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Patent Troll Goes After Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, IBM, Others

Posted by Soulskill on from the go-big-or-go-home dept.

zaba writes "A company named PersonalWeb Technologies has decided to sue a host of heavy players in the tech industry, including Apple, Facebook, IBM, Microsoft and Yahoo! for patents it holds related to data processing. They have a previous suit against other big names like Amazon, Google and HP. Anyone care to guess where the company is based or where the suits were filed?" The company is also targeting GitHub, but seems to have accidentally sued Rackspace — GitHub's host — instead. Rackspace has responded, saying, "It’s apparent that the people filing the suit don’t understand the technology or the products enough to realize that Rackspace Cloud Servers and GitHub are completely different products from different companies."

6 of 171 comments (clear)

  1. Enough Already by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I used to think of patent trolls as no name companies that pop up just to make a quick and sleazy buck. Now I think of all of the big names like Apple and Samsung too. At this point, I say bring it on. Let all companies be destroyed in the name of "intellectual property rights" and lets start over. I'd rather we die a quick death than drag it out forever.

  2. List of their patents by nagasrinivas · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.personalweb.com/Technology.html
    Enjoy!

    1. Re:List of their patents by TheRealMindChild · · Score: 5, Informative

      5,978,791 - Data processing system using substantially unique identifiers to identify data items, whereby identical data items have the same identifiers -UUID
      6,415,280 - Identifying and requesting data in network using identifiers which are based on contents of data - CRC Hash
      6,928,442 - Enforcement and policing of licensed content using content-based identifiers - See WinAmp and Windows Media player
      and so on...

      --

      "When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
    2. Re:List of their patents by doomtiki · · Score: 5, Funny
      You know it is a legitimate technology firm when their website says:

      We are located in East Texas, and we are developing innovative technologies and products.

      There seem to be a lot of "innovative" firms located in East Texas.

  3. Re:High School Kids? by viperidaenz · · Score: 5, Funny

    They're probably the kids of the lawyers who run the company.

  4. East Texas by Fnord666 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    With any luck this will backfire since a key judge that made East Texas such a hotspot for patent infringement lawsuits retired from the US District Court last year.

    This article does a pretty good job of looking at the situation in East Texas with regards to patent trials. It is an interesting read. It will be eye opening to some and a confirmation to others.

    --
    'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables