Slashdot Mirror
How Patent Trolls Stalled a New Transit App
SFGate has the story of Aaron Bannert, creator of a San Francisco transit app called Smart Ride. The app was developed to provide arrival times for the city's bus system. Smart Ride was supported by ads, and Bannert had not yet turned a profit on it when he received a legal threat from a company claiming patent infringement. "It was from a company with ties to Martin Kelly Jones, who holds a series of patents claiming ownership of technologies for tracking vehicles and providing users with electronic updates. A handful of affiliated companies, including ArrivalStar and Melvino Technologies, have threatened or sued hundreds of organizations in recent years, from small entrepreneurs like Bannert to large corporations like American Airlines. ... ArrivalStar filed more than half the patent lawsuits in South Florida federal courts last year, according to the South Florida Business Journal. ... ArrivalStar will demand as much as $200,000 for a license, according to reports in other publications." The cost to the patent troll for filing a lawsuit is around $500, but Bannert was forced to spend over $10,000 on a legal defense and delay the launch of a new version for months. He's unable to provide details on the outcome of the case. "As high as the legal expenses were for Bannert, he thinks the bigger toll from patent trolling is the indirect cost to society, the products and innovation that don't make it off the drawing board."
This is the millionth time we see a post on Slashdot about people falling victim to a patent troll. If this is not yet done somewhere, someone should really make a wiki to meticulously document all these small cases, so that the next time you talk to a politician, you can show them the real damage of the current patent system.
karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
Just a cautionary note that the corporate form is a strong firewall, but it's not impermeable. Courts can, and sometimes do, "pierce the corporate veil" of sham entities and hold the owner(s) responsible for the entities' actions. Under-capitalization (actually in your hypothetical, no capitalization) of the entity is one of the factors they look at.*
* This isn't legal advice; consult an attorney about your own particular situation; etc. etc.