Patent Trolls Target Small East Texas Companies

An anonymous reader writes "In a sign that patent trolls are getting desperate to keep their cases in East Texas — long known as the friendliest venue for their claims — some have taken to suing tiny, no-name companies that are run by East Texas residents. The hope is that, if at least one defendant is located in East Texas, the judge will keep the entire case there. Nate Neel, a Longview, Texas resident with a small open source software company called CitiWare, was sued by Bedrock Computer Technologies in June despite (he claims) having no customers or other meaningful operations of any kind. In response, Mr. Neel has posted a strongly worded letter to Bedrock's attorneys on his Web site. It will be interesting to see how East Texas judges respond to this abuse of process perpetrated against their own residents."

Comments

Strongly worded letter?

[TubeSteak]

I'm going to go ahead and point out that repeatedly dropping the F-bomb is not "strongly worded" it is "unprofessional".
Not to mention the lack of spell check.

It sucks what's being done to the guy, but a little professionalism goes a long way.
And like anything else on the internet, his poorly spelled "FUCK YOU" is always going to be associated with his name.

Re:Strongly worded letter?

[amiga3D]

Heh...well maybe that's why he's not in business anymore. I think maybe they pissed him off. Sooner or later if these trolls keep suing everyday people they're going to run across one that's not wrapped too tight. It's only a matter of time before someone shows up at one of these lawyer's offices with a pump shotgun and sprays the place down. Keep fucking with everybody and the odds go up.

Re:Strongly worded letter?

[fuscata]

Agreed, and I'd say he's setting himself up for a not-so-frivolous defamation suit.

Re:Strongly worded letter?

[hackus]

Well I disagree here.

Professionalism means conduct in exchange for service or work completed.

All he got in the mail was a lawsuit notice.

Professionalism has nothing to do about this whole matter.

Might I point out that the other party of this dispute TRULY DOES lack professionalism as well as ethics.

Simply because you wrap it all up in nice grammar, letterhead and mail it to someone does not make it professional or ethical.

-Hack

Re:Strongly worded letter?

[Anonymous Coward]

there comes a point where you just have to tell someone to go fuck themselves. no amount of chivalry would change anything in a case such as this.

Re:Strongly worded letter?

[ari_j]

Precisely. I am a connoisseur of strongly-worded letters, and his is not one. A strongly-worded letter strikes fear into the heart of the recipient using only on-topic attacks of the recipient's argument itself. Ad hominem attacks always have the effect of derogating your own position by the implied concession that your opponent's argument is too iron-clad for you to respond to it directly. There is a time and place for ad hominem attacks, but at least spell them right.

Picture yourself as the judge. There are two people in front of you, neither of whom you have met. One of them says, "He infringed my patent by operating a business that manufactured millions of units of products utilizing the claimed technique." The other one only says, "Fuck you, slim[e]!" Right off the bat, you are going to be biased against the guy who can't be bothered to explain why he didn't infringe the patent. He just looks like a puerile, sophomoric idiot.

Now, try it again. This time, however, the second guy says, "The suggestion that I infringed his patent is almost too absurd to form a response. Not only was I never in a manufacturing business, but no activity I have ever undertaken has utilized the technique claimed in the patent. Even the slightest bit of factual research could have reached that conclusion prior to bringing this lawsuit against me." Now, the first guy is the one who looks like a lazy buffoon.

And that's how you word things strongly. And, if you really want to have some fun, use the puntacular phrase "patently ridiculous." Judges love puns!*

* - Well, not really. Some do, but only if you use them judiciously.

Re:Strongly worded letter?

[sosume]

He's not in business anymore. Therefore he is replying as a person and not as a business. No need for professionalism, unless there is some rule that persons have to communicate like lawyers and businesses.

Re:Strongly worded letter?

[ari_j]

If you are sued and you believe the lawsuit is ridiculous, you still have to handle it seriously. Failure to do so most often results in it becoming a more serious matter than it needs to be, with you fined or jailed for contempt as a bad outcome or having a default judgment entered against you as a "good" outcome.

Re:Strongly worded letter?

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Like many things in life, there is a right way and a wrong way to respond to a ridiculous lawsuit

The "right way" being to craft a stately letter filled with "professional" prose, and thus confering not a small amount of legitimacy to the actions of these blackmailers. By doing so, the responder tacitly recognises the worthiness of the claims to be heard in court and dives headfirst into the molasses of rules, traditions and procedures of the legal system, where cunning lawyers have the upper hand.

Better to reject their claims as contemptible nonsense, and say as much to the court when (if) the matter is finally heard. Remember, they're the ones who have to prove that you've done something wrong. It's not your job to prove you haven't.

Dog Food

[siloko]

Brings a whole new meaning to the expression 'Eat your own dog food!'. I guess after they have finished consuming their local businesses and the employment rate plummets then maybe the local legislators will think again about supporting this kind of bullshit.

Re:Dog Food

[Anonymous Coward]

Local legislators don't have much control. The Federal courts are run by Federal Judges who are appointed by the President. Usually Senators from the state can have some say on what Judges are appointed, but once appointed, the Judge is in for life.

Note that is rare for a newly appointed Federal Judge in a District Court to have any patent experience whatsoever.

