Chocolatier Fights PanIP Uber-Commerce Patent 277
synerr writes "In October, Slashdot reported how PanIP sued 10 companies. Since they were so successful, they have launched 50 more lawsuits. The Ft. Wayne News-Sentinel has an article about how one local small town chocolate company, DeBrand's, is planning to fight back against San Diego based PanIP LLC's claim that they hold the patent over any automated commerce done by text and graphics on a video monitor. The owner of DeBrand's has even set up a web site to organize the different e-merchants, www.youmaybenext.com."
When will this stop? (Score:5, Interesting)
HSN? (Score:5, Interesting)
Couldn't the Home Shopping Network be prior art for this?
This will not be tolerated for long... (Score:3, Interesting)
Three words: Class Action RICO (Score:5, Interesting)
Out of court settlements don't involve the courts. (Score:3, Interesting)
Good domain (Score:4, Interesting)
Dates (Score:5, Interesting)
From About Amazon.com [amazon.com]:
Dell.com started online sales in 1995. Shouldn't spurious use of invalid patents be a criminal offense, up there with Fraud, and Extortion?And in a more ethereal manner, Redhat.com was doing online transactions (for $0, but a transaction is a transaction) as early as 1994.
~~
Self-calling lawuits? (Score:2, Interesting)
"
Now it includes a background on the cases, a discussion board, PDF copies of the original lawsuit and online donation acceptance
Online donation acceptance? Hope that doesn't breech the patent too. Ahem.
On a more serious note, a patent on "the same sort of thing that we already do, only over http" surely wasn't new, innovative or non-obvious at the time of the original application?
Hopefully the patent will be overturned...
Re:HSN? (Score:2, Interesting)
Good thing I'm using an LCD! (Score:5, Interesting)
Having skimmed the text of the patent claim, it appears to me that using an LCD monitor would be completely outside the scope of the patent:
The satellite facilities are sales and information terminals, each equipped with a CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) for receiving and displaying requested customer information from the computer's data sources at the data processing center.
So I guess all the web retailers have to do is add a disclaimer that only customers using LCDs or OLEDs are allowed to access the system!
Telling quote from PanIP's lawyer. (Score:5, Interesting)
'Though the patents may seem broad, "when you seek a patent, you try to get it as broad as possible," said Walker [PanIP's lawyer]. "You don't want to limit it to just what you think it's going to be used for."'
In other words, the point of filing for patents is to undermine innovation by making them broad enough to cover things you never thought of. To see it put so plainly into words by someone who actually supports this approach makes me sick.
_-_-_
Stupid question - what if you just ignore them? (Score:2, Interesting)
But if you did ignore them, what could they do to you?
PanIP is just one of many (Score:5, Interesting)
Amazon owns a patent for "one-click-shopping" and a bunch of other simple processes having to do with online commerce and is using its power to extort money from its competitors.
What you can do about something like this is to boycott the services and products of such companies. Amazon has plenty of competition, so does the Chicago based company.
Proletariat of the world, unite to kill unethical businesses
And what about Minitel (France) (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Rather than whining, do something constructive (Score:2, Interesting)
Someone's got to stand up to them (Score:5, Interesting)
I know of a roughly analogous situation from a few years ago involving Starbuck's. This isn't precisely analogous because unlike PanIP, Starbuck's is an actual company doing actual business selling actual products that acutally has to worry about its reputation. But the point is that they continued what they were doing until one of the little guys they were beating up on stood up to them.
I am acquainted with the monks of the All-merciful Saviour Russian Orthodox Monastery [vashonmonks.com] on Vashon Island, Washington. Like many monasteries, they have to have some source of income to support themselves. Generally this is a handcraft of some kind, but in this case it's coffee [vashonmonks.com]. Really good coffee, too. Among other roasts, they offer a seasonal blend called "Christmas Blend." So do many other small roasters. Trouble is, Starbuck's had trademarked "Christmas Blend" even though it sounds like a perfectly generic conbination of words, and a few years ago they decided to go after all the small roasters in the country who were using the phrase. Typically they would not only demand they cease and desist, but would demand all income (not just net profit) from the sale of anything called a Christmas blend. One of their victims on the East Coast overheard one of the Starbuck's lawyers remark, "We're going after the monks next," and gave the abbot a call.
The financial effects of this on the monastery would have been disastrous. Fortunately for the monastery (but unfortunately for Starbuck's) the abbot is a reformed Berkeley hippie who knows perfectly well how to put together a grass-roots campaign, and so forewarned he prepared to do just that. His PR skill, their status as a nonprofit, public disgust with a huge corporation going after a bunch small businesses, the draconian nature of their demands, and the absurdity of a group of Christian monks being forbidden to use the name of one of their own holy days for one of their products, all combined to good effect. Editorials were written, cartoons were drawn, letters of support for the monks poured in, threats of boycott were made and carried out. In the end, Starbuck's wound up abandonning their campaign entirely and threw "Christmas Blend" into the public domain, which is where many thought it should have been in the first place.
This, incidentally, is the sole reason I occasionally walk into a Starbuck's. Having once threatened to boycott them even though I had never been a regular customer of theirs, I feel I owe them some of my business since they capitulated.
The point of all this (besides trying to put in a plug for the monk's coffee [vashonmonks.com]) is that it took only a single "little guy" standing up to Starbuck's to stop them in their tracks. It worked in this case, and it may very well work for DeBrand's against PanIP too.
UPDATE: PanIP sues the chocolatiers again.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Wow! I was feeling pretty discouraged today after evaluating how much time this fight is taking me away from our business. I go from day to day wondering if the media is going to stay interested in this.
After getting the slashdot post late in the day there was an outpouring of support including many financial contributions totaling over a thousand dollars. And more are coming in as I'm typing this. I can' begin to thank you enough for your support.
I have a lot of fight in me because I believe in what I'm doing and I believe what PanIP is doing is wrong...if not criminal. The defendants that are joining me in this fight have no guarantee of the financial risk we're taking. We simply believe that if we don't stop PanIP now, it will only get harder after they've stung several hundred companies. I'm committed to fighting this so others won't have to deal with the disruption and hassles that I'm dealing with in our business.
I was notified today that PanIP has sued me with a second law suit claiming basically that my web site is defaming their reputation. Can you believe that! Apparently they think they have a patent on free speech as well as e-commerce.
Please stay tuned and help me spread the word. I need your help. We will win!
Timothy Beere
DeBrand Fine Chocolates
www.debrand.com
These guys really are pig-f*ckers, huh? Maybe someone can clue PanIP into the notion that you can't sue someone for telling the truth.