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Crazy Patent Troll Suing Devs For Posting Apps To Google Play (technobuffalo.com)
Developer Austin Meyer is fighting back patent trolls after he was sued for putting his flight simulator app called X-Plane on Google Play. TechnoBuffalo reports: A few years ago, he uploaded the app to the Google Play Store and was very unexpectedly hit with a lawsuit from Uniloc in 2012. The firm claims it patented the idea behind the app market. That's right, Uniloc isn't going after Meyer for making a flight simulator; it's going after any company that uses Google Play. It's already targeted a bunch of other popular apps, including Minecraft. So Meyer did a bit of digging and discovered a few pretty shocking details. It turns out the judge in that district may have a direct relationship with the prosecuting lawyer in many of these cases. The judge, Leonard Davis, is apparently known for almost never throwing out patent lawsuits. Meyer claims that his son, Bo Davis, is the lawyer representing many of these patent trolls.
Yes, but back in those days, one would dial directly into a BBS or server to download their apps. Those patents may have expired. But all one needs to do is to append the phrase "using the Internet" and refile.
Have gnu, will travel.
We have seen this before with the printer scam, they were suing small companies that owned certain printers for infringing patents dealing with printers but not the manufacture. Now they have a patent that describes a service and again they are going after the business consumer and not the provider, it is a scam and should be treated as such.
By which point the victims have spent tens of thousands of dollars.
Only the stupid ones. Patent trolls shotgun out thousands and thousands of threatening letters, hoping someone will bite. That is why it is called "trolling". The biggest mistake you can make is to respond to their letter. That marks you as a target. They can't possibly afford to file so many lawsuits, so they only go after the fools. You should never respond to a patent troll until you have been served an actual filing by a legitimate process server.
IANAL, and if I were, I would give you the exact opposite advice: A letter from a patent troll requires a robust and muscular response, and I need a $10k retainer to do that.