Defendants’ coordinated: (a) cease and desist letters to AHRN, (b) refusals to deal letters to AHRN; (c) repudiation letters to AHRN, (3) sham lawsuits against AHRN and (d) agreement or offer to pay for or contribute to the costs of litigation against AHRN by MLSs and real estate brokers, was intended to and did have anti-competitive effects on AHRN in the market for real estate brokerage services. Anti-competitive effects include the elimination of price competition and price maintenance on brokerage services above market levels nationwide, impeding and blocking market entry by AHRN and other

• Patent 6,385,622: "System and methods for remotely accessing a selected group of items of interest from a database."
• Patent 6,415,291: "System and methods for remotely accessing a selected group of items of interest from a database."

“Traditionally the real estate industry has been served by a lot of independent software companies. Think about it, Top Producer was a couple brothers from Canada, Advanced Access, eNeighborhooods, Lone Wolf, Tarasoft, Rapattoni, W&R Studios, etc. I could think of a bunch more but hopefully you get the point. It’s not like IBM, Oracle, Microsoft have really focused on real estate software/technology,” W&R Studios co-founder, Greg Robertson told AGBeat.

Robertson continued, “These patent trolls are threatening the ability for these independent software companies to do business. Meaning, bigger companies who have the assets to pay the extortion money will end up being the winners. Independent software companies will either go out of business or get gobbled up by bigger companies. Both scenarios equal less choice for real estate professionals.”

Regarding VC backed companies like Trulia and Zillow, Robertson said, “whether you like them or not, they are the ones really investing and leading on the innovation side. So we are all in this fight together. The consequences are clear; less choice and less innovation.”