Newegg Inserts Itself Into The Global Archery, LARPing.org Patent Tiff

Patents

from the good-guys dept

We’ve covered in the past how Newegg and its Chief Legal Officer, Lee Cheng, have been both vocal and active in the fight against patent trolls. Far from a lightweight in this arena, Newegg has gone on the offensive against the trolls, with Cheng even going as far as to state that he would never settle a case with a patent troll. Settlements are often times what these patent trolls are primarily interested in, milking money from legitimate businesses that simply don’t want to bother with a lawsuit. Like most bullies, a little pushback is all that’s required to get them to turn tail and run.

We also recently discussed a rather silly patent and trademark lawsuit initiated by Global Archery against an individual who helps run LARPing.org. That site sells foam arrows used for live-action role-playing, buying them from a German manufacturer and reselling them to hobbyists. Global Archery believes that the arrows infringe on a patent it has for foam arrows and decided to sue LARPing.org for infringement, rather than the German manufacturer. The trademark portion of the suit revolves around Google keywords LARPing.org bought, which include references to Global Archery, for advertising purposes. Those suits rarely go anywhere, making the patent aspect of the suit more key.

Well, Newegg has decided to lend a troll-busting hand to LARPing.org, now stating that it will be donating the profits from its anti-patent troll t-shirts to be used by LARPing.org to defend itself against Global Archery.

“After reviewing the facts and circumstances of Mr. Gwyther’s case, Newegg believes Global’s suit against him is an abusive overreach of intellectual property rights,” said Lee Cheng, Newegg’s Chief Legal Officer. “As a result, we intend to provide assistance to Mr. Gwyther, including the donation of profits from the sale of our anti-patent troll t-shirts to support his legal defense fund. We are also releasing three new t-shirt designs, including a limited edition design created in collaboration with Mr. Gwyther, to raise additional funds for his defense.”

Cheng added, “This case represents the same type of abuse of intellectual property rights Newegg has stood up to for years. Global Archery’s patents would likely not withstand an invalidity challenge, but they are leveraging them to demand settlement terms that would effectively force this enthusiast and entrepreneur out of business.”

What entirely too many of these patent trolls rely on in order to get monetary settlements is the size of their targets. If a business is small enough, say a tiny site used primarily by roleplaying enthusiasts, that site may not have the resources necessary to fend off a legal claim from a patent troll. Instead, that business will typically accept whatever settlement demands the troll has requested.

But suddenly the legal warchest for LARPing.org may be many times what it had originally been, with a company like Newegg getting behind it and lending its support. People occasionally ask what it will take to end abusive patent trolling. There are many possible answers, but one of those answers must include large and small entities banding together to collectively fend off a practice everyone knows is abusive. It’s good to see a company like Newegg getting behind that kind of effort.

Filed Under: arrows, jordan gwyther, larp, larping, lee cheng, patent trolls, patents
Companies: global archery, newegg