Ask HN: We just got patent trolled by Kelora Systems. Need Advice • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: We just got patent trolled by Kelora Systems. Need Advice

#11

Post by petervandijck » Tue, Jul 26, 2011, 7:30 PM UTC

Holy shit faceted search is now attracting patent trolls?

I would do 2 things:

1. Talk to 4 or 5 different patent laywers (for free). Learn.

2. Contact other companies that also use faceted search (everyone does) and ask to talk to the person in charge. Perhaps you can work together?

I'm pretty sure there will be prior art to the patent. The first time I saw faceted search on the web was epinions.com (2001-ish), but it's been described in depth in the 70s or earlier in library science (Ranganathan). Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: We just got patent trolled by Kelora Systems. Need Advice

#12

Post by adrianwaj » Tue, Jul 26, 2011, 7:47 PM UTC

"eBay has also counter-sued, however I am not sure how that effects how we can respond"

Contact eBay.

Re: Ask HN: We just got patent trolled by Kelora Systems. Need Advice

#13

Post by kanetrain » Tue, Jul 26, 2011, 11:32 PM UTC

We got the same letter from Kelora. It's more than just you and me too. I just sent you an email to the contact info in your bio. Give me a call.

Re: Ask HN: We just got patent trolled by Kelora Systems. Need Advice

#14

Post by therealdiego » Tue, Jul 26, 2011, 11:43 PM UTC

This particular patent was invalidated and thrown out a few years ago. Kelora, through their lawfirm, Manatt, amended it and brought it back from the dead for round 2. So Manatt is the Palo Alto firm behind this. Robert D. Becker is the attorney willing to put his name on it and grab the mom and pops out there by the goanads (they are targeting the smaller sites who don't have the where-with-all to fight the legal threat, whether there are merits or not). Nice. And patents are supposed to encourage innovation, right? Or maybe they exist so that deep pocketed lawfirms can go after every lean-running online store around and shake them down ...

Re: Ask HN: We just got patent trolled by Kelora Systems. Need Advice

#15

Post by therealdiego » Tue, Jul 26, 2011, 11:47 PM UTC

Oh, and if you've been targeted by them, reach out to me and let me know. I'm hearing that there may have been some mistakes made by this law firm in their process which may expose them to some legal dangers, themselves. If you've been targeted by them, I'd be happy to share what I know, but won't do it in a public forum. Not yet. I have been asked to help gather info that may prove very useful in a push-back, info which you may have in the letters they sent you. (Things are really heating up behind the scenes!)

Re: Ask HN: We just got patent trolled by Kelora Systems. Need Advice

#16

Post by therealdiego » Tue, Jul 26, 2011, 11:49 PM UTC

kanetrain wrote: post #13

We got the same letter from Kelora. It's more than just you and me too. I just sent you an email to the contact info in your bio. Give me a call.

oh, there are likely hundreds, if not thousands. At least, when they first tried this, last year, there appeared to have been a ton of them ...

Re: Ask HN: We just got patent trolled by Kelora Systems. Need Advice

#17

Post by therealdiego » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 12:15 AM UTC

mkull wrote: post #6

almightygod wrote: post #2

At this point you have two options, pay 150K or contact your lawyer.

Yep, the hope is that our firm does not have to spend lots of time spinning their wheels getting up to speed on this just to give us some basic advice, but I fear they will need that. If there was a firm specifically geared to dealing with IP patent trolling that would be ideal.

Do a quick search online and you'll see there's a long history around this patent and ongoing litigation with Microsoft, Ebay, Shopzilla, etc. Have it ready for your attorneys and help them get up to speed quickly. Manatt is basically giving people only 2-3 weeks to pay up until they say they'll file the lawsuit, so they're banking on your not having the time to get your stuff together. Like I said, nice people. Welcome to the mafioso world which is patent trolls.

Re: Ask HN: We just got patent trolled by Kelora Systems. Need Advice

#18

Post by epc » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 1:38 AM UTC

Faceted search over a network connected was demonstrated in a video education series (some sort of HCI distance education class) hosted by Ben Schneiderman of the university of maryland in the fall of 1992. I don't have a link or more concrete reference to give you nor any idea if that would help in this specific case.

We were using faceted search on the IBM Corporate web site in the 1998-1999 timeframe, I believe in the IBM PC “shop” site, however I no longer have any of the relevant information/documentation (IBM might).

Re: Ask HN: We just got patent trolled by Kelora Systems. Need Advice

#19

Post by epc » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 4:38 AM UTC

epc wrote: post #18

Faceted search over a network connected was demonstrated in a video education series (some sort of HCI distance education class) hosted by Ben Schneiderman of the university of maryland in the fall of 1992. I don't have a link or more concrete reference to give you nor any idea if that would help in this specific case. We were using faceted search on the IBM Corporate web site in the 1998-1999 timeframe, I believe in…

I think what I was thinking of was "Dynamic Queries: database searching by direct manipulation" which is linked off here: http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/pubs/video92.shtml. That may not be as applicable as I thought it was.

Re: Ask HN: We just got patent trolled by Kelora Systems. Need Advice

#20

Post by djhillssc » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 5:49 AM UTC

We also got the same letter/threat from Kelora Systems. Like the original poster here and countless others I've found online, we're not quite sure what to do and what our legal exposure is likely be. Curious to speak to therealdiego about what he knows behind the scenes...