PanIP Drops E-commerce Patent Lawsuits 104
Darlok writes "Back in October 2002, PanIP sued 50 small businesses, claiming patents over basic E-commerce functions. One of the defendents set up a group defense fund, and in the last week, contributors to that fund have been notified by e-mail and this notice on the fund's homepage that PanIP has agreed to drop its lawsuits without any licenses being issued. The U.S. Patent Office is currently reviewing the patents in question. Hopefully this will set some sort of precedent ..."
Precedents (Score:5, Insightful)
As an aside, I like the choice of "www.youmaybenext.com" for the fund's homepage. I wonder what the next ridiculous patent lawsuit will be for? I smell a new poll.
Win the battle, retreat from the war? (Score:5, Insightful)
To me, this is not a result the outside world should be cheering. It's a settlement that protects the asse(t)s of the group members, but it's not a knockout blow to PanIP. PanIP is giving up nothing but the right to pursue an appeal that they weren't likely to lose and create an even stronger precedent. The PGDF is giving up the chance to extract real money from PanIP.
Boo! Hiss! Bad move!
The PGDF shuuld not be folding. Just because their orginal case has been settled does not mean they have become pointless. They should be seeing through that the patents be invalidated, and keeping the group in existance so that anybody sued by PanIP in the future could get quick and easy access to the resources that worked before.
As their website domain has always said, you could be next to be sued by PanIP if you're doing basic e-commerce on the Web. And nothing in this settlement prevents that happening. PanIP's plan may be to just let this group fade away, and then sue another group of defendants hoping that they don't join together into a large enough group to squash them like a bug again. It's a little too early to be putting the fly swatter away.
Probably not... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, it doesn't set any sort of legal precedent and since businesses are, except in the extremely rare case, demonstrably amoral I wouldn't expect any sort of karmic-rub off on other companies, either.
Businesses are beholden to their shareholders. If shareholder valuation can be increased via protection of patents then the company has a fiduciary duty to pursue that course of action. To not do so would be neglicent and could open the company up to a shareholder lawsuit.
Re:Great News! (Score:5, Insightful)
Precedent (Score:2, Insightful)
Nothing new here, move along . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
What kind of precedent? Patent defense consortia have been routine practices in defending against agressive plaintiffs seeking to take fundamental control of key industry elements. When this was first raised, I pointed out the various routes to shut down an overactive plaintiff: reexamination regarding prior art, joint defense agreements and joining forces to share costs of a legal defense. All of those happened and it worked.
This isn't new, it's routine.
And who wins again? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Win the battle, retreat from the war? (Score:2, Insightful)
No. They should be getting back to running their businesses. End.
Re:Precedents (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously though, it does set a very important precedent--namely, that other companies sitting in PanIP's sights can and ought to fight back, because
PanIP doesn't appear eager to see itself in court.
Know thy enemy, and all that...
Precedence (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah. It sets the precedent that small businesses should work together to establish a "technology, business process and other silly patents defense fund" to deter such behavior in the future.
Re:And who wins again? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:And who wins again? (Score:2, Insightful)
I simply pointed out the problems with this hypothetical.
There are several instances in our current legal system which need lawyers. There are also instances in which lawyers waste a lot of people's time and money. (Some might use a different word than waste.)
I would also suggest that there may be a better way of going about these things without lawyers as we know them today. Some huge shifts in how government and society operates could be discussed. This seems out of scope for this discussion. And if you are the same Anonymous Coward who replied to my original post, you would probably just flame me and make personal attacks if I even initiated such a discussion. (I base this on empirical evidence, of course. I could be wrong.)
The actual details (Score:2, Insightful)
You do not know the actual details.
"McDonald's was told repeatedly before this incident that they served coffee way too hot, something like 10-20F above the average"
Actually, that is the recommended serving temperature. McDonald's was selling coffee at the recommended serving temperature, which was how the customers wanted it. A detail you did not know.
"This lady just wanted a very small amount for medical bills"
But it was entirely her fault, since she dumped it. Another detail you overlook.
McDonald's bascially told her to go screw herself
As it should to anyone who begs for money with no reason.
the end McDonalds was slapped with such a big fine because they were so far out of line with how they served the coffee in general
Except they were entirely in line! A detail you forget. If you look at the miniscule number of burns per # of cups sold, it is something like a staggering 1 in 25,000,000.
After McDonald's was forced to serve the coffee too cold, the complaints greatly increased. Only after the frivolous lawsuit were they forced to be "out of line".
Re:And who wins again? (Score:3, Insightful)
However, one has to start thinking that something is fundamentally wrong when so much time, effort and money go in to something which produces absolutely nothing.
(I'm not going to focus on who's to blame, the lawyers who do the work, the CEOs who want it done... etc)
If you follow the thread of a somewhat less eloquent poster who replied to this, I suggest there may be other alternatives (those I state none specifically) but I think we need to start looking at things in our legal system and change a lot of how we currently do things. (granted this may take another hundred or thousand years or more, if we're able to survive that long.)
I'm just saying there is a problem. I don't have the answers, but we need to acknowledge this as a first step anyway.
Re:The bad stuff cancels out (Score:3, Insightful)