Very interesting lawsuit. I made a previous post on Intellectual Ventures. It seems like an interesting company that is seen by some as a patent troll. IV, like other non-practicing entities, rarely resort to litigation when asserting patents. However, in a recent suit against Symantec did not budge. This is one of the first litigations for Intellectual Ventures.
From Intellectual Ventures "“In an effort to protect the intellectual property assets of Intellectual Ventures, we must take steps to stop the use of our patents without license"
Also: “We have been unable to reach an agreement with Symantec, and, in addition to their infringement of software security patents, we determined the company’s server and storage management products also infringe IV patents. As a result, we found it necessary to file this second complaint.”
The litigation involves US Patents Nos. 5537533;6589131;6732359;5987610;6073142;6460050;7506155. This totals to seven patents against Symantec. This is the second time that IV has sued Symantec recently.
The most interesting part is which companies these patents originally came from. Many of them had went through bankruptcy. Companies include: So. Pak Pte., LLC, Oxtapro Tre, BellSouth, Ameritech, University of Texas, individual entrepreneurs, InfoBahn, and many more. After reading this article, it seems to me that IV is acting more and more like a patent troll. As we learned from Uzi in class, the only true definition of a patent troll is one that makes money on settlement only if it is less than the cost of defending the patent. IV, which is definitely major player in this space, is seeming more and more like this.
Nice picture! I saw this article and that Symantec is fighting patent suits, unlike many other companies involved.
ReplyDeleteIf most of their patents in their IP portfolio are from companies that have gone through bankruptcy, I agree IV starts to look more and more like a patent troll. That being said, they still claim to believe that infringement has occurred--whether they really believe it would determine if they were trolls.
DeleteI surprised Symantec is involved in the patent war, I didn't think they had they means the wage a war on Intellectual Ventures. I guess they will try and pull of a Trojan Horse in this suit. No pun intended.
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