Patent Troll Apparently Didn't Appreciate Being Called A Piece Of Shit, Sues Over Basic Location Functionality
from the if-the-name-fits... dept
Just yesterday I was talking to an entrepreneur who told me that one of his strategies in dealing with patent trolls once they got annoying was to send back a rather graphical and obscene insult, just to make it clear that he wasn't going to settle quickly. In many cases, he claimed that this made the trolls walk away, because they're looking for easy settlements. That reminded me of Fark's Drew Curtis explaining his strategy for beating a patent troll, which included making it clear that you'll fight like crazy and that "you'll make the process as annoying and as painful as possible." While that appears to work for some folks, it didn't quite work (yet) for Chris Hulls, CEO of Life360, a social network for families that just raised $50 million. Big VC money raises are often like catnip to patent trolls, as they directly target those companies.In a moment of refreshing honesty, Hulls (against the advice of his lawyers) sent a letter to the patent troll, calling the troll "a piece of shit" and wishing bad karma on him, as Paul Carr at PandoDaily highlighted in the link above:
Dear Piece of Shit,Rather than scaring the troll off, it apparently embolded the troll to file a lawsuit which actually included Hull's note.
We are currently in the process of retaining counsel and investigating this matter. As a result, we will not be able to meet your Friday deadline. After reviewing this matter with our counsel, we will provide a prompt response.
I will pray tonight that karma is real, and that you are its worthy recipient.
Chris
That's part of the problem with so many of these patents. The "inventors" (and I use that term loosely) weren't inventing anything here, but were rather looking at where the underlying technology was clearly heading, and then patenting ahead -- recognizing all of the obvious apps that just about any programmer would be able to implement once the underlying tech was there, writing the patents, and then waiting for someone else to do the real work... and then shaking them down. Given that, it seems that Hull's description of the troll is all too accurate.
The rest of the patents in the suit are basically variations on this theme of using GPS and phones to locate others. The second patent is US 7,764,954 for a "Method of providing cell phones in a cell phone signal strength chart of multiple cell phones in a communication network." The third is US 8,126,441 for a "Method of establishing a cell phone network of participants with a common interest." And the fourth is US 7,672,681 for a "Method of renaming soft switch controls in all participant's cell phones by an administrator."
And yes, unlike many patent trolls, the company behind this lawsuit, Advanced Ground Information Systems, Inc., does apparently make an actual product, but it's not even remotely competitive. They make products for first responders and the military to help them communicate. They're not competing in any way with Life360's family social network, and Life360 certainly didn't "copy" the work that AGIS did. Because they didn't need to. Location-based information services, connecting local people is an idea that was talked about at great length going way back. I remember detailed discussions about "people finder" apps in the 1990s. Lots of people were thinking about this stuff, and it's yet another indictment of the patent office that it granted a bunch of obvious patents, and AGIS and its lawyers looking to tax an entirely different business is equally as lame.
Just another sign of how broken our patent system is. Congress could fix it... but probably won't.
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Filed Under: chris hulls, location services, patent trolls, patents
Companies: agis, life360
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Heh
I may be in love....
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Triangulation
Good lord. Stuff like this is why people get strokes. You hear something stupid, and there's nowhere for the stupid to go.
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Re: Triangulation
I understand that they are trying to be as broad as can be, but thats for me only a bunch of words togeter.
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Re: Re: Triangulation
(Quite what bearing such signal strength would have on what methods would be effective for providing cell phones is not clear to me.)
In order for it to mean anything other than that, I think there'd have to be another word somewhere, if not an entire additional clause.
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Re: Re: Re: Triangulation
Phones do NOT triangulate, nor do GPSes. They triLATERATE, judging time differences of arrival of signals from various sources with known locations. A radius is then created around each of those known locations, and the intersection of the radii is the location of the object. There are NO ANGLES used in the process. RADAR uses angles.
It was a small nit, but I was still correct. So this patent then doesn't even understand the process correctly?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Triangulation
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080604/2231291314.shtml#c281
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No class MBI - too
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P.O.S.
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Re: P.O.S.
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broken
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Piece of Sh!t
It is my opinion that AGIS is a shitty company.
I prey karma bites them hard by having their obvious patents invalidated and their banks sucked dry after Life360 is awarded attorneys fees.
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Re: Piece of Sh!t
AGIS is absolutely a SHITTY Company and their attorney is most definitely a piece of shit and highly ethically challenged for allowing this bogus claim.
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Another drawback of the use of the current combined cellular phone PDA technology is that when using the PDA to display a map (that also may depict georeferenced businesses, homes and other facilities' locations and phone numbers), and the operator wants to place a call, the cellular phone/PDA operator is required to obtain the phone number by touching the display screen at the correct location of that entity on the map to obtain the phone number, then the operator has to memorize the phone number, then go to a different display to enter the phone number, to make the call and then, if desired, go back to the map display
So Beyer Jr Malcolm K read this patent and thought "Hmm...I NEVER would have thought to have the FRIGGIN PHONE CALL THE PERSON WHEN I CLICKED ON THEM rather than make the user go through some 14 step process to dial their number. This is certainly not obvious."
On the flip side - Palm probably has a patent on the multi-step process and they call it a feature.
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My new pateitn
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What?
A lot of problems can be fixed if patent filers are forced to include a working prototype of their patent prior to it being granted. Not at the time of filing (that would be very burdensome) but within the window of filing and granting. I would even accept some sort of "patent is only valid if working implementation is produced within X months of granting of said patent" system on patents.
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Saw it before the patent was granted
Gee. Do you think Qualcomm or SnapTrack had ever considered any of the ideas in those patents? Of freaking course they did.
What kind of fools are approving these patents in the first place?
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