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Another Patent Troll Slain. You Are Now Free to Rotate Your Smartphone

rackspace.com

11–20 of 42 posts

Re: Another Patent Troll Slain. You Are Now Free to Rotate Your Smartphone

#11
post #3

"Rotatable sued us and immediately asked for $75,000 to go away. We refused. And we fought. It’s Rackspace policy to not pay off patent trolls, even if it costs us more to fight. Eventually Rotatable offered to just walk away – but we refused again. Just as we promised last year, we challenged the patent and the USPTO invalidated it. This means that Rackspace will not pay one penny to this troll, nor will Apple, Netf…

What? Apple, Google and Microsoft?

Two of those companies are recurrent patent trolls, and the third isn't in a clear-cut situation at all. Why would they create a found to fight trolls?

Re: Another Patent Troll Slain. You Are Now Free to Rotate Your Smartphone

#12
post #3

"Rotatable sued us and immediately asked for $75,000 to go away. We refused. And we fought. It’s Rackspace policy to not pay off patent trolls, even if it costs us more to fight. Eventually Rotatable offered to just walk away – but we refused again. Just as we promised last year, we challenged the patent and the USPTO invalidated it. This means that Rackspace will not pay one penny to this troll, nor will Apple, Netf…

What? Apple, Google and Microsoft? Two of those companies are recurrent patent trolls, and the third isn't in a clear-cut situation at all. Why would they create a found to fight trolls?

Two of them might be patent aggressors, but none of them have much history as patent trolls (nonpracticing entities).

Re: Another Patent Troll Slain. You Are Now Free to Rotate Your Smartphone

#13
post #3

"Rotatable sued us and immediately asked for $75,000 to go away. We refused. And we fought. It’s Rackspace policy to not pay off patent trolls, even if it costs us more to fight. Eventually Rotatable offered to just walk away – but we refused again. Just as we promised last year, we challenged the patent and the USPTO invalidated it. This means that Rackspace will not pay one penny to this troll, nor will Apple, Netf…

going to go with the idea that joint defense funds don't exist because members would probably want their work protected. trying to find sufficient companies who are altruistic might be harder than making sense of the Patent Office

Re: Another Patent Troll Slain. You Are Now Free to Rotate Your Smartphone

#14
Startups can pool together to fight these guys. My company, Life360 got sued after raising $50m. They thought this meant we had money to write checks from, but instead we decided to use it to fight.

We're basically being sued for allowing you to click a marker on a map initiating a phone call.

This obviously should never have been patented, so we are doing all the legal defense work and sharing it with the startup community.

See www.stopagis.com if you want to see how we really pissed off our troll.

And public shaming also works, the CEO of our troll didn't own his domain, so we bought it and drive traffic to the site whenever people search for his name (Malcolm Beyer www.malcolmbeyer.com). They don't like that we "aren't playing by the rules".

Re: Another Patent Troll Slain. You Are Now Free to Rotate Your Smartphone

#15
post #3

"Rotatable sued us and immediately asked for $75,000 to go away. We refused. And we fought. It’s Rackspace policy to not pay off patent trolls, even if it costs us more to fight. Eventually Rotatable offered to just walk away – but we refused again. Just as we promised last year, we challenged the patent and the USPTO invalidated it. This means that Rackspace will not pay one penny to this troll, nor will Apple, Netf…

> It surprises me why there aren't joint defense funding efforts in place to put these industry pests to bed... Or at least Troll Defense Insurance

Heh - I can see this turning out just like the auto repair insurance rorting industry. I fully expect if Troll Defense Insurance becomes "a thing", the first question a patent lawyer will ask you before indicating a price will be "Insurance job? Or private?"...

Re: Another Patent Troll Slain. You Are Now Free to Rotate Your Smartphone

#17
post #14

Startups can pool together to fight these guys. My company, Life360 got sued after raising $50m. They thought this meant we had money to write checks from, but instead we decided to use it to fight. We're basically being sued for allowing you to click a marker on a map initiating a phone call. This obviously should never have been patented, so we are doing all the legal defense work and sharing it with the startup co…

Wonder if it's possible to sue the patent clerk that admitted the patent application in the first place. Keep the fight even further from the homeland.

Re: Another Patent Troll Slain. You Are Now Free to Rotate Your Smartphone

#18
post #14

Startups can pool together to fight these guys. My company, Life360 got sued after raising $50m. They thought this meant we had money to write checks from, but instead we decided to use it to fight. We're basically being sued for allowing you to click a marker on a map initiating a phone call. This obviously should never have been patented, so we are doing all the legal defense work and sharing it with the startup co…

It's really mind blowing how thick faced these patent trolls really are, making money off by literally a mafioso like shakedown.

Great job man. And what a great move, buying a name with his domain name. Keep the fight going.

Re: Another Patent Troll Slain. You Are Now Free to Rotate Your Smartphone

#19
post #3

"Rotatable sued us and immediately asked for $75,000 to go away. We refused. And we fought. It’s Rackspace policy to not pay off patent trolls, even if it costs us more to fight. Eventually Rotatable offered to just walk away – but we refused again. Just as we promised last year, we challenged the patent and the USPTO invalidated it. This means that Rackspace will not pay one penny to this troll, nor will Apple, Netf…

> It surprises me why there aren't joint defense funding efforts in place to put these industry pests to bed...

Wasn't that the original business model of Intellectual Ventures?

Re: Another Patent Troll Slain. You Are Now Free to Rotate Your Smartphone

#20
post #14

Startups can pool together to fight these guys. My company, Life360 got sued after raising $50m. They thought this meant we had money to write checks from, but instead we decided to use it to fight. We're basically being sued for allowing you to click a marker on a map initiating a phone call. This obviously should never have been patented, so we are doing all the legal defense work and sharing it with the startup co…

Hello, I just made a blog post about this for my Networks class. If you are interested, here is the link

http://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2014/09/23/to-slain-or-not...

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