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?

[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.

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

[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??

[SpacePunk]

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

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!