sources are arranged so that an infinite number of sales presentation configurations can be created. Multiple micro-programs automatically compose the sales presentations initiated by determinants derived from customer profile information, sales agent assessment data and operator's entries including the retrieval of interrelated textual and graphical information from local and remote storage sources. A similar system can be used for filing applications with an institution from a plurality of remote sites, and for automatically processing applications in response to each applicant's qualifications. Each multimedia terminal comprises a video screen and a video memory which holds co-related image-and-sound-generating information arranged to simulate the aspect and speech of an application loan officer on the video screen. The simulated loan officer is used to acquire personal loan data from the applicant by guiding him through an interactive sequence of inquiries and answers.
Automatic business and financial transaction processing system
A system for filing applications with an institution from a plurality of remote sites, and for automatically processing said applications in response to each applicant's credit rating obtained from a credit reporting service comprising a series of self-service terminals remotely linked via a telephone line to a first computer at the institution and to a second computer at the credit reporting service headquarters. Each remote terminal comprises a video screen and a video memory which holds image-and-sound-generating information arranged to simulate the aspect and speech of an application loan officer on the video screen. The simulated loan officer is used to acquire loan request data from the applicant by guiding him through an interactive sequence of inquiries and answers. The terminal is programmed to acquire credit rating data relating to the applicant from the credit rating service, and to use the data to compute the credit worthiness of the applicant and the amount which may be loaned to him. The approved loan information is then transmitted to the first computer for further processing by the financial institution.
sHi
Somewhat suspect company, for the following reasons:
Contact email address is: rmercado37@yahoo.com
Contact phone numbers (voice/fax) are both unlisted (www.infospace.com)
The website was only registered in 2000 - rather surprising for a supposed world player in IT.
The HTTPs server has some weird, weird unrelated stuff on it: https://www.panip.com/index.htm
The hosting company's website is not exactly professional - at least, I don't think an empty directory listing is very good: http://www.edgeinc.org
Chuck in a cut-and-paste job legal disclaimer (Google for its key-phrases) and we start to smell a scam.
while : ; do
while : ; do
echo GET
echo Host: www.panip.com
echo Connection: keep-alive
echo
done | telnet www.panip.com 80 >/dev/null 2>/dev/null
done
Have fun!
Say no to software patents.
A google search on dear old lawrence b. lockwood gets a little more interesting. He has already sued and lost against American Airlines for similar 'bogus' patents. He is involved with other similar infringement lawsuits.
While the patent office is a mess in the software area, he and his organization have argued in court that large companies have a clear cut business case to rip off inventions of small time inventors:
1) The small guy can't sue effectively (think velcro and intermittant wipers).
2) The sales or use (eg ripoff) of the invention continue unabated during the multiyear litigation.
3) The compound profit from a good invention ripoff totally outweighs the fines/penalties/restitution upon judgement.
Same thing happens in the financial world with a shorter timeframe - screw investors for 600 billion (aka enron) and get the largest ever fine on record of 1 billion yields a 60,000% profit (eg miliken, ebbers, enron, etc.)
Don't get me wrong, I'm sympathetic for Dickson et al and I think the lawsuit stinks, but the change in tactics by lawrence b. lockwood's may really be a grass roots effort to right wrongs by the bigger guys.
And the Judin and Antonious cases. It is no longer safe for patent bullies to randomly attack defendants who might hire competent counsel to advise them. We recently used this to excellent effect to "encourage" a patent bully to file Notices of Voluntary Dismissal in seven separate cases. It works.
IANAL, but I can read better than that. Actually, the court only threw out one patent completely ('355), decided certain claims of other patents are invalid but didn't throw them out (this could mean either that there was some small innovation cloaked in excessively broad claims, or else that the court simply didn't find it necessary to review the entire patent to decide this particular case), and decided other patents simply didn't apply to AA's Sabrevision reservation system.
1) The court decision cited above invalidated the '355 patent completely, yet PanIP lists it on their website, along with a section entitled "Choosing a Stock Portfolio Based on Patent Indicators". They are trying to sell stock based, in part, on an invalid patent. Isn't this fraud?
2) PanIP evidently makes no products and apparently does nothing but file vaguely worded patents, then attempt to collect royalties on them. Judging by the two patents I looked at ('319 and '355), they ignore obvious prior art in their filings -- isn't that fraudulent too?
3) Since their business plan seems to be based on obtaining income through actions verging on fraud, barratry, etc., would RICO apply?
See http://panipcase.homeip.net - already posted by someone else but buried within a thread - this is a site for several companies already being sued by PanIP. They are all small companies of course, but if they club together and get help from the EFF etc, they could probably beat PanIP and countersue. It would be well worth signing up there and commenting on their discussion forum.
[Note I am not a lawyer, all this should be checked with a lawyer before doing anything.]
[Note also that I have not checked out whether this entire news item is true. Nor am I going to bother. But if this type of thing happens, here are the things *I* would look into trying:]
* Spend the effort to check out the basic patent. If they claim they have a patent, they should have given the patent number. Order the patent from the US patent office (public library's address, not what they give you) and read it yourself. If it doesn't look valid, or if they won't provide a patent number, ignore them. Oh yes--it has to be a patent already existing, not "patent pending".
* If there *is* a patent out and it looks like it might be applicable, see if you can demonstrate public usage / or publication of the patented items before the submission date of the patent. If so, the patent is already broken right there. If it is broken, ignore them.
* If they still issue a lawsuit against you, give them the option to pay for your legal defenses, with a law firm of your choice. Point out that what they are really fighting for is a precedent, and you are simply fighting to not be mugged. If they really think that their patent can be upheld, then they may well choose to pay for your defense. At that point, you have the option of going or just buying out -- but it looks a lot more serious if they are willing to pay the cost of your defense.
* If they won't pay the cost of your defense, join up with the other defendants and then together give them the option to withdraw the suit. Point out that you can try to have the lawsuit dismissed with prejudice, which would shut down their scam entirely. Also point out that if you file a countersuit, you will also be filing for harassment against the guys who own the company -- not just the president, but also the limited partners. I am guessing that this can be done if it can be demonstrated that the basic purpose of the company was an illegal purpose. Mugging through the court system is probably still illegal. Check with a lawyer on this one.
* For those who have already paid, they may want to join in a common suit, but with them alleging fraud.
It is worth checking out:
http://www.chillingeffects.org/
It's an organisation set up by the EFF and Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, and University of San Francisco law school clinics. It proffers some help on matters such as these.