Re:Dog Food

[xgr3gx]

I guess I don't get the whole thing with filing patent cases in East Texas.
A poster a few comments above said Federal Judges in E. Texas seem to favor patent plaintiffs.
Seems odd - somebody has got to be seeding the panel of judges, and it has to be for the purpose of making money on patent law suits.
It wouldn't shock me if some law firm was giving huge election contributions to biased politicians to get these biased judged appointed.
Follow the money - and you'll probably find out why E. Texas is how it is in regards to patent law.

Re:Dog Food

[ari_j]

I wouldn't worry about it too much. This entire comment thread is based on patently false notions of the legal system underlying this situation. First you have the suggestion that local legislators are in favor of patent troll lawsuits. Then, when that's explained to be wrong, you have the suggestion that 'East Texas laws' (whatever those are - East Texas is not its own legislative jurisdiction with its own laws, it's just a federally-created judicial district for the federal courts) should be changed to stop this from happening. I hesitate to imagine what ridiculous idea is going to come up in response to your correction. We can only hope that it's a Godwin-approved car analogy.

Re:Dog Food

[Dachannien]

There are dozens of districts in the federal court system. Just by random chance, it's fairly likely that at least one of them will be off to the side of the bell curve, and once patent plaintiffs noticed which one(s), they started trying to take advantage of it.

Re:Interesting defense

[eldavojohn]

I didn't realize that "I dun have no cuzmers" was a valid defense against patent violations.

That's not all of his argument. Although his letter is unprofessional and poorly organized, he says:

To Sam Baxter - if you wish to acknowledge my email and realize your mistake on claiming CitiWare in your suit on Bedrocks behalf, then remove any claims against CitiWare / CityWare and I can remove this page and any publicity about filling an invalid lawsuit against a company that never used your patent or for that matter even developed any product sold or used (CityWare only used Open Source code under GPL for personal projects or other employers)!

He's probably flabbergasted that they didn't do any development, they just repackaged/administered GPL licensed open source products and now find themselves the target of a lawsuit. And like the article says, they don't care about him or what he says or the validity of targeting him, they care about keeping the case in East Texas District Court.

This guy doesn't need a defense, he just needs to reside in East Texas and he's part of this case no matter how ill placed the blame is.

Re:Interesting defense

[jtev]

Well, if he didn't sell anything, or otherwise distribute anything to anyone then there can be no harm to the patent holder. That means that it is not worth their wile for them to sue him.

And what Bedrock is doing *IS* professional??

[Viol8]

Why respond professionally to something that is clearly a scam? He's not the CEO of Google with shareholders to worry about FFS, he's just some guy who had a little company and closed it down and is now doing a day job. So he said "fuck". Well stop the press!

Re:And what Bedrock is doing *IS* professional??

[Anonymous Coward]

Respond strongly, sure, but calling them crooks? That's defamation unless he can prove it in court. He's going to get his ass nailed to a cross for it otherwise.

Re:And what Bedrock is doing *IS* professional??

[SpacePunk]

They are lawyers, it's a given that they are crooks.

Re:And what Bedrock is doing *IS* professional??

[Anonymous Coward]

They are lawyers, it's a given that they are crooks.

Sadly, this joke will never go away and is definitely not true. Just look at all those smart individuals with law expertise helping (often for free) the little guys out there. And no, it's not always other lawyers out for a quick buck targeting those people (could be law enforcement for example).

For slashdot, an example of notable good lawyers would be the people at EFF.

Re:And what Bedrock is doing *IS* professional??

[MickyTheIdiot]

They are lawyers, it's a given that they are crooks.

All lawyers are crooks except the one trying to help you out of your mess!

abuse of process

[vginders]

> "It will be interesting to see how East Texas judges respond
> to this abuse of process perpetrated against their own residents."

abuse of process? Does such a thing exist in the USA?

Ha

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm very glad when I hear news like this one.
I'm glad because hopefully is this kind of trials that will make people realize how stupid software patents are.
I do hope more of this happen, but I feel sorry for those who are the victims right now.
If is there any kind of consolation, it resides on knowing that you are contributing to the fight against this shit.

To the brothers and sisters who stand and fight, I leave a word:

Don't stand down, don't give up. You are the heroes of the modern age.

Dangerous Activity

[gravos]

Filing a lawsuit against an individual or small business (ie, any entity that is not a corporation) who has not harmed you is kind of like walking up to a stranger on the street and punching him in the face. You'll probably get away with it a few times, but eventually you'll pick the wrong person and get what's coming to you.

The plaintiffs should be lucky this guy is content to put a 'strongly worded' letter on his website.

Re:So Let's Change The System

[jedidiah]

Small software shops did just fine before this patent mess.

They will do do better. They won't have to worry about XOR, linked list or VFAT patents anymore.

The idea that the "little guy" needs patents is so bogus and thoroughly disproven that anyone that dares bring up the idea should walk around with a paper grocery sack on their head.

Re:Texas

[Shakrai]

This problem solves itself once all the white men are run out of Texas, which demographically will be in about 25 years. Eventually they will all be concentrated in Idaho, and we can nuke that from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

I find it hypocritical that you got positive moderation for this when a similar post aimed at a different race would have modded down as the racist garbage that it is.

Re:Amazing patent

[budgenator]

Yes it sounded to me like they patented Lisp and it's garbage collection method. Seems like they would be vulnerable to art priori and lack of novelty.

Re:Interesting defense

[daem0n1x]

They could remove this post. It's illegal in my country and would grant the poster some months in jail. Isn't it illegal in the USA?