The Wall Street Journal reported on December 13, 2010 that U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman in Seattle dismissed Paul Allen's patent lawsuit against many of the leading companies in Silicon Valley including Google, Apple, Facebook and Yahoo. Judge Pechman dismissed the complaint for not describing its allegations specifically enough. Paul Allen has until December 28 to amend the complaint.
Categories: Interval Research, Patent Landscape, Patent Litigation
A recent Wall Street Journal article discussed the recent multi-year increase in patent infringement lawsuits and corporate risk. Although this trend is most prevalent in the high-technology sector, economic and strategic realities are forcing corporate and outside counsel to find new methods to control the time and expense allocated to patent risk management.
On August 12, 2010, Oracle America, Inc. (Oracle) filed suit against Google, Inc. in the Northern District of California claiming that Google's Android operating system infringes 7 "Java" patents owned by Oracle America, a subsidiary of Oracle Corporation. These Java patents are owned by Sun Microsystems which was acquired by Oracle in January 2010.
M86Security has filed a patent lawsuit in Delaware against McAfee, Symantec, Webroot Software, Websense and Sophos alledging infringement of two "hostile downloadables" patents owned by Finjan Software. Representing M86Security is Philip A. Rovner of Potter Anderson and Corroon LLP and Paul J. Andre of King and Spaulding. Finjan was acquired by M86Security in November 2009. M86Security describes itself as "... the largest provider of Secure Web Gateways and the largest independent provider of Web and e-mail content security in the world. Four leading technology companies have merged to become a full-service, single source provider of Web and e-mail gateway security, encryption and DLP solutions."
Fresh from a post about the 9-digit VirnetX Microsoft patent litigation settlement by IPVision executive and Sloan School of Management faculty member Joe Hadzima, VirnetX announced that they are moving from microcap status to inclusion in the broader Russell 3000 index. In addition, VirnetX is issuing a special dividend of $.50 per share for shareholders of record on July 1.
The phrase "patent landscape" has become quite popular amongst the patent specialists and patent expert set. Their gravitation to the term is well-founded given the importance of IP rights to corporate success.
Patent risk profiles of corporations have dramatically shifted given two recent patent litigation dynamics:
The first dynamic is economic and includes a range of strategic and financial investors, including for example the well-known Intellectual Ventures, and others such as Juridica and Altititude Capital. These investors and an increasing number of firms see opportunities in the exclusionary rights provided by patents to obtain high-risk / high-reward economic returns.
The second dynamic is legal - driven by court decisions that incent patent plaintiffs to file first and negotiate second (the reverse of historical tendencies).
Ellen Rosen of Bloomberg Businessweek reported today that Microsoft paid $200 million to settle patent litigation brought by VirnetX Holdings Corporation in February 2007. VirnetX alleged that Microsoft infringed two VirnetX U.S. patents that covered the Virtual Private Network (VPN) technology contained in Microsoft Windows and Officer Server products.
