Slashdot Mirror
Patent Troll Targeting Users of Scanners; Wants $1000/Employee
New submitter earlzdotnet writes "A new patent troll is in town, this time targeting the users of technology, rather than the creators. They appear to hold a process patent for 'scanning a document and then emailing it.' They are targeting small businesses in a variety of locations and usually want somewhere between $900 to $1200 per employee for 'infringement' of their patent. As with most patent trolls, they go by a number of shell companies, but the original company name appears to be Project Paperless LLC. Joel Spolsky said in a tweet that 'This is organized crime, plain and simple...' I tend to agree with him. When will something be done about this legal mafia?"
How does this hold any legal water at all? Isn't the manufacturer of a product liable for patent infringements, not the end user?
(Right, Upper hand corner of this page for me.) /.
"Wondering what your patents might be worth in the current market?"
Wow! I can't resist selling my patents!
Ahem! Well, back to
'Those lousy trolls, I wish they would just go away.'
Food Concepts Inc
2551 Parmenter St
Middleton, Wi
53562
I fucking double dare you.
(a) Except as otherwise provided in this title, whoever without authority makes, uses, offers to sell, or sells any patented invention, within the United States or imports into the United States any patented invention during the term of the patent therefor, infringes the patent.
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delendae sunt RIAA, MPAA et Windoze
There are two types of people in the world; those who believe there are two types of people, and those who don't.
Has anyone patented the process of sueing people for violations of patents? If not someone better get on it quickly. Millions of dollars in settlements are being lost every minute now.
I often have trouble remembering which way is out of bed in the morning.
I don't e-mail people my scans, I upload them to Megaupload and send them the link.
Foolproof.
In the old days you would send a fake purchase order for some low amount to finance and demand to get paid. This is just another scam like that
I guess people need to be outraged about something
Sorry, I RTFA (bad form) and I missed the part where the government is extorting money from people for scanning and emailing documents. But thanks for your "F the gubberment!!!"" post which is always good for some cheap mod points. If that's what you're into.
Question 1: Who develops and maintains the patent system that not only allows, but seemingly encourages this sort of trolling behavior?
Question 2: Assuming a correct answer for question one, do they who maintain the patent system profit from this sort of trolling behavior?
I fail to see how anyone who answers those questions honestly can absolve the government of blame.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Let us be very helpful to this troll and send him names and addresses of all the congresscritters and judges who might have been in violation of the claimed patent. Some how get him to include the names of these figures whose power/IQ ratio approaches infinity. Then may be some reform might happen.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Public records indicate that each of the partners in the law firm of Hill, Kertscher, & Wharton are either managers, members, or organizers in one or more of the shell companies which in turn appear to have a stake in Project Paperless, LLC.
sysadmins and parents of newborns get the same amount of sleep.
So the best way to deal with trolls in the real world is the same as the online world: simply ignore them. If they want to sue you, then make them go through all the expense and trouble of making the case--most of the time they won't even bother. These are basically old timey protection rackets. They're trying to put the minimum amount of effort in to get the biggest return. They might try to make an example of a company or two, but it probably won't be you.
I read the internet for the articles.
When will something be done about this legal mafia?
Nothing will ever be done because every major company is playing the game.
Google, Apple, Microsoft, IBM . . . . . every big company with deep pockets has been hit by patent trolls. So why don't they all get together and use their considerable lobbying power to demand that congress change the law? Why? Because they don't really want the law changed. They want to be able to whack somebody with a patent lawsuit when it suits them.
Bogus patents are the new nuclear weapons. Everyone knows they are bad and destructive, they serve no useful purpose and should be eliminated. But nobody is willing to actually do that because some day they might need a weapon to use against a competitor. That's the new business model. Litigation instead of competition.
