Newegg Defeats Alcatel-Lucent in Third Patent Win This Year

Newegg's policy of not backing down from patent trolls, even ones as large as Alcatel-Lucent, continues to result in victory. Earlier this year, Overstock and Newegg successfully defended themselves with a jury invalidating Alcatel-Lucent's main patent used to force companies as large as Amazon to settle. Naturally, Alcatel-Lucent appealed, but the appeals court quickly ruled in favor of Newegg and Overstock.com. From Ars: "Federal Circuit judges typically take months, and occasionally years, to review the patent appeals that come before them. Briefs in this case were submitted last year, and oral arguments were held last Friday, May 10. The three-judge panel upheld Newegg's win (PDF), without comment — in just three days. ... Alcatel-Lucent dropped the case over its other two patents, desperate to get back the '131 patent that Newegg and Overstock had killed at trial. 'If they had been able to revive this patent, the litigation machine would have continued on,' Reines told Reuters after the win."

Comments

Fuck Yeah!

[idontgno]

Give 'em hell, Newegg!

Another big PC build order comin' your way! Keep on winning

BTW, on a sad note, does anyone remember when Lucent actually innovated stuff? The legitimate heir of Western Electric and Bell Labs has fallen very far.

Re:Fuck Yeah!

[Grizzley9]

BTW, on a sad note, does anyone remember when Lucent actually innovated stuff? The legitimate heir of Western Electric and Bell Labs has fallen very far.

Do you mean like this? Light Radio, a programmable cell tower the size of your palm?

While true it has been a while since the hey day of Bell Labs coming out with new tech every few years, they don't seem dead just yet. I blame their current state on chasing quarterly or yearly profits and having a somewhat unfair playing field with companies like Huawei and ZTE instead of investing in the long term tech.

Per wikipedia

On August 28, 2008, Alcatel-Lucent announced it was pulling out of basic science, material physics, and semiconductor research, and it will instead focus on more immediately marketable areas, including networking, high-speed electronics, wireless networks, nanotechnology and software.

That and their merger with Alcatel hasn't been very smooth. Though too, perhaps the wireless tech is maturing so there is not the low hanging fruit anymore?

Also for clarification Bell Labs is still around in at least some form, it is the research arm of Alcatel-Lucent. Lucent merged with Alcatel back in 2006.

Re:Force

[plover]

Force is a euphemism for blackmail, and it's not inaccurate when applied here. "Nice web site you got here, it'd be a shame if we had a court order you to take it down. Give us $100,000 and nothing bad will happen to it, or you risk losing a $100,000,000 in court if we win." That's force to a company that doesn't have $100,000,000 in their bank account.

Newegg's made a corporate decision that said "we don't care if it's a thousand times cheaper to settle than to risk losing a lawsuit. We have a very large pile of money, and we have promised to call every single bluff presented to us. We will never fold our hand."

Go, Newegg!