Rocket Docket Of East Texas Not Fast Enough For Lawsuit Against The Troll Tracker?

from the funny-how-that-works dept

Joe Mullin has all the latest details on the ongoing defamation lawsuit filed by some East Texas lawyers against Rick Frenkel (better known as the Patent Troll Tracker) and his employer Cisco. We covered the original lawsuit earlier this year, but things are getting more complicated. There are some arguments going on over the appropriate venue as well as some questions about legal fees. It seems that one of the lawyers has dropped the case against Frenkel directly to focus just on Cisco, and Frenkel would like his legal fees paid. The suing lawyer disagrees, suggesting that it was a gentlemanly move to drop Frenkel from the case in the first place.

However, perhaps the most amusing part of all of this is that the guy is trying his darndest to keep the lawsuit out of the East Texas district using the argument that the district is too slow because it's all filled up with pending lawsuits -- such as all the patent lawsuits being filed in the so-called "rocket docket." Just recently, a patent attorney who hangs out in the comments here insisted that (despite statistics showing that East Texas sided with patent holders at a much higher rate than in other districts) the real reason patent holders filed there was because of the speed with which it took care of cases. Funny how one of the patent attorneys who promotes that view is suddenly worried about just how slow those courts are.

Filed Under: east texas, legal fees, patents, rocket docket, troll tracker

Nintendo Loses Patent Suit In East Texas, Of Course

from the prior-art,-anyone? dept

The latest in a long line of patent lawsuits in every patent hoarders favorite district of East Texas involves the game controllers used by Nintendo. A company holds a patent on a 3D controller and sued Nintendo (and Microsoft) for supposedly violating the patent. Not surprisingly, the jury found in favor of the patent holder. Juries quite often side with the patent holder, no matter how questionable the patent may be. In this case, there would seem to be a ton of prior art raising validity questions. The patent itself was filed in November of 2000, at which point there were already numerous game controllers that seem to meet most of the criteria outlined in the claims. Whatever minor differences there may have been between what was on the market and what's in the claims should be seen as an obvious iteration of game controllers. As for Microsoft's involvement, it paid up to settle last month, once again showing how it's often cheaper to just pay up rather than to fight questionable patents. And, that, of course, is why we will keep seeing more and more questionable patents being filed. It's just so lucrative.

Filed Under: east texas, game controller, patents, video games
Companies: nintendo

Do Patent Lawyers Really Want To Put Limits On The Rocket Docket Of East Texas?

from the not-sure-I-believe-that.. dept

There's not much upon which I agree with the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA). So, consider me a little surprised (and somewhat suspicious) that the group has filed an amicus brief suggesting that the East Texas docket is handling too many patent cases and hasn't transferred cases that clearly should be transferred. This is a similar issue to a ruling we recently noted at the appeals court level pushing for easier transfer of cases to more convenient locations. While it's nice to see the AIPLA come out and basically admit that patent holders have been forum shopping and abusing the court system to get favorable rulings, the cynic in me says that they're doing this as a way to tell Congress that patent reform isn't needed (since forum shopping is one aspect of patent reform under consideration).

Filed Under: aipla, east texas, jurisdiction shopping, patents

Courts May Now Have More Leeway In Moving Patent Lawsuits Away From East Texas

from the slowly,-but-surely dept

Slowly, but surely, the courts are fixing many (though, not nearly all) of the most egregious problems with the patent system. The Supreme Court has been a big part of this with a series of decisions in the last few years that are pushing to re-establish at least some of the patent system's original purpose from what it has turned into. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC), which is the appeals court that handles patent suit appeals (and is often considered one of the reasons why the patent system has gone so astray) appears to finally be getting the message. Earlier this year, we noted that CAFC was finally going to re-evaluate the patentability of software and business models. And, now, it looks like CAFC is looking to alleviate all the jurisdiction shopping that happens in the lower courts, leading to so many patent lawsuits being filed in Marshall, Texas.

