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Bodog Patent Troll linked to Linux lawsuits? |
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Written by Thomas Jensen
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Saturday, 13 October 2007
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 The same patent troll that Bodog Founder Calvin Ayre believes is behind his domain name hijacking, Ray Niro, has ties to the patent shell that is currently suing Red Hat and Novell, two open source Linux software sellers. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court in Eastern Texas and seeks damages and a permanent injunction prohibiting any further infringement. IP Innovation and Technology Licensing Corporation sued Red Hat and Novell earlier this week claiming the software products infringe U.S. patent 5,072,412, "User interface with multiple workspaces for sharing display system objects," and two identically named patents.
IP Innovation is a subsidiary of Acacia Technologies, according to a company filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Acacia and its many subsidiaries have been involved in approximately 220 patent lawsuits over the last 5 years or close to one patent lawsuit per week over the last 5 years. Anyone that follows patent troll lawsuits knows that Ray Niro has represented Acacia.
Back on September 24th, 2007, Niro sent the following letter on behalf of his clients Acacia to the blogger behind Troll Tracker:
Please identify yourself. You may be infringing United States Patent No. 5,253,341.
Raymond P. Niro
(Transmitted by Donna L. Wartman)
Troll Tracker response stated:
Dear Mr. Niro,
I have received your email dated September 14, 2007. TrollTracker respects the intellectual property rights of third parties, and takes such accusations seriously. In order to better investigate your claim that I "may" be infringing U. S. Patent No. 5,253,341, please provide me with more information. How, exactly, am I infringing any claim of this patent? Is any blogger automatically infringing the '341 patent by posting a blog? Or does your claim pertain to my methods of searching public databases to get information? Is it your claim that anyone who searches the PTO Assignments database or the Illinois Corporations database automatically infringes Acacia's '341 patent? Would you be willing to put that in writing?
I look forward to your response. However, unless and until I get a more detailed response outlining how, exactly, I am infringing the Acacia '341 patent, I will be unable to further respond to your letter.
Sincerely,
TrollTracker
PS Greg Aharonian, help me now!
Update: Well, that didn't take long. Just yesterday, Global Patent Holdings, LLC, a subsidiary of Acacia, sued the Green Bay Packers, Ed Napleton Acura, Apple, Orbitz, Peapod, OfficeMax, Caterpillar, and Kraft Foods, for infringement of the '341 patent. Case filed in Chicago by Ray Niro, of course. Didn't show up on my radar because Niro filed it as an amended complaint in a case that had been originally filed against Greg Aharonian and stayed for 7 years. In the Green Bay Packers' case, they were accused of "participating in at least one football contest against the Chicago Bears every year." Suing the Packers in Chicago? To get the jury swayed? Right. Anyway, evidently this patent just emerged from a 7-year reexamination, where only a single claim survived. And supposedly the posting of a JPEG picture on a website is the act of infringement. I guess there goes the Troll Crossing photo (temporarily)!
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 13 October 2007 )
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