Paul Allen Telescope Starts Looking For Aliens

Patent Holders Sue Everyone Over Hard Drive Patents -- And For Good Measure, Uses ITC Loophole Too

from the this-is-innovation? dept

Fri, Oct 12th 2007 2:31am — Mike Masnick

A month ago, Steven and Mary Reiber apparently sued a bunch of companies over patents having to do with hard drives. The lawsuits were filed against Western Digital, Seagate, HP, Toshiba and Dell. I wouldn't have even noticed if this other bit of news had then crossed the wire. It seems that the Reibers decided that just suing wasn't enough, so they also decided to use every patent holders new favorite loophole to get injunctions without the courts having a say: asking the International Trade Commission to ban the import of products. And, of course, the ITC has now agreed to investigate the claim. Apparently the Reibers couldn't even wait for the court case to put some more pressure on these firms to settle. None of the articles make it clear what the patent in question is, but the couple appears to hold at least one patent on dissipative ceramic bonding tips. I have no idea if the companies in question are actually violating the patent, or even if the patent is legitimate -- but simultaneously filing patent lawsuits against a bunch of big name companies while also taking the loophole route certainly fits in with the typically questionable activities of patent holders who are trying to squeeze other companies for money, rather than ones looking to promote innovation. Hopefully someone has some more details on this case (or can get access to the filings). But, whenever a patent holder suddenly files a lawsuit against basically everyone in the space, it makes you wonder if the idea in their patent wasn't "obvious" to those skilled in the art from the beginning.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: patents

10 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Michael Long, 12 Oct 2007 @ 2:40am

Double-dipping
This is also inline with your post on double-dipping, since they're not only suing the hard drive manufacturers, but also HP and Dell who seem to be on the list for just using the offending drives in their products.

In other news, Hitachi's stock price hit a new high today as...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 12 Oct 2007 @ 3:25am

Let's review: missing words (hadn't, who), missing letters (ever instead of every)
Is someone already rushing to get out of the office for the weekend at 2:31 on Friday morning?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Neo, 12 Oct 2007 @ 4:49am

We can guess what couple's portfolio tanked during the last go-round....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
GeneralEmergency (profile), 12 Oct 2007 @ 5:00am

Questionable strategy?
Assuming for a millisecond that the patent is actually valid, why on earth would you sue several LARGE companies at once?? They will only POOL their financial and legal resources and align them against you.

Next time, try suing the SMALLEST company first, pray for a win and -THEN- use that judgment as leverage against the big boyz.

And I wonder if the new "obviousness" guidelines are to be used when reviewing patents?? Or will they be reviewed only under the standard they were granted under??

Sorry, blending posts here. Try to keep up, will ya?

Alan
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
danzenie, 12 Oct 2007 @ 5:08am

pay for wasting time
These companies with their lame patent suits should be force to pay for the waste of time/money that results from their foolish ways.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Overcast, 12 Oct 2007 @ 6:09am

Yeah, they need a real job or something. People are so whiny anymore.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Brian, 12 Oct 2007 @ 6:20am

...
I was reading about this somewhere yesterday and I hope I'm remembering correctly, but the patent doesn't actually cover the HDDs or anything in them, the patent is over a process used during the manufacturing process--something like a cold soldering process (IIRC). This isn't like the Qualcomm thing where the patent was embedded in the final product.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
mark.simm, 12 Oct 2007 @ 6:23am

I think it's amusing that everyone screams "patent reform!" but as soon as the patent system does its job everyone is "whoa whoa whoa. hold the phone." just because it could change where they store their porn.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Rob Blatt, 12 Oct 2007 @ 6:39am
  
  Re:
  This isn't about patent reform, but the process and loopholes that are being used by the people who have the patent. It's the abuse of the patent system as an attempt to money grab, that is the problem here, not that a company is attempting to defend their patent.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
inc, 12 Oct 2007 @ 1:46pm

bring back the trade secret and dump these silly patents
[ link to this | view in chronology ]