Overeager Patent Troll Can't Tell Github From Its Web Host

from the slow-down-there-fellas dept

Last year, we wrote about the somewhat random confluence of events that brought together two ex-file sharing industry execs (one associated with Kazaa and the other with Morpheus) and made them extreme patent trolls, suing a ton of internet companies under the ridiculous brand "PersonalWeb." Well, PersonalWeb is adding to its ridiculous legacy by suing Rackspace as well, though as the complaint makes clear (pdf), PersonalWeb seems mighty confused about what it's suing over.

That's because it seems to be claiming that Rackspace is responsible for... GitHub. Now, it's true that Rackspace, one of the most popular hosting companies out there, does provide hosting services to GitHub, but that doesn't mean that Rackspace is Github -- though you couldn't tell that from the filing. Now, it isn't just filing about GitHub, but also Rackspace Cloud Servers, which obviously are a Rackspace product. The patents being sued over are basically the same batch as we wrote about last year, but with one addition (added at the top -- it wasn't in last year's post because... it was only granted this year):

• 8,099,420: Accessing data in a data processing system
• 8,001,096: Computer file system using content‐dependent file identifiers
• 7,949,662: De‐duplication of data in a data processing system
• 7,945,544: Similarity‐based access control of data in a data processing system
• 7,945,539: Distributing and accessing data in a data processing system
• 7,802,310: Controlling access to data in a data processing system
• 6,928,442: Enforcement and policing of licensed content using content‐based identifiers
• 6,415,280: Identifying and requesting data in network using identifiers which are based on contents of data
• 5,978,791: Data processing system using substantially unique identifiers to identify data items, whereby identical data items have the same identifiers

If those seem incredibly vague and broad to you, you're not alone. M-CAM, a company which specializes in analyzing the quality of patents, found PersonalWeb's patents so egregious that it proposed an award named after the examiner on a bunch of them, Khanh B. Pham:

After reviewing PersonalWeb's patents, we propose that the USPTO indeed mold a "Pham" award to best commemorate the ultimate, the outrageous, the most horrifically unacceptable patent examination performance of the current patent system.

To be fair, it seems like Pham has plenty of company.

There is also the oddity of Level 3 being a plaintiff on the case, though it sounds like it's just along for the ride as a silent partner:

Level 3 has joined in this Complaint pursuant to its contractual obligations under the Agreement, at the request of PersonalWeb.

Basically, it sounds like part of the licensing deal in which PersonalWeb ended up with some Level 3 patents, and Level 3 gets a cut of some of the profits.

For its part, Rackspace has rightfully spoken out about the ridiculousness of this. What's good to see is that they don't just focus on the insanity of this particular case (though that is discussed), but the patent system as a whole:

In fact, GitHub is a perfect example of a company that is built to foster and enhance innovation. The GitHub repository service for software development projects has achieved legendary status among open source developers all over the world. GitHub has over 2.1 million users hosting over 3.7 million repositories. They are a paragon of innovation. Yet PersonalWeb has the audacity to file a lawsuit which alleges that “Rackspace Cloud Servers and GitHub Code Hosting Service” infringe some obscure patent from 1999 that has nothing to do with Rackspace and GitHub. Who is truly innovating here, PersonalWeb or Rackspace and GitHub? PersonalWeb is not the issue of course. They are just another patent troll attempting to take advantage of bad law. It is their nature. They look for opportunity, and patent litigation can be very profitable. The real problem is the law. According to a recent study by James Bessen and Michael Meurer of the Boston University School of Law, titled “The Direct Costs from NPE Disputes,” patent trolls cost the American economy $29 billion in 2011. The authors found that patent troll litigation affected 5,842 defendants in 2011.

It's good to see more companies speaking out and recognizing that this is a widespread problem that needs to be addressed, rather than a narrowly focused one on the margins.

Filed Under: hosting, patent trolls, patents
Companies: github, personalweb, rackspace

Ex-Morpheus & Kazaa Execs Team Up To Become Patent Trolls

from the the-lessons-of-copyright-and-patents dept

Well, well. While their names may be fading into history, Morpheus and Kazaa were the two big file sharing apps after Napster was shut down. They were both built on the same basic platform (which came from Kazaa), and at some point the two actually got into a fight, leading Kazaa to shut off Morpheus, and years later there were still some lawsuits going on. However, it appears that two former execs associated with those two file sharing systems have teamed up... to become patent trolls who are now suing Google, Amazon and others for infringement.

Kevin Bermeister is being described in the article linked above as a "founder" of Kazaa, but I'm pretty sure that's not true at all. Bermeister, instead, founded Brilliant Digital Entertainment, which was an attempt to build a questionable business model into Kazaa, which originally looked a lot like adware. Brilliant Digital ended up buying Kazaa much later in the process. He's teamed up with Michael Weiss, who was the CEO of Streamcast, in this patent trolling adventure that they're calling PersonalWeb Technologies (based in -- you guessed it -- East Texas). While some are making it out like it's a big deal that these former "pirates" are now trying to enforce patent claims, it's really not new or surprising. Bermeister has been doing this for a while. In fact, all the way back in 2003, he claimed a patent on identifying files with a hash and threatened to sue every other file sharing company. In 2004, he even sued the RIAA for violating the patent. In 2006 he... sued Weiss' Streamcast for patent infringement. I'm not sure how that lawsuit turned out, but apparently the former adversaries are now on the same side of things.

The folks over at M-CAM have taken a look at the patents that PersonalWeb is now using to sue, and has found them lacking. Turns out that a bunch of them are continuations -- the sneaky trick of patent holders to change an earlier patent application later, such that the eventual patent still has the earlier priority date, even if the invention wasn't really described until much later. This has been used repeatedly in the past by companies to see what others are doing, patent it, and then be able to pretend they came up with it first. The M-CAM analysis is not kind, especially to the examiner who approved some of the patents, Khanh B. Pham. They declare:

After reviewing PersonalWeb's patents, we propose that the USPTO indeed mold a "Pham" award to best commemorate the ultimate, the outrageous, the most horrifically unacceptable patent examination performance of the current patent system.

So there's that.

If you're interested, here are the patents in question:

• 8,001,096: Computer file system using content‐dependent file identifiers
• 7,949,662: De‐duplication of data in a data processing system
• 7,945,544: Similarity‐based access control of data in a data processing system
• 7,945,539: Distributing and accessing data in a data processing system
• 7,802,310: Controlling access to data in a data processing system
• 6,928,442: Enforcement and policing of licensed content using content‐based identifiers
• 6,415,280: Identifying and requesting data in network using identifiers which are based on contents of data
• 5,978,791: Data processing system using substantially unique identifiers to identify data items, whereby identical data items have the same identifiers

Filed Under: kazaa, morpheus, patent trolls, patents
Companies: amazon, brilliant digital, google, personalweb, streamcast