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Kaspersky Lab Forces 'Patent Troll' To Pay Cash To End Case (arstechnica.com)
In October, Kaspersky Labs was sued by a "do-nothing patent holder in East Texas who demanded a cash settlement before it would go away," reports Ars Technica. Today, founder and CEO Eugene Kaspersky said his company has defeated five patent assertion entities, including the infamous claims from Lodsys, "a much-maligned patent holder that sent demand letters to small app developers." The patent-licensing company who sued Kaspersky Labs in October was not only defeated, but they ended up paying Kaspersky $5,000 to end the litigation. From the report: The patent-licensing company, Wetro Lan LLC, owned U.S. Patent No. 6,795,918, which essentially claimed an Internet firewall. The patent was filed in 2000 despite the fact that computer network firewalls date to the 1980s. The '918 patent was used in what the Electronic Frontier Foundation called an "outrageous trolling campaign," in which dozens of companies were sued out of Wetro Lan's "headquarters," a Plano office suite that it shared with several other firms that engage in what is pejoratively called "patent-trolling." Wetro Lan's complaints argued that a vast array of Internet routers and switches infringed its patent. Most companies sued by Wetro Lan apparently reached settlements within a short time, a likely indicator of low-value settlement demands. Not a single one of the cases even reached the claim construction phase. But Kaspersky wouldn't pay up. As claim construction approached, Kaspersky's lead lawyer Casey Kniser served discovery requests for Wetro Lan's other license agreements. He suspected the amounts were low. Wetro Lan's settlement demands kept dropping, down from its initial "amicable" demand of $60,000. Eventually, the demands reached $10,000 -- an amount that's extremely low in the world of patent litigation. Kniser tried to explain that it didn't matter how far the company dropped the demand. "Kaspersky won't pay these people even if it's a nickel," he said. Then Kniser took a new tack. "We said, actually, $10,000 is fine," said Kniser. "Why don't you pay us $10,000?" After some back-and-forth, Wetro Lan's lawyer agreed to pay Kaspersky $5,000 to end the litigation. Papers were filed Monday, and both sides have dropped their claims.
And the patent troll forgot to include non-disclosure it seems.
Obviously quality lawyering there.. Smart, Real smart.
But lets not forget, Kaspersky is EVIL now remember? EVIL RUSSIANS!
How dare they try and undermine such an upstanding and fine American institution as patent trolling!
Now we know what law firm to go to if we are ever targeted by a patent troll.
I've had a patent troll on my case before and it is one of the most annoying pitfalls of doing business in the USofA. The plaintiff was some invisible company that got ahold of some ARCnet patents from a defunct workstation maker and thought they could nail every Ethernet product maker. We were small potatoes they wanted 3Com and Intel.
Fortunately this particular claim was so specious that it didn't go anywhere. Still annoying.
What's your patent troll story?
Every software patent. If you can't make a good case as to why you should have the patent, it's gone. I think we'd lose 99% of the patents, because 99% of them are bogus.
The name of the inventor on this patent is Steven T. "Trolan".
They're not even subtle about it!
lucm, indeed.
How are software patents still a thing in these backwards jurisdictions?
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
In Russia, patent trolls pay you!
but in this case, it's correct. Making patent trolls pay to dismiss cases is game-changing. It makes their actions much more risky since it could cost them. A huge thank you to Kaspersky Labs for doing this.
The company I work for has several former employees that now work for Intellectual Ventures.since we're in the same damn Sunset office complex as them on 139th Ave SE in Eastgate Bellevue, WA. We've had to may several large payments to them since we can't afford to fight them. The past three years, no one got a raise because we couldn't afford to due to BS patent fees.
I've long suspected that more than a few patent trolls have paid off the defendants to get out of a suit gone wrong, but always the "settlement" comes with the condition that the defendants not talk about it. What's game-changing about this one is that there's no non-disclosure agreement, Kaspersky's free to publicize exactly who had to pay how much to make the suit disappear. That opens the door for other defendants to counter patent trolls' record of "settlements" (used as evidence of the strength of their claims) with "Show how those "settlements" aren't just like the one with Kaspersky.".
Way to go guys. Every time a troll gets his ass whooped, it's good for the rest of us.
Thanks!
A thousand pounds of wood moving at 300 feet per minute. Don't get in the way.
A Russian company with close ties to KGB exploits a loophole in US patent law, tries to bankrupt a small American firm struggling to make a living out of its intellectual property. The Congress will consider additional sanctions against Russia.
Other litigation from "payees" which will hopefully put one (of unfortunately many) patent troll out of business. I would also hope that the people bringing fraudulent litigation against companies see at least the threat of criminal charges for fraud.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Looks like it. The patent is still valid. Others might not be as resilient in fighting the patent. So the troll can continue to extort money from unsuspected victims.
