Patent Hoarder Caught Shuffling Patents Around To Sue Multiple Times
from the whoops dept
Last year, we noted the trend for various patent hoarding entities to set up a group of shell companies with which to sue companies. Part of the reason for doing so was to make it that much more difficult for the companies being sued to even know who they were fighting against. However, one big patent hoarding organization had another plan too... which just backfired. Plutus IP is a somewhat secretive patent holding company that has set up a bunch of shell companies all named after stars -- and apparently it tried to pull a little trick by shuffling patents around among the shells.You see, the company had sued Daimler Chrysler over patent infringement, and rather than fight it (as too often happens in these sorts of suits), Daimler felt it was cheaper to settle up. Of course, part of that $2.3 million settlement was an agreement that there wouldn't be any more lawsuits over the patents in question. So what does Plutus do? It shuffles the patents among its various subsidiaries and sues DaimlerChrysler three more times. A court made quick work of the case, finding that Plutus had violated its settlement terms with DaimlerChrysler, and the company (run by Erich Spangenberg) may be on the hook for millions of dollars.
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Filed Under: patents, shell companies
Companies: daimlerchrysler, plutus ip
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HA
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Not Surprised
eleete
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Re: Not Surprised
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lunch time lemmings - eat your dayly portion of Mike's shit
on a shitty techdirt plate
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Re: lunch time lemmings - eat your dayly portion of Mike's shit
Care to explain your point of view, angry dude?
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Re: lunch time lemmings - eat your dayly portion of Mike's shit
Hint, angry bitch^H^H^H^H^Hdude had once claimed to own several patents and had them granted several years ago, now we find out that he MAY have had ONE patent granted a little over a year ago but he seems incredibly shy about giving us specifics of that as well so it's pretty safe to assume that angry bitch, err dude, is simply a piece of lying trailer trash-talking DNA.
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Re: lunch time lemmings - eat your dayly portion of Mike's shit
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Re: lunch time lemmings - eat your dayly portion of Mike's shit
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Re: lunch time lemmings - eat your dayly portion of Mike's shit
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No
eleete
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Angry Lemming
the subject of patents, it's impossible
to condone such unscrupulous acts without
appearing morally bankrupt.
Despite whatever case you may have, such
outbursts only injure your cause.
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Can anyone say
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Patent limit damages
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Oh - The horror - Those car guys are using software to track sales ! That's a lawsuit.
Hopefully this sort of shell game is criminal and Mr WiseGuy will do hard time.
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patent hoarder
When corporate America agrees to not use our inventions without consent, American inventors and small entities will agree to stop suing them.
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Re: patent hoarder
Wrong.
stv -> "If you own the patent, you invented it."
Wrong again
stv -> "American inventors and small entities will agree to stop suing them."
Are there any actual inverntors and / or small entities suing "them" ? The articles I have read refer to large companies with growing stockpiles going after each other.
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