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Ask Slashdot: What To Do About Patent Trolls Seeking Wi-fi License Fees?
An anonymous reader writes "My company has been contacted by certified letter by Delaware law firm. They are seeking license fees for a Wi-fi patent. I believe this is a patent troll (not that this matters in relation to dealing with this issue). This is a newly formed law firm less than 4 months old. This patent is U.S. Patent No. 5,506,866. This patent covers equipment and method related to the transmission of information involving the multiplexing information into a stream of signal points (and demultiplexing the same), and related technology. They have 'offered' to license this patent with no amounts specified. Unfortunately we are a small free software company. The company is setup as a sole proprietorship. I'm not asking for legal advise from the Slashdot community. The question is where might one look for 'legal counsel' with the expertise to answer these types of legal questions as it relates to this inquiry. I would prefer to avoid legal fees, court cases, or license fees running the company into the ground. The company is registered in New Jersey."
You're a free software company yes? If so then you can offer to give them a percentage of profit from each software sale you make (being zero). You'll probably have to swing that idea by a lawyer, but I say screw them.
Wwhere might one look for 'legal counsel' with the expertise to answer these types of legal questions as it relates to this inquiry. I would prefer to avoid legal fees, court cases, or license fees running the company into the ground.
You should see an IP laywer. While this won't avoid you all legal fees, you'll be able to get some basic answers for a small cost, and it will let you know if your other constraints (avoiding court or license fees) are reasonable.
What are the repercussions or ramifications of you writing back,
"Fuck you, we're not going to play this game."
Serious question.
You should find yourself an attorney.
1) this patent was filed in 1993, making it a 17 years from issue date patent. Based upon it's issue date of April 9, 1996, it expires (dies) on April 9, 2013. So in a very very short time, the patent will be useless anyway.
2) What is claimed is based upon side channel data in a simultaneous analog/digital signal. It is very unlikely to actually apply to WiFi, but if they can scare you into paying them, then they win. With a competent atty., it is very likely you can make them look elsewhere for victims they can frighten into settlements.
http://www.google.com/patents/US5506866
Lazy bones.
a public debunking with a standard legal response is exactly what's needed. saves everyone else he time and effort.
Would Canada work for those purposes? I guess so.
See title. Also don't reply until you absolutely HAVE to. Paten runs out this year!
I doubt that you are competent enough to evaluate the patent givien that you are not able/willing to shoulder the burdon of three/four extra clicks to arrive at the relevant documentation.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
Could someone please make this a hyperlink. I'm too lazy to copy and paste it into my url.
It's the only way to be sure.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
... and accordingly, under $other_country law, you plan to enact a plea of Incenderunt Ad Officium. Then ask them exactly *when* they'd like the five gallons of petrol delivered to their letterbox.
This patent is explicitly for PSTN modems, from the looks of it low rate V34 or V17, and is extremely unlikely to be held legitimate or even remotely applicable to WiFi if you go to court/war over it. Further, it expires very soon, so it may be best to not respond and wait for expiration. Simply looking at the diagrams included in the patent text may be sufficient to get the case thrown out, should it come to that. However, by that point, you will have wasted a ton of money.
Probably the best approach is to not respond, and do no further releases until its expiration in april so that if a suit arrives, you can say that you immediately stopped using the offending code. I don't know that I would even bother to hire an attorney given what I see in the patent, but that's up to you.
Alter Aeon Multiclass MUD - http://www.alteraeon.com
I don't think you should be discussing a legal threat in a public forum.
Why, at least as long as he doesn't say "i'm guilty as hell, what can I do to get away with it?"
Personally, I'm interested in knowing if his company actually has anything to do with WiFi, though the answer to that might be dangerously close to "I'm guilty as hell, what can I do to get away with it?" Just reading the submission makes it sound like he got hit by one of those little shits that was going around sending threatening letters to companies about sharing scanned documents, whether they did or not.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Can someone please phone me and read this to me, I am too lazy to read.
I'm sorry i can't be bothered providing my phone number.
Isn't it a shame that there isn't a significant, statutory penalty for filing or threatening to file a false claim?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
The Groklaw community will give you plenty of help. Just ask!
If it's a random contact (which it probably is ... and unjustifiable, at that), they won't try twice. If it's serious, you'll hear from them again.