Just saying it like it are.
I think the way this suit went "wrong" for the troll is that Kaspersky had the willingness (lawyer capacity and money) to go to court, and had confidence they would win. The troll usually holds the threat of a large judgement to extort money out of the alleged infringer. In this case, if it seemed likely to both parties that the troll would lose, the troll had no leverage. The usual footing was switched, and Kaspersky probably found itself in a position to dictate terms to the troll and had no reason to want the terms kept secret. If the patent were shown to be invalid, or if Kaspersky won and the path to victory made public, the troll would lose its ability to threaten others in the future. Charging them only $10K was a kind of mercy...someone wanting to hold up the principle might have insisted the suit go forward.
You can email your files to Vladimir Putin if you want, but I'm not a fucking moron.
This was my thought. Didn't they have any options to take out the garbage?
This was my thought. Didn't they have any options to take out the garbage?
They could have continued the case, but I suppose with there is always a chance that it will be held in some red-neck court house and that they could lose. From their point of view I can see why they took the money and left
What if this is why the USA's government went against Kaspersky recently, making a US patent troll have to pay up the danegeld when ever other "upright and honest" US company coughed up, making a mockery of the USPTO in the process...?
And then a cover to scream about when you want to deflect the accusations of the truth.
They're also very convenient when it comes to demanding that everyone else lick your boots with the red scare when you find "we saved you from Hitler" isn't working.
Why stop there? Investigate their partners too. Heck, investigate their whole family.
Human Rights, Article 12: Freedom from Interference with Privacy, Family, Home and Correspondence
If not, this is just a bump on the road. Sure he lost 5.000USD now, but how much did he make.
Trolls, spammers, marketing: they are all not that much interested in how many say no. They are interested in how many say yes.
I am sure plenty of companies will be happy to pay 1.000USD to make the potential lawsuit go away when the initial demand was 50.000. They probably will even give their lawyer a bonus for bringing it down so much.
And even if this was enough to make that one company stop, 7 others will pop up.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
This is great! I love it when a patent troll get's its collective ass handed to it! However, this story is indicative of a much deeper problem that exists in the US Patent system. It's become a method for lawyers to create patents over trivial things and sue for profit. Research into "prior art" by the US Patent Office is minimal at best, which the lawyers know and exploit. Another problem is the entire idea of software patents which have become ridiculous and have actually stifled innovation for fear of infringement. The patent system was originally introduced to protect mechanical and electro-mechanical innovations. These, IMHO, are real innovations which deserve protection by the system to allow the engineers and inventors to recoup design costs and profit. If you want to get even more technical about patent laws, they were designed to protect the small entrepreneur from large corporations stealing and mass-producing their invention. The US PTO had no business granting a patent to Amazon for a single click to buy scheme. There was NOTHING innovative about that.
...they didn't take this court, win the case, and demand not just their fees and costs (which surely totalled more than $10K) but also asked for a punitive damages amount for this bullshit. That right there would have sent a message to these patent trolls that their particular brand of assholism could end up being costly. Would have been a nice PR boost for Kaspersky to be the ones to back down one of these fools.
This is not that great of a thing. That Kaspersky walked out with $5000 may be great for them, they got their pound of flesh, but a responsible company would have forced litigation and invalidated the patent so this troll couldn't do this to anyone else... My already neutral opinion of Kaspersky just got lower. Seeing who is better at shaking the other down for money is a third world tactic. Here in the West we try to strive for fair play (in theory).
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
It's too bad that Kaspersky took the money (and such a small amount of it, too). It would have been to the benefit of society at large if they'd insisted on taking it to court.
I disagree. Not only is this not game-changing, this is actively maintaining the status quo.
Kasperky almost certainly would have won. The reason that they took the money instead of fighting was probably because they would have spent a lot of time and treasure on the path to their victory.
Yes? However this should significantly weaken the patent in a reasonable court.
"We Troll, An LLC". Or perhaps "We Troll an LLC"
Either way, hang the faggots.
Could the defendant have continued the case? I'm not that familiar with the mechanics of US civil lawsuits. The biggest threat Kaspersky seemed to have was to force discovery, getting information that the troll didn't want getting out.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
GP here. I always hate it when my posts get voted down to a zero, but someone that knows less about something that replies to me gets voted up to a plus 5.
Anyway, IV has made Boeing bend the knee. Also, I've heard their employers brag about other almost as large and powerful companies as Boeing get screwed by them and forced to pay money. I don't think Kaspersky is more powerful than Boeing.