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."
While don't your company and the other smaller pool together to fight back? That way since you're all being attacked on the same basis it'll save each of you money and maybe get a better lawyer. Obviously in the courts you guys will win just due to prior art, like the case recently where that company claimed that hyperlinking was their invention and it took an 80+ year old to say "umm, no we've been doing this for 30+ years". Also, licensing is not a good way to go because you will certainly be tied to them. Hell, maybe you guys can contact IBM's ebusiness department to see if they could lend any help in this case due to the fact that it would be in their best interest to not let this get out of hand. Just my 2 cents...
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
If it were me, I'd contact the other defendants, and see if everyone were willing to pitch in to front one company challenging the validity of the patents. I'd look for some blatant prior art, which should be trivially easy to find. IANAL, but I'd be looking to get a summary judgement based on a mountain of prior art, and I'd want to ask a lawyer if it would be possible to countersue for malicious prosecution or fraud. You might also want to contact your senators or representatives -- you might be able to get the USPTO to "independantly" re-review their patents (and obviously, subsequently revoke them)
It is high time to make filing of patents that do not cover any real invention illegal. And it is high time that the USPTO is made legally responsible for damages caused by patents that are succesfully revoked.
Futhermore I think that patents on IT need to be granted or refused within a very short time or alternatively be automatically voided if the "invention" is in broad use when the patent is finally granted.
Interesstingly German patent law had the requirement that only inventions that are significantly more inventive than what an average expert can come up with could be patented at all. Sadly it seems that with the EU this is not valid for software patents anymore.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted and ignored otherwise.
There is a simple solution - call the folks at Amazon and tell them about the patents. This affects they way they do business. Let them fight it out with PanIP.
Eric Aitala
www.f1m.com
Google search for 'PanIP' and 'Patents'
n ts
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=PanIP+pate
results in zero returned results...
Their website looks very crummy too - are you *sure* they are a legitimate business? I mean it's *very* hard to escape google's search with *zero results*.
You might just scare them off if you go "see you in court".
-- Dan "who is off to look up USPTO on PanIPs patents now..." =)
https://www.panip.com/index.htm
Check it out! Quick, before they take it down.
Very weird, very confusing...
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our American dead!
Don't think that the "loser pays" system helps too much.
All that happens in the UK is that the big firms pump up the cost of the lawsuit as far as they can (hiring the most expensive lawyers, transporting them around, etc). If they are suing a small firm, or especially a private individual, they know that if they have to pay his costs it's barely a blip on a balance sheet, but if he has to pay theirs it could gut his business or bankrupt his family in a single fell swoop. The result is the same: they settle to avoid the risk.
The proposed system is interested, but I'd make a change: you have to pay, to BOTH lawyers, whatever you paid yours. So if yours cost $3000 and the other guy's cost $500000 and you lose, you pay only $6000... but if you WIN, the other guy has to pay $1000000, and your lawyer gets an extra $497000! (Hey, he deserves it for beating a higher-paid lawyer, right?) This ensures that the big firms still have to worry about paying costs if they lose, as opposed to being able to say '$3000? Pah.' It also, of course, means that small guys won't have much of a problem finding a lawyer in these cases...