Call your state bar association. Explain the situation as you have here, that you believe this law firm is possibly abusing the system in an effort to intimidate small businesses like yours into paying since that would likely cost less than hiring a law firm with expertise in patent law. Ask them to recommend some options, e.g., a non-profit legal center or a firm that wouldn't end up costing you much in return for sending a response to these guys basically just telling them to back off. You might also consider calling your state attorney general's office - they may someone tasked with helping small businesses in situations like this.
U.S. patents subsisting as of the effective date of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (June 8, 1995), or whose applications were still pending on that date, expire 17 years after issue or 20 years after filing, whichever is longer. U.S. patents applied for after that date expire 20 years after filing, plus term extensions for undue examination delay or regulatory approval delay. The last of the MP3 patents, U.S. Patent 6009399, was filed in 1997 and is believed to expire in 2017 according to the list in this article.
You should always answer a lawyer who sends you a letter. Even a troll. Just make sure your answer is either useless to them or can be used to stall the case.
For example you could send a letter explaining that you don't believe your company infringes on said patent amd ask for clarification on why they believe otherwise.
When you get an answer to that, your next letter should be a series of questions asking how they know stuff about your company. Ask them where they got their information from, and ask them to provide a full report on all data collected about you or the company. They may very well be legally obligated to respond to inquiries about collected data.
Finally, ask them for instructions on how they believe you can stop infringing the patent. Explain you have no desire to infringe on it, that you believe you are indeed not, but that you would be happe to evaluate any suggestions they might have regarding ways to ensure the alleged infringement.
Each time wait 7-9 days before responding.
If they get difficult ask for a personal meeting at your office and make sure to explain how busy you are when you apoligize for being unavailable until ... approx 9-17 days later.
By the time you are done with this the patent expiation date will be closer and they will have wasted a ton of time. Also should the case ever get to trial you can show that you have honestly tried to cooperate in any way possible (short on paying for the infringement you don't believe is taking place).
It is almost as much fun as fooling nigerian scammers.
Put them to work. It isn't really that hard. :-)
- Jesper
My security clearance is so high I have to kill myself if I remember I have it...
>
Now, why those people aren't going after Linsys, Netgear, etc. ... and the cell phone companies has me a little confused because they have the deep pockets - and a much better chance of a payoff.
It's actually a much better chance of getting a "lol, go away tiny troll" letter from those companies with huge legal departments.
Firefox and Chrome both support highlighting the url text and opening in a new tab without addons.
You shouldn't have accepted the certified letter.
Certified letters have to have the sender noted on the slip that you get from the post office. Sometimes the post office doesn't do this (I have to remind my postal carrier all the time), but if you return the slip with "WHO IS THE SENDER?" written on it then they will fill it out properly and redeliver it.
If the sender isn't someone you know, or with whom you have a business arrangement (and from whom you might be expecting such a letter), don't take delivery. Don't send it back "refused delivery", just don't go get it. You can claim that you were out of town, never got the note, never had time to get it, or otherwise had a legitimate excuse. They can't do anything unless they have proof of "notice of service", which means that they have proof that they contacted you for the suit.
A certified letter is proof of service (ie - you were served with the letter), and they can use this to file suit against you.
If you don't accept the letter, they have to hire someone to personally hand you the notice. This costs them money - in my area the sheriff charges $80 for serving letters. The sheriff will get to it "when he gets to it", which in practice means anywhere from 2 weeks to never.
(As a personal anecdote, some bank in NYC decided from their internal records that they had been paying my NH property taxes for the last 5 years, and "would I just enclose a check for this and send it back"? I never accepted any of their certified letters, and they couldn't be bothered to send a person out to deliver the notice personally. Eventually they gave up. I had cancelled checks going back 5 years, but couldn't convince them otherwise because "their records showed payments for the last 5 years.")
This is one way to deal with frivolous lawsuits. If the lawsuit is genuine, then these sorts of barriers won't matter and you can address the legitimate legal issues. If the lawsuit is genuine and is something that you should address, then they should have no problem sending you information in a regular letter, which isn't considered proof of service.
I know this advice will cause the real lawyers here to cringe and complain, but then again they don't have any good ways to block frivolous suits.
