Patent trolls want $1,000 per employee for using scanners

I personally hope the patent law abuse gets to the point that it destroys the entire patent system. So go for it. Sue schools, the elderly, whatever.

The article mentions that it is hard to invalidate patents with prior art and that the patent holders will say that it is a narrower scope than previous patents. If that is the case, I can't see how this isn't extortion. There is no way that these "companies" could know the kind of network that the companies they are sending letters to use. They may be just guessing that they are even using a scanner. They are just mass mailing threats and hoping for money back.<p>Also, how is it even legal to target the users of technology in a patent infringement case like this? Wouldn't the manufactures (of hardware AND software) be the ones that would need to license the patent, not end users? I get why you would target the end user but is that legal/valid?

It would help in cases like this if:<p>a.) the litigant was not allowed to dismiss the suit without the consent of the defendant, and<p>b.) there was some mechanism whereby anybody who was subsequently sued on the basis of the same basic claims of infringement of the same patent could use the result of the first case as part of their defense. (E.g., unless the original verdict was overturned on appeal, the plaintiff would have to make some new novel claims that were not part of the original case when suing their next victim.)<p>This would require changes to the law, but not nearly such drastic change as abolishing the patent system entirely (which I think is scheduled to happen right around the time the USA switches to the metric system).<p>I was the victim of a very similar shakedown tactic at the hands of DirecTV in 2002. They had hired (sorry, "successfully lobbied to obtain the services of") the US Marshals to raid some small companies that sold smart card programming gear. DirecTV then got their marshal pals to copy the companies' customer databases, and then systematically went after the end users, threatening to sue unless the users paid up $5k to 'settle'.<p>In my case, our company had indeed bought some smart card programming gear, but I was incensed and inclined to fight (as it sounds like the protagonist of this Ars story was). But the only "fight" we were able to effect was to have our lawyers write a letter (basically, "fuck you, we program smart cards, bring it on") to make them go away <i>for us</i>. They abandoned their threat to sue us, but this didn't affect any of the thousands of other people they were going after with the same exact scam.<p>Our patent system would be better if the law forced the litigant to a conclusion once a patent suit was brought, and <i>also</i> made it much harder to repeat the same shakedown once one victim had successfully fought it and won.<p>That's not to say it would <i>fix</i> the problem of patent trolls, but since it would weaken the <i>patent itself</i> (once somebody had the balls and money to fight a bullshit patent shakedown and win) we wouldn't have to give a shit how many shell companies Myrvhold and similar parasites have. (We'd only have to give a shit that they have millions of unique B.S. patents.)

$1,000 per employee is the most bogus request I've ever heard in my life. Even if the concept were patentable, I'd say a reasonable demand would be $1 per Internet-capable scanner sold.<p>The patent trolls should really read Joel Spolsky's guide on pricing enterprise software. Saving $200,000 is worth hiring some lawyers to fuck you up. Saving $75 isn't.

One simple reform to the patent system would be to force an <i>automatic</i> review of any patent involved in a lawsuit where the patent might be rendered invalid before the court needs to weigh in on the matter.<p>Right now the court needs to decide if the patent is enforceable, which seems like it's basically doing the job the patent issuing entity should've done in the first place.

&#62; the only variations are the six-letter name of the shell company and the royalty demands<p>This sounds a lot like the automated, python-scripted corporations in Stross's Accelerando.

Major root cause that could be fixed without hurting anyone other than patent trolls: the relatively anonymous registration of patents. If I'm being threatened with a lawsuit for patent infringement, how can I not find out the owners of the patents? That is crazy.<p>If you want to leverage a patent, you should have to be registered with the patent office so that you can be held accountable. Anyone using a patent for legit reasons wouldn't be hampered by this, but it would make hunting down patent trolls a whole lot easier.

In my experience, these places don't actually make any money, so fear not. I did some database consulting work for a company that was in a similar business a few years back. They wound up shutting down after about six weeks because no one bothered paying them. Out of more than $12 million in demands, they received less than $4,000 after sending their first batch. That was when they decided to shut down. I suspect something similar will happen with these guys and anyone that follows them.

