Google Wins $1.3 Million From Patent Troll

An anonymous reader writes Earlier this year, Google sued Beneficial Innovations for breach of contract, ostensibly in defense of its Doubleclick ad technology clients against whom Beneficial Innovations had filed suits despite Google having already paid licensing fees for the technology. Following Google's jury trial win, the company was originally awarded only 'nominal damages of $1 and a judicial order stopping Beneficial from going after more Doubleclick customers.' Now, however, the presiding judge has ruled that Google is entitled to some attorneys' fees in the amount of $1.3 million (PDF).

Comments

Re:Judicial Order

[i kan reed]

Short version: yes, how else are you going to practically enforce that provision?

The long version touches on due process, and how summary dismissals aren't enough of a disincentive, but I think if you tried to imagine the full narrative yourself, you'd see the same problems.

Not really over patents

[Theaetetus]

This was a breach of contract suit over a settlement between Google and Beneficial, under which Beneficial wasn't supposed to bring infringement suits against Google customers. They did, hence the breach. The settlement included a provision under which a prevailing party could get attorney's fees after a breach, and this was just the judge awarding those fees.

That's not to say that there aren't people winning money from patent trolls - there are, in other cases, and the lower standard for awarding fees to the defendant is a result of the Supreme Court's decision in Octane Fitness last April. But this isn't one of those - this is more like Google suing the guy who paints the fences at the Googleplex for doing a shitty job, and then getting attorney's fees under their existing contract.

Re:Is this really a win?

[Anonymous Coward]

The article also doesn't explain why someone would sue even though they were being paid. Did Beneficial Innovations (OMG, even the name is trolling) not realize these customers were covered?

If I'm reading the follow through articles right, Google and Beneficial reached an agreement about Google using the patents. This included terms about Google's customers using Google products based on those patents. Beneficial tried to argue that some organisations were using the patent-involving products outside the terms of the agreement with Google, and so were violating the patents themselves. They tried to sue those organisations, so Google stepped in to slap them down.

Re:Judicial Order

[Charliemopps]

assuming they ever pay. I've been involved in a few court ordered settlements before and have never seen a penny. In all cases the offender simply made it more expensive to get the money than the money was worth. It's a very easy thing to do. It's unfortunately Judges aren't more sympathetic in these sorts of cases.

Re: Judicial Order

[jd2112]

I don't think Google would even notice $1.3M. I'm sure their nazgul legal team will spare no expense to see that these trolls pay every penny so that other trolls think twice before trying to rip off Google out its customers.