While I'm not very experienced in US and IP law, I don't understand how a user of a commercially available product can be held liable for using something he just bought. How should one be expected to ensure that every piece of hardware you buy on the open market is legal as far as IP and licensing goes? ... including damages payments for the company targeted in this way ...
Sounds to me like it's a complete scare tactics on the side of this lawyer, and should be punishable by law
But then, when has the legal system been sane and understandable for any person with at least half a brain ...
While it might not directly apply to you, this might still be worth to consider.
http://www.ted.com/talks/drew_curtis_how_i_beat_a_patent_troll.html
Trolls want to make money, you might want to make sure that they know that they won't get money from you (you rather spend it fighting them) and that you will not make it easy for them...
if you are actively involved in free software, you automatically qualify for free assistance from the Software Freedom Law Centre. phone them up, immediately. do not hang around. also you did the right thing asking around: do more of that, and specifically ask people to find prior art. look up what newegg did. the article was on here last week.
What's even more interesting is that IEEE doesn't list it as a WiFi related patent: http://standards.ieee.org/about/sasb/patcom/pat802_11.html
And considering IEEE doesn't tend to mess around about these sort of things. Actually you might want to contact them on this one. If it works once it could work on bigger players as well, so there is a chance they'd actually take a look at the patent and see if it's worth anything. While I doubt it'll help, it probably wouldn't hurt to try.
One my ex bitches wrote me a bad check...CA law puts a lot of power in your hands if you get a bad check. However you have to contact them by registered mail with the legal document saying they owe you double the amount. The best defense? All she did was refuse the letter. You power goes out the window. Nothing to do past that but small claims court. I have yet to see a penny that is owed me.
If you don't know the sender, don't accept registered mail, there is no legal requirement to do so. Return to sender, you've never been notified of whatever is in the letter, no problem. :)
Tweet, tweet, all id10t's out of the gene pool, open swim is over.
It might be a mistake to contact them in any way except as advised by legal counsel. I know nothing of the law in this area, but someone I know was once contacted by an organization trying to collect an alleged debt of a dead person, and the legal advice in that case was that to acknowledge the correspondence could make things more difficult.
I know I'm responding to AC, but I'll bite:
He did NOT "ask a bunch of nerds important legal questions". He asked how he should go about finding a qualified lawyer.
Reading comprehension. It's fun. Try it sometime.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
Many businesses are receiving letters like this. It's a fraud.
You might want to read this article:
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Cisco-Motorola-Netgear-Aim-Cannons-At-WiFi-Patent-Troll-121594
And this:
http://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20121009/01444620656/cisco-motorola-netgear-team-up-to-expose-wifi-patent-bully.shtml
"Last year, we wrote about a crazy patent troll, named Innovatio, who had sued a ton of restaurants and hotels, claiming that anyone who used WiFi was violating its patents. It was even claiming that individuals who use WiFi at home infringed too -- but that it wouldn't go after them "at this time." Instead, it preferred to focus on shaking down tons of small businesses, offering to settle for $2,500 to $3,000 -- which is cheaper than hiring a lawyer to fight it, no matter how bogus. We noted at the time that Motorola and Cisco had gone to court to try to get a declaratory judgment to protect its customers. "
Read this paper: Startups and Patent Trolls by Prof. Colleen V. Chien, Santa Clara University School of Law.
I am not a crackpot.
I don't think you should be discussing a legal threat in a public forum.
Agreed. It is possibly dangerous.
From this article: Patent trolls want $1,000—for using scanner.
Another tactic that clearly has an effect: speaking out, even when done anonymously. It hardly seems a coincidence that the Project Paperless patents were handed off to a web of generic-sounding LLCs, with demand letters signed only by “The Licensing Team,” shortly after the “Stop Project Paperless” website went up. It suggests those behind such low-level licensing campaigns aren’t proud of their behavior. And rightly so.
I am not a crackpot.
It describes ISDN. In fact it is referenced by a later (1995) patent which mentions ISDN by name. Having actually used ISDN at one point for my network uplink it is pretty clear that's what it is talking about. (Well, maybe its that my dad wrote a bunch of the ISDN code for ATT/Bell Labs and when he heard I was getting ISDN I got details on how it works -- couldn't just go look it up in wikipedia back then!)
Unless your little OSS company produces an app which does something similar -- voice and data at once, its probably not going to be hard (but may be expensive) to defend yourself.
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