Use a Scanner with Email? You might owe this guy a thousand bucks.

[LazarX]

Patent trollers are now going after the small buisness folks as related in this Ars Technica story.

[Shadowborn]

LazarX wrote:

Patent trollers are now going after the small buisness folks as related in this Ars Technica story.

Is this Bizarro world? How are businesses that use these products infringing on the copyright? They purchase these goods/services from other companies that provide them. They don't produce them.

[Drejk]

There should be law that specifically states that any patent right that is hard to trace is void and null and active attempts to conceal it should be legally treated as relinquishing of the patent in question. It should be patent holder obligation to make it easy to be found.

[LazarX]

Shadowborn wrote:

LazarX wrote:

Patent trollers are now going after the small buisness folks as related in this Ars Technica story.

Is this Bizarro world? How are businesses that use these products infringing on the copyright? They purchase these goods/services from other companies that provide them. They don't produce them.

Basically all you have to do is create a patent on a way of doing things and get it approved, a ridiculously easy thing to do.

At that point, you can start going after all the "infringers" of your shiny new patent. Right now they're targeting small buisnesses. Now you can just ignore the suit when it comes to your door.... and face the prospect of triple damages if you wind up losing in court assuming it goes to trial.

Read the redacted letter that's sent out in the article. It's a pretty educational look at the process.

[Krome]

Another problem is the ease of filing fake patents and then suing over unaffected applications of the fake patent. If I remember right, the patent office awarded a patent for toasting bread in the late 1990s.

So anyone toasting bread since then, well... I suppose we better pay up!

[Fabius Maximus]

Sorry, could anyone please explain the whole story to me? The linked article is a mess.

[Drejk]

Also, patent offices should be subject to more strict oversight and patent office clerks should be legally punishable for accepting ridiculous, fake, baseless or trollish patents.

[LazarX]

Fabius Maximus wrote:

Sorry, could anyone please explain the whole story to me? The linked article is a mess.

Basically a company has gotten a patent for any procedure that involves scanning a document and attaching it to email. Formerly this was named Project Paperless, but since then the company has disappeared and has reissued new infringement charges under a variety of names including "Legal Department".

But essentially what they do is contact companies typically small businesses and warn them if that they are attaching scanned documents to email that they are in violation of said patent and "encourage" them to file for a license to use their patent which they charge 1,000 dollars per seat or user, with a not so subtle warning that they may face going to court for infringement if they don't pay up.

It's basically what's known as Patent Trolling, you look to patent some obscure but basic process and then look for people to sue over infringement since they are no doubt using said process.

I just checked the link again. it's displaying fine under Firefox.

[LazarX]

Shadowborn wrote:

LazarX wrote:

Patent trollers are now going after the small buisness folks as related in this Ars Technica story.

Is this Bizarro world? How are businesses that use these products infringing on the copyright? They purchase these goods/services from other companies that provide them. They don't produce them.

It's not the items themselves which are being patented. It's the actual process of scanning an item say using your Epson scanner and then attaching the scanned document to email say using Outlook or whatever email program you might be using.

You don't have to get patents for specific items, you can apparently patent procedures themselves. Like the infamous Amazon "One-Click" lawsuit of some years prior.

[Fabius Maximus]

LazarX wrote:

Fabius Maximus wrote:

Sorry, could anyone please explain the whole story to me? The linked article is a mess.

Basically a company has gotten a patent for any procedure that involves scanning a document and attaching it to email. Formerly this was named Project Paperless, but since then the company has disappeared and has reissued new infringement charges under a variety of names including "Legal Department".

But essentially what they do is contact companies typically small businesses and warn them if that they are attaching scanned documents to email that they are in violation of said patent and "encourage" them to file for a license to use their patent which they charge 1,000 dollars per seat or user, with a not so subtle warning that they may face going to court for infringement if they don't pay up.

It's basically what's known as Patent Trolling, you look to patent some obscure but basic process and then look for people to sue over infringement since they are no doubt using said process.

I just checked the link again. it's displaying fine under Firefox.

Thanks. What I meant is that the article is just horribly written. I couldn't make out how did what to whom, and why, and gave up after two paragraphs.

So, they basically act upon the mere assumption that said companies work with emailing scanned documents? (They probably do, but that has to be proven, right?)

[Krensky]

The OP linked to page 2 of the story, that probably explains your issue.

[Fabius Maximus]

Krensky wrote:

The OP linked to page 2 of the story, that probably explains your issue.

You're right. Thanks.