Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Tue, 3 Jun 2008 08:54:00 PDT Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080601/1532341280.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080601/1532341280.shtml MercExchange case, the Supreme Court ruled that courts shouldn't automatically grant injunctions preventing the sale of products, even if they're found to have violated a patent.

This didn't get rid of injunctions entirely, but basically (reasonably) noted that the courts should take into account whether or not the product on the market was actually harming the market for the patent holder's products. Thus, if you were a non-practicing entity (patent hoarding firm), it didn't make sense to ban another company's products from being in the market -- it just made sense to fine them. After all, since the patent holder didn't have a product on the market, what harm was being done to the patent holding firm's market? Patent hoarding companies flipped out, because the threat of an injunction barring the sale of products was one of the biggest weapons they had (it's part of what made RIM pay $612 million to NTP, even though the USPTO had said that NTP's patents were invalid).

So, how is Rembrandt getting around this ruling that takes away the threat of injunction as a weapon? Well, earlier this year, we noted a sneaky trick where it sued two companies in a single market over the same patent, but gave each of them a choice: whoever settled first, would get to join the lawsuit against the other one. Then, since the side that joined was a practicing entity, it could push for an injunction against the other. Sneaky, right?

Well, now it gets better. Rembrandt also happens to hold some patents on cable modem technology. In this case, Rembrandt bought the patents from a former AT&T subsidiary that had an agreement with the cable companies to license the patents under reasonable terms. Rembrandt is now claiming that since it bought the patents, it no longer needs to abide by that earlier agreement (despite the fact that the FTC has already slammed other patent holders for claiming similar things). Rembrandt, however, is pushing ahead and has sued a ton of cable companies, broadcasters and cable modem makers over this patent -- but how can it get an injunction since it's not a practicing entity?

Well, how about pretending to be a practicing entity?

Broadband Reports points us to the news that Rembrandt has convinced a small Taiwanese cable modem manufacturer to make a batch of cable modems with Rembrandt's name on them, which have now been sold to a tiny ISP in Seattle Tacoma. So, now, Rembrandt can try to claim that it's really "in the market" (even though it has admitted publicly to being a non-practicing entity) and can push for an injunction against all the companies it's suing. Those companies are calling out this practice as a "sham," and it will be interesting to see how the court rules. If the court rules that this practice allows Rembrandt to ask for injunctions, we may start seeing other patent hoarding firms quickly finding "partners" who can white label a few products just for the sake of appearing to be a "practicing" entity rather than a non-practicing one.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]> sneaky,-sneaky,-sneaky http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20080601/1532341280 Mon, 18 Feb 2008 08:31:00 PST Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080217/192038271.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080217/192038271.shtml gaming the new MercExchange injunction rules. It did so by getting two competitors to fight against each other, allowing only one to license the patent, which the "winner" could then use to force an injunction against the other one (basically, suing two competitors and telling whichever one caved first that it could help put the other out of business). A few weeks back, it unfortunately won that case, and is now gearing up to use the winnings as it claims patents on both the digital TV broadcasting standard and the widely used cable modem standard, DOCSIS. In both cases, it's asking for huge licensing fees. On the broadcasting standard, it may have a tough battle, as it appears that Rembrandt is doing the same thing that the FTC just smacked down another company for doing: basically buying up a patent and then ignoring an earlier agreement on how that patent would be used. In this case, Rembrandt is trying to ignore the fact that AT&T (who originally held the patent) promised to license it for "Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory" (RAND) rates. Either way, though, this is yet another unfortunate example of a hedge fund-backed patent hoarder trying to exploit the system, rather than doing anything to "promote the progress."

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]> anyone-and-everyone http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20080217/192038271