Slashdot Mirror
First Government Lawsuit Against a Patent Troll
walterbyrd writes "Late last year, a vigorous and secretive patent troll began sending out thousands of letters to small businesses all around the country, insisting that they owed between $900 and $1,200 per worker just for using scanners. The brazen patent-trolling scheme, carried out by a company called MPHJ technologies and dozens of shell companies with six-letter names, has caught the attention of politicians. MPHJ and its principals may have gone too far. They're now the subject of a government lawsuit targeting patent trolling—the first ever such case. Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell has filed suit in his home state, saying that MPHJ is violating Vermont consumer-protection laws."
The MPHJ letters also include misstatements. First, they imply litigation was imminent, stating recipients could be sued if they don't pay within two weeks, and they include draft complaints. Still, MPHJ hasn't filed a single lawsuit, in Vermont or anywhere else, more than 130 days since Vermont businesses starting getting the letters.
Also, the shell companies each state they have an "exclusive license" letting them enforce the patents against businesses within a specific geographic area. But the Vermont complaint states that "each Shell LLC was actually assigned a combination of geographic and commercial fields that was identical to at least one other Shell LLC," and thus the shells "do not possess exclusive licenses." The letters also state that "many" or "most" businesses show an interest in purchasing licenses, which isn't true, the complaint notes.
If I got a letter with that kind of language from an entity that has a name that looks like it was spewed out by a random letter generator, I'd chuck it into the trash thinking it was a scam. Because there are TONS of scams where "companies" bill for office supplies and other services that were never received with the hopes that the recipient would just pay it.