Silicon Valley Patent Attorneys Register Their Own Patents; Sue Google, Microsoft, Yahoo And Others
from the more-lucrative dept
A few months ago, we pointed to Joe Mullin's excellent article detailing how various patent attorneys were finding a lucrative side business in registering or buying their own patents and suing companies themselves. It's just that much more lucrative. Mullin is back, describing two Silicon Valley patent attorneys, Dominic Kotab and Kevin Zilka, who have been registering or buying a bunch of patents, and have been quite active in both setting up multiple shell companies, and suing many different defendants. And, despite the fact that they're both based in San Jose, right down the street from many of the firms they've sued, all of the lawsuits are being filed in Texas, of course. This includes a lawsuit against Adobe, whose headquarters are a mere four blocks from the offices of Kotab and Zilka. Adobe asked for the case to be transferred to California... and the request was rejected.
They've sued pretty much all of the big name tech companies, including Microsoft (five different times, on five different patents), Google, Yahoo, Adobe, Nokia, Motorola, Palm, AT&T, AOL and many, many others. The most recent is a lawsuit against Google for apparently violating this patent, which the lawyers claim Google is violating with its new Chrome browser.
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Time Relativity
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Re: Time Relativity
No, and especially not in these circumstances. People have *always* been assholes. One thing that's changed is the ease with which people can magnify their assholeishness, though, as technology allows faster travel and communication.
Plus, patent law is just five kinds of fucked up.
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The silver lining
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Stop the madness
A guy in my community owns a small business and owns a few patents relating to the business. I think he makes small motor parts or some such. He was just telling me a few days ago he's being sued for patent infringement. So its not just large business that is affected by these cockroach lawyers. The courts need to start imposing heavy fines when its decided a case is frivolous.
Something definitely needs to be done when a huge company like Apple sues a school for using an apple logo, meanwhile Education + an Apple go back centuries. Or when lawyers do things like stated i this article. Disgusting times we live in.
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Mikey's head is square
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Ya know...
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Patent abuse and Copyright abuse...
This on top of the fact that these practices are killing innovation... unless you consider finding ways to screw the system innovative... Why try going into business or selling a new product, or developing the next great idea, when some asshole lawyer will just take it all from you... or end up being your boss...
Sickening... what can be done to shed more light on this problem? Why the HELLL would Adobe's motion to transfer this case be rejected!? The judge that rejected this request needs to be investigated!
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Re:
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to sue or not to sue
the lawsuit actually be explained to the layman
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I'm confused.
Shouldn't this be illegal for these idiots to sue companies over post-process patents?
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Re:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071005/020748.shtml
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Re:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071005/020748.shtml
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how come?
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Re: Mikey's head is square
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Re: angry dud
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