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

Interesting defense

[BadAnalogyGuy]

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

Re:Strongly worded letter?

[ari_j]

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.

Please do not follow this advice. Being a melodramatic child is never a good idea. There is a proper way to tell the court that the allegations against you are ridiculous and don't deserve to waste the court's time. This guy's approach is pretty much the opposite of that. It gets him on the bad side of the court without accomplishing anything.

Re:Strongly worded letter?

[Blakey Rat]

Yes, but he had the chance to be the better man-- to reply to the unprofessional notice with a professional response-- and instead he swears like a college freshman.