Deeplinks Blog posts about Patents
Imagine if the inventor of the Segway claimed to own “any thing that moves in response to human commands.” Or if the inventor of the telegraph applied for a patent covering any use of electric current for communication. Absurdly overbroad claims like these would not be allowed, right? Unfortunately, the Patent Office does not do a good job of policing overly broad claims. August's Stupid Patent of the Month, U.S. Patent No. 8,788,090, is a stark example of how these claims promote patent trolling.
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s June 2014 decision in Alice v. CLS Bank, most courts have been quickly and efficiently getting rid of patents that improperly claim “abstract ideas.” In Alice, the Supreme Court held that “abstract ideas,” without more, were unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 101. According to one source, at least 150 patents have had claims invalidated as “abstract” since Alice. Those accused of infringing these invalid patents have regularly filed motions to dismiss at the outset of a case, having the issue heard before too much time and energy is spent. Courts have, for the large part, embraced these “Alice motions” and invalidated abstract patents as soon as practicable.
Back in 2011, This American Life toured an office building in Marshall, Texas, and found eerie hallways of empty offices that serve as the ‘headquarters’ of patent trolls. For many, that was the first introduction to the strange world of the Eastern District of Texas, its outsized role in patent litigation and especially its effective support of the patent troll business model. Trolls love the Eastern District for its plaintiff-friendly rules, so they set up paper corporations in the district as an excuse to file suit there. Meanwhile, defendants find themselves dragged to a distant, inconvenient, and expensive forum that often has little or no connection to the dispute.
Have you recently received a patent demand letter or been hit by a lawsuit from either “Shipping and Transit, LLC” or “Electronic Communication Technologies, LLC”? Despite their current SEO-unfriendly names that make it difficult to find information, we want you to know that there’s lots of information out there related to these trolls, just under different names.
It is important that those on the receiving end of these trolls’ patent demands can find the resources they need. To that end, more information useful against both of these trolls can be found by searching for ArrivalStar (instead of “Shipping and Transit, LLC”) or Eclipse IP (instead of “Electronic Communication Technologies LLC”). And even though the names are different, the documents linked below show that for practical purposes the new trolls are closely related to the old trolls.
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