Do Google's Patent Lobbying Efforts Matter In Patent Infringement Suits Against The Company?

from the hard-to-see-why dept

Wed, Dec 10th 2008 1:12am — Mike Masnick

Google, of course, is on the receiving end of numerous patent lawsuits (and the number seems to keep growing). In one, brought by Erich Spangenberg's Bright Response LLC (you may recall Spangenberg's name from the fact that he recently was told to pay $4 million for violating a settlement in one of his other patent lawsuits, where he promised not to sue the same companies over the same patents), the patent holder is demanding Google turn over all information concerning its lobbying efforts on patent reform. As Google notes in response, its lobbying efforts on patent reform have absolutely nothing to do with whether or not there's any infringement on automatic message interpretation and routing systems -- a patent, by the way, that the EFF has designated as one of the ten worst patents out there.

This seems like a pure fishing expedition to (a) try to create more work for Google for no good reason and (b) have a well-known exploiter of the current patent system get access to what patent system reformers are talking about in DC. It has no bearing on the case one way or the other, and hopefully the judge agrees.

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Filed Under: erich spangenberg, lobbying, patents
Companies: bright response, google

5 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 10 Dec 2008 @ 5:38am

aaaargh! Patent was said way to many times in these two brief paragraphs! I hate these lawyers can companies! Stop with all the patents, eat ice cream and remember the good ol days!
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Evil Mike, 10 Dec 2008 @ 6:09am

Google Salt
I'm glad Google is on the side of patent reform, and doing other stuff right as like, like their new "Salt" (NaCl) web-runtime environment.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Dec 2008 @ 7:32am

Lobbying efforts are an interesting ploy, but future changes to law have absolutely nothing to do with a current lawsuit. Google's lawyers are correct in their assessment and the discovery request will likely go down in flames as discovery is limited to matters affecting just the current lawsuit.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Dec 2008 @ 2:06pm

"It has no bearing on the case one way or the other, and hopefully the judge agrees."

You seem to have this backwards - most Americans treat the judge's opinion as much more definitive than yours, you can disagree if you want but nobody cares !.
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DanC, 11 Dec 2008 @ 5:57am

Re:
most Americans treat the judge's opinion as much more definitive than yours, you can disagree if you want but nobody cares

While I'm almost certain I'm feeding a blog troll with this response, it would seem that you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. People disagree with judges all the time - that's why there's a court system with an appeals process in place. And even beyond those directly involved with a case, public opinion can (and often does) disagree with a judge.

You are apparently of the opinion that if you don't happen to be a judge then no one should take your opinion on legal matters seriously, which is quite honestly idiotic.
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