We're basically being sued for allowing you to click a marker on a map initiating a phone call.
This obviously should never have been patented, so we are doing all the legal defense work and sharing it with the startup community.
See www.stopagis.com if you want to see how we really pissed off our troll.
And public shaming also works, the CEO of our troll didn't own his domain, so we bought it and drive traffic to the site whenever people search for his name (Malcolm Beyer www.malcolmbeyer.com). They don't like that we "aren't playing by the rules".
Anyone can reach out to me at @teachingaway if you want some law students to pitch in on a patent troll defense case. We don't have a huge capacity, but we can help a few startups with legal defense.
2. I'm getting FOUT on life360.com. Possibly caused by loading typekit fonts with tk.async="true"; ?
http://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2014/09/23/to-slain-or-not...
They used satellite and VHF for communications. When I left they had very localized PCS phone networks and packet switched networks over radio. I find it very hard to believe there isn't prior art for all of this in the DoD.
http://www.agisinc.com/Contact/Patents/Patents.html
The latest one seems like it could be invalidated by the "do it on a computer" rulings.
Further likelihood is that a judge would toss that lawsuit almost immediately.
No, not really. The patent clerk made a mistake in approving the patent, buy they didn't intentionally grant a bad patent to cause trouble or make money. Its really the patent trolls that are at fault for weaponizing the patent clerk's mistake.
I don't think you would appreciate being sued for making a mistake at your job, would you? ;)
Great job man. And what a great move, buying a name with his domain name. Keep the fight going.
This means that Rackspace will not pay one penny to this troll, nor will Apple, Netflix, Electronic Arts, Target, Whole Foods or any of the other companies sued by Rotatable for how they use screen rotation technology in their apps."
It surprises me why there aren't joint defense funding efforts in place to put these industry pests to bed... Clearly Apple, Google and Microsoft would have been next on Rotatable's target list if Rackspace had caved - and like weeding, rooting them out early will prevent infestations.
Is it because the big corps perhaps view the trolls as worth their pain - what function could they serve?
This is an excellent strategy and will pay dividends to RackSpace in the long term: what minor patent trolls will touch them now?
Needless to say, Rackspace can afford this strategy whereas smaller companies, who have no full-time attorneys on staff and little funds to retain outside counsel, generally cannot. A change in the law is needed to legislate patent trolls out of existence is still needed, basically yesterday.
We need legislative change, not to fight fire with fire. Public perception of these companies being trolls and detrimental to innovation is important but this is not a victory. It is simply not a loss and still an enormous waste of resources. We need patent reform.
>We are still fighting some of the trolls that have come after us and we expect to win those cases too. Without changes in the law we believe that the only way to end the plague of patent trolls is by fighting every troll that comes at us – and we encourage all others to do the same.
with a link to http://www.rackspace.com/blog/a-sad-day-for-patent-reform-a-...
It definitely gets better as you raise the costs around the "normal part of doing business." The trolls still have the advantage, but the advantage is less.
Defeat your enemies.
Rackspace deserves some big props, here. More should follow their example.
It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
To call upon a neighbour and to say: --
"We invaded you last night--we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away."
And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld
And then you'll get rid of the Dane!
It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say: --
"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away."
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.
It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say: --
"We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!"
Interestingly, the Roman empire liked to make sure that negotiations with border tribes went its way by waging terrifying scorched-earth campaigns against those border tribes shortly beforehand. It worked. But the negotiated settlements would include subsidies paid annually from Rome to the new barbarian leaders -- Rome liked this system because the subsidies (a) made sure the new leaders were pro-Rome, and (b) really helped stabilize the pro-Rome guy against local challengers.
The United States while they wish for war with no nation, will buy peace with none, it being a principle incorporated into the settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, so war is better than tribute.
Or at least Troll Defense Insurance
Wasn't that the original business model of Intellectual Ventures?
https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/chapter2_105.html
The writing was on the wall in 1993 but it took a couple decades for the courts to realize the mess they'd created and companies to realize that paying ransom doesn't lead to fewer bandits.
Two of those companies are recurrent patent trolls, and the third isn't in a clear-cut situation at all. Why would they create a found to fight trolls?
Despite finicky wording, a lot of money and silk somehow got sent up north.
Cities all over the world and across history have found it preferable to hand out welfare to the local poor rather than suffer through riots. The Romans conceived of a goddess of welfare (yep) to whom it was proper for the poor to give thanks when they got their free bread. Modern Americans like to speak in terms of prserving the essential dignity of being human. But it's not so easy to see a difference in the policy, or the strategy, other than the rhetoric that accompanies it. I suspect that if the rhetoric were switched to "let's pacify the poor so we don't get murdered in our beds", support would drop despite the policy staying the same.
Similarly, you can "buy peace" with another nation just by overpaying for some minor consideration they end up giving you in the peace negotiations - basically the same concept as accounting goodwill. Everyone involved knows what's going on, but the process is near-totally opaque to the outsiders who cry "war is better than tribute".