The patents were filed beginning in 1997. Does anyone know if scanners from 1996 were able to scan in a document, launch an e-mail application, and attach said document to the e-mail? A quick Google Groups search did uncover a "photo scanning service" that promised to scan your photo and send it to you via e-mail. https://groups.google.com/group/nyc.singles/browse_thread/thread/6b8e902ec9996435/a1a550f3f5398a27?hl=en&q=scan+attach+to+e-mail#a1a550f3f5398a27
Also, for reference (and since people might not read the article), here are links to the patents in question:
http://www.google.com/patents/US6185590
http://www.google.com/patents/US6771381
http://www.google.com/patents/US7477410
http://www.google.com/patents/US7986426
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Or the naive assumption that we have any choice in who we vote for.
Just 100 dollars? :D
He's European. They use the '.' where we Americans would use a ','.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Or wrap it in a Taun-Taun carcass and strap it to the hood.
Not that I have a patent on this particular grocery retrieval process.
I drank what? -- Socrates
So $100, to the thousandth. Got it. Wrong is wrong, I don't care where he is from.
No.
So $100. to the thousandth, Got it, Wrong is wrong. I don't care where he is from,
If you RTFA you would realize in this case this is different then every other patent story posted on Slashdot.
This story is about the legal equivalent of you being sued because you wipe your ass with your left hand. Sure someone could in fact hold a legitimate patent for the process of left handed ass wiping but there is no legal precedence for suing people because they use their left hand for wiping their asses. Spend a second and think about the stupidity of someone claiming $1000 in damage per person that uses their left hand for wiping their asses. Now spend another second thinking about how stupid it is for people in an office using the technology that exists in the office to scan and email a document and someone asking $1000 per person.
The only valid complaint this patent holder could have is to sue printer or scanner manufactures that offer scan to email features. Users of an idea do not violate patent law, period. You don't have to be a patent attorney to realize something is very wrong, this is not some example of a legitimate patent holder collecting their dues, this is outright extortion. You don't have to be an expert to have a comment about common sense.
You bitch about people flying off the handle before reading the story, but obviously you couldn't wait for the first patent story of the day to hit Slashdot before releasing your stupid rant without reading the article or applying any thought about it.
I might be a sucker, but I ain't no fool.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
There's a haggis joke in here somewhere
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
They're never going to get to the point of actually suing anyone in court. If someone puts up even a iota of a fight, they'll just dismiss the lawsuit and move on.
They're looking for easy targets who will just pay up without asking questions, which is why they're suing smaller companies. Someone like HP would eat them for lunch and get the patent invalidated.
Or the naive assumtion that once in office one will act differently than the other. After all, you're the product that they're selling out to their real benefactors.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
Their earliest patent filing from the document at the embedded link is 1997, but Visioneer came out w/ the PaperMax in 1994 and it was advertised to do this. They defaulted to a proprietary format, but could also be output to a PDF and attached to an email. I got my 1st Visioneer about 1996 or so.
As Xerox bought out Visioneer a few years ago, I assume they got any patents and licensing.
I wonder if this is why the trolls are going after the users instead of the manufactures. Minolta, HP, and the others selling equipment to do this are probably operating under Xerox licenses and there's nothing to go after there.
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/culture/articles/941128/archive_013727_3.htm
Most businesses have now implemented stupid email "retention" policies to avoid law suits that require all email to be deleted after an insanely short time (my company has gone from 6 months to 1 month).
If only the kept that old email, and could show just ONE scanned document being emailed prior to the patent, they'd have prior art.
One of my clients received one of these letters. It's a pretty laughable attempt at extortion. Because:
1. You can't tell if the extortionist is related in any way to the patent holder.
2. They tell you to do your own investigation, provide some pointers, and provide bank routing money for your EFT.
3. They haven't done their jurisdiction homework (RightHaven got hammered for this).
and these are just some of the procedural problems. The prior art issues don't even come into play. I don't think their letter even supports suing for a declaratory judgment against anyone. If they sent me one of these then I'd just throw it away without giving it further consideration. On the other hand, as a patent lawyer and litigator I can afford a far riskier strategy than most.
I think the extortionists waited until the patent reexamination/review process got significantly more extensive before they started their campaign. The America Invents Act raised the fee for ex-parte reexamination to $17,750 and for inter-partes review to $27,200.
I am a lawyer, but not yours. Anything I tell you might be a total lie intended to benefit my clients at your expense.