What's slightly ironic, of course, is that one of the main reasons CAFC was created in the first place was to put an end to jurisdiction shopping in the past. What used to happen, prior to CAFC, was that patent attorneys knew which districts and which appeals courts tended to favor patent holders, and would rush to file in those districts. In forming CAFC, the idea was that all appeals would go to a central court. What they didn't expect was that CAFC would become dominated by former patent attorneys who were always in favor of more patents -- and that the jurisdiction shopping would just shift down to the district court level.

However, last week, CAFC came out with a ruling that appears to say that district courts should pay more attention to making sure patent lawsuits are held in districts that are convenient. Right now, in order to file in East Texas, all you need to do is claim that the companies "do business" in the district and to have a local lawyer (of which there are plenty willing to help). So you get absolutely ridiculous situations where two California companies right down the street from one another, find themselves in court in Texas for no reason other than the fact that the Texas district court is known to be both quick and likely to favor patent holders. This latest ruling certainly won't fix things entirely, but it does suggest that CAFC is at least sympathetic to the problem of patent holders picking a favorable jurisdiction, often at odds with the most reasonable location -- and suggesting that perhaps that doesn't make sense any more.

Filed Under: cafc, east texas, jurisdiction shopping, lawsuits, patents

Sun Notes That Both It And NetApp Are In California... So Why Is The Patent Lawsuit In East Texas?

from the ah,-the-lure-of-east-texas dept

The latest news in the patent dispute between Sun and Network Appliance is that Sun is trying to move the case to California. NetApp filed the lawsuit in east Texas, a favorite location for patent holders, since the judges there are known for fast trials that almost always end with the patent holder coming out on top. Even if companies have no real presence in east Texas, they figure out how to get something resembling a presence there in order to file the lawsuit there. Amusingly, patent reform in the early 80s was designed to stop this type of jurisdiction shopping at the appeals court level, but all it seems to have done was push it down to the district court level. In trying to move the case, Sun points out that both it and NetApp have headquarters approximately 10 miles away from each other in California -- and there seems to be no reason whatsoever to have the case filed in east Texas unless you were jurisdiction shopping. There's been some talk lately suggesting that the folks in east Texas are getting a little annoyed at their reputation for being so friendly for patent holders, so hopefully they'll agree that this case really belongs in California.

Filed Under: east texas, patents
Companies: network appliances, sun

Judge Bans The Term 'Patent Troll' -- And The History Of Patent Sharking...

from the not-in-my-courtroom dept

As I've mentioned in the past, I'm no fan of the phrase "patent trolls," though it sometimes does serve a useful purpose. It does seem unnecessarily biasing -- and without a clear definition many people jump to the use of the phrase when it's really not appropriate. Thus, it should come as little surprise to hear that a judge (in East Texas, of course) has told a defendant he may not refer to the plaintiff suing him as a "patent troll." This actually is quite reasonable for a variety of reasons. Obviously, the term has extremely negative connotations without a clear definition, opening it up to serious misuse. Also, there isn't anything illegal about being a patent troll anyway (yet). It is bad for innovation and it's bad for the patent system -- but the reason such actions are so popular is that, for the most part, they are perfectly (if ridiculously) legal. With that in mind, focusing on name calling clearly isn't the best way to get out of the lawsuit. Still, it is rather amusing that things would reach such a level that this would even merit a judge ruling on the term.

Speaking of what to call folks who buy up dormant patents and then use them to sue actual practitioners, a friend just sent me a fascinating research paper looking at an eerie parallel to patent fights in the 19th century, when so-called "patent sharks" (seriously) bought up a bunch of dormant patents on farm equipment and then went around suing farmers who were unknowingly infringing. Yes, the similarities are striking. In fact, the parallels go even further. Right before this happened, there had been some changes in what the patent office considered patentable (just as business models and software have only recently been considered patentable). Also, other industries outside the farm equipment industry fought back to prevent any real patent reform from being enacted -- just as others outside the tech industry are now fighting against today's patent reform. Based on all of this, the paper recommends that history teaches us the way to get rid of patent trolls is the same way that the government got rid of patent sharks: get rid of the patents they prey on -- meaning (in this case) getting rid of software and business model patents.

Filed Under: east texas, patent troll