Why the heck aren't the hardware manufacturers stepping up on this one? Why should I pay HP/Xerox/Canon/Ricoh thousands for using their manufactured hardware when it does not cover the ability to use it?<p>I realize being a hacker news reader/tech person means I would know better, but wouldn't some of these people think to themselves "Why isn't this cost included into the hardware?". And why aren't the manufacturers that profit from this type of hardware stepping up as it has the chance to discourage people from buying their stuff.

Maybe I should do an AMA on my work for a patent attorney. It would get boring because his MO seems to be to only sue companies that negotiate license deals in "bad faith", and nowhere near the frivolous action seen in here. Most of his work is in filing patents.<p>The last conversation we had was actually about supporting the EFF, so I'm sure that is quite telling to what direction we're heading.

It strikes me that one root cause of the patent troll problem, besides unscrupulous trolls and their evil lawyers, is idiot patent examiners who would allow patenting the process of drinking a cup of coffee of morning if there was no prior art on file on the subject.<p>It all comes down to incentives. Good patent lawyers know they can make big bucks working in private practice (possibly for trolls), whilst mediocre ones happy with a government salary go ... where else? ... the USPTO.

Could someone (or has someone already tried to) patent the process of patent trolling? I know that such a patent shouldn't be granted because the idea obviously isn't original but it seems as though there are so many bogus patents sneaking through the cracks that it could be possible. It would be nice if there was someone you could call to troll the trolls.

Now we know the format of the letters I'm waiting for anonymous to send a bunch of letters to every member of US legislature.

This is just disgusting. Well, here's their contact, facebook, and twitter information if anyone wants to get in touch with them for services! Contact: <a href="http://www.hkw-law.com/contact" rel="nofollow">http://www.hkw-law.com/contact</a> Facebook: <a href="http://www.facebook.com/hkwlaw" rel="nofollow">http://www.facebook.com/hkwlaw</a> Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/atllawfirm" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/atllawfirm</a>

We got hit with one of these letters. I read through it and it was clear that we weren't actually infringing -- it only applied to the use of distribution to employees via the scanner. Luckily that functionality is pretty much impossible to make work on the Brother MFC that we have. We had our lawyer send back a note saying that we weren't infringing and that was the end of it. My guess is that showing that you are actually paying attention and have a competent attorney is a good way to avoid getting victimized (at least some of the time).

I'm not fully certain and I would love some verification/counter-argument, but wouldn't the new Public Use Anywhere in the World aspect invalidate atleast some of the garbage patents like the one discussed in the article? <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesleadershipforum/2012/11/15/a-powerful-new-weapon-against-patent-trolls/" rel="nofollow">http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesleadershipforum/2012/11/15...</a>

I don't know about the different kinds of patents, but shouldn't the printer manufacturers be paying up licensing fees?

The clock is ticking for these patent trolls, scanners will soon become completely useless (posted on HN yesterday) <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/02/google-expensify-paperless-2013/" rel="nofollow">http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/02/google-expensify-paperless-...</a>

Couldn't someone end this by gettingt a business process patent on patent trolling?

I'm on the edge of my seat waiting for them to send one of these extortion notices to the wrong guy who will get enraged enough to shoot up their office.<p>I wonder if a chain of such shootings would set a precedent for change.

Yet another patent troll nonsense. Who needs scanners anyway... maybe people will come to their senses and stop printing signing &#38; scanning... a waste of paper, energy and precision!

It would be interesting to see if you could pursue a case of legal malpractice against the firm which took this case to the patent office in the first place.

Ob. SMBC<p><a href="http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&#38;id=2761#comic" rel="nofollow">http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&#38;id=2761#c...</a>

Politicians aren't going to do anything about patent trolls until politicians start getting threatened and/or sued by patent trolls.

honest question - does the united states not have barratry laws? why do they not cover cases like this?

So who has the patent on patent trolling?