On Cisco's Novel, Aggressive Approach to Patent Trolls ...

By Ashby Jones

The universe of options for companies fighting with ?non-practicing entities? (aka ?patent trolls?) is regarded as being fairly limited.

Companies typically just defend themselves when named as defendants in lawsuits by NPEs, which?buy up patents and seek to make money from them through licensing and litigation. Occasionally, companies have pre-emptively asked a judge to declare either that a particular NPE patent is invalid or that no infringement took place.

But Cisco Systems Inc. is trying a different, more aggressive approach. Cisco is filing claims against NPEs, accusing them of breaking the law.

Cisco?s suit against Chicago-based Innovatio IP Ventures LLC makes an interesting example. In that case, Cisco is targeting a tactic that some NPEs have employed in recent years. Rather than allege that a big technology company has infringed one or more of their patents, Innovatio and other NPEs have gone after the tech company?s customers.

Cisco, which is based in San Jose, Calif., and co-plaintiffs Netgear Inc. and Motorola Solutions Inc. , claim that Innovatio has sent 8,000 ?threatening? letters to coffee chains, hotels and other retailers using Wi-Fi equipment that includes the three companies? technologies.

Innovatio?s tactics, Cisco argues in its lawsuit, are ?misleading, fraudulent and unlawful.? It says they effectively amount to an extortion scheme, and therefore violate federal anti-racketeering laws.

Innovatio said it ?categorically? denies Cisco?s allegations. ?Cisco?s claims are long on rhetoric and hyperbole and short on the facts and law,? said Matthew McAndrews, a lawyer for Innovatio, in a statement. Mr. McAndrews said Innovatio this week will ask James F. Holderman, the federal judge overseeing the case, to dismiss the claims.

Patent experts and lawyers are watching the two cases closely.

?A win by Cisco isn?t necessarily going to stop the NPE industry in its tracks,? said Ann Fort, a defense lawyer in Atlanta who isn?t involved in the cases. ?But it could halt some of the tactics used by NPEs, like going after companies? customers.?

To win in court, Cisco must prove not only that Innovatio?s claims were bogus, but that Innovatio knew they were bogus, said Daniel Ravicher, a law professor at Cardozo School of Law in New York. ?That?s hard to do,? he said. ?I really don?t think this is a tactic that?s going to get very far.?

But others have higher hopes for Cisco?s approach. ?Sometimes, lawsuits are about how much damage you can threaten in order to change behavior,? said Robin Feldman, a law professor at the University of California?s Hastings College of the Law and author of a recent book on patents. ?At the very least, Cisco might get that. Or it could get a sympathetic judge or jury that takes Cisco?s case and runs with it.?

Source: Wall Street Journal

Source: http://justasklegal.com/on-cisco%E2%80%99s-novel-aggressive-approach-to-patent-trolls/7600/

groundhog phil pee wee herman ketamine ground hogs day 2012 goundhog day punxsutawney facebook ipo