Patent Lawsuit So Bogus That The Judge Ordered Sanctions And Attorney's Fees Paid
from the about-time dept
There are an awful lot of bogus patent lawsuits out there, but even when the lawsuits are tossed out it's very, very rare for a judge to order the plaintiffs to pay the legal fees of the defendants. However, in Illinois it just happened. Joe Mullin has the story of a patent that was quite clearly limited to an infrared camera linked to a GPS system. The patent examiner required the inventor to include the word "infrared" before declaring the patent acceptable and non-obvious. Yet, that didn't stop the patent holder from suing LG, Pantech and Disney for the Disney mobile phone service that let parents track where their kids were. The product was a huge commercial failure, but those are three big companies worth suing for infringement.However, the judge noted, sternly, that the patent holder and the law firm that was handling the case (which had also worked on the patent) clearly decided to ignore what the patent actually said about it being for infrared cameras. This practice is more common than it should be. Even when claims are written to be narrowly focused, there's always some wiggle room, and many patent holders bring lawsuits on technologies that are pretty far from what's in the claims -- usually hoping that the accused will settle rather than take the issue to court. In this case, though, the judge pointed out that it was clearly a frivolous lawsuit, and ordered the defendants get reasonable costs and attorneys' fees. If this happened more often, maybe we'd see fewer ridiculous patent lawsuits.
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: attorney's fees, cameras, frivolous, gps, infrared, patents
Companies: disney, lg, pantech
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
They don't file patent lawsuits.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Not Fair
This is why the patent system needs strengthening! People shouldn't be able to get out of paying you for your ideas just by coming up with their own ideas! If this were allowed to continue, who would continue to bother to think up new ideas?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Not Fair
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Not Fair
If you couldn't tell FROM THE NAME ALONE that it was going to be satirical you have no hope of ever contributing anything useful ever simply due to lack of comprehension.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Not Fair
Maybe it's you who need the reality check. In the real world where I live, people like that DO exist. For every issue that seems completely wrong and injust, there will be at least a small group of people who support it for any number of reasons.
And yes, they too have access to the Internet. If they didn't, there wouldn't be so damn many 9/11 conspiracy blogs out there.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Should have
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Not gonna make a dent
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Not gonna make a dent
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Big Deal
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Imagine a world.
History has proven great minds think alike, its about f'n time we do something about it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Imagine a world.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Infrared Qualifies as a Patenatable concept?
Again we have, I believe, a misapplication of patent law. How is linking an infrared camera to a GPS system different from a camera based on normal light?
The only difference to my knowledge is that infrared light is of a different frequency that regular light. You may need different sensors. because of the light frequency, but how you would "talk" to the GPS would seem to remain the same. So where is the innovation that would qualify it as patentable?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
stop the shilling!!!
What occurs far more often is patentees cannot raise the cash to sue so infringers are able to flaunt their theft.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: stop the shilling!!!
Nice to see that you still haven't managed to get past the "small innocent inventor" vs. "big evil corporation" myth yet. Take your own advice - stop shilling.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I guess that means this was not contingency based.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Adopt Gowachin law!
The are obsessed with law, but their forms and procedures are quite the opposite of those in contemporary America. The whole purpose and premise of legal practice is the avoidance of litigation. If a tort must be tried, the event takes place in a Court-Arena, and the losing lawyer is executed by the winner. This system ensures that only life-or-death issues reach trial. It also guarantees that lawyers remain few.
http://www.seablogger.com/?p=233
That will minimize the crap, and provide a whole new world of reality TV shows!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]