Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft's Proxy Fights (via Patent Trolls) Emerge in the Courtroom

Beer



Summary: Intellectual Ventures' connections to Lodsys are being shown to the judge by DriveTime, which also uses the recent NPR article (about Intellectual Ventures) as evidence

The Oracle vs. Google case that Groklaw keeps track of may as well be motivated by part of the cartel Google spoke about. We have already written very extensively about the relationship between Apple and Oracle. But another fascinating battle comes from Microsoft's alter ego, Intellectual Ventures (IV), which is the world's largest patent troll.



According to this new article from Groklaw, Lodsys may be also an "alter ego" of Intellectual Ventures, as we mentioned before [1, 2, 3, 4]. To quote Groklaw's Professor Webbink:

Lodsys - DriveTime Says It Suspects Lodsys is an "alter ego" of Intellectual Ventures, Asks to Do Discovery



DriveTime Automotive Group has filed a motion, Motion For Leave To Conduct Jurisdictional Discovery And To Stay Response To Motion To Dismiss, in its Arizona declaratory judgment action against Lodsys. That is a mouthful for saying they believe Lodsys does, in fact, have jurisdictional ties to Arizona (where DriveTime is located) and that they should be allowed the opportunity to conduct limited discovery against Lodsys for the purpose of proving that point before the court simply grants Lodsys' motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction

DriveTime is asking the Arizona federal district court to let it do discovery to flush out any Intellectual Ventures ties to Lodsys. DriveTimes says they "strongly suspect, as do others, that Lodsys is a spin-off and the alter ego of a company called Intellectual Ventures (“IV”), known as “patent troll public enemy #1.”

It quotes from the recent NPR article implying such a connection, and attaches it as an exhibit [PDF], and it describes how patent trolling works, saying that trolls often assert baseless claims, and it says that Lodsys's claims against it are precisely that, baseless. So it would like to do discovery to flush out all the secret corners of the claim against it:
DriveTime seeks leave to conduct jurisdictional discovery because much of Lodsys’s licensing and enforcement efforts, and certainly its relationship with IV, are not a matter of public record. Specifically, DriveTime seeks permission to take written discovery and depositions on the following:

* (i) Lodsys’s licensing and enforcement activities in Arizona and/or with companies residing and/or doing substantial business in Arizona, including the nature of those licenses and whether they include any affirmative obligations on the part of Lodsys; * (ii) Lodsys’s qualification as a patent troll that has attempted to manufacture jurisdiction in the Eastern District; * (iii) the relationship between Lodsys and IV, and IV’s contacts with Arizona; and * (iv) the baseless nature of Lodsys’s infringement claims in its cease and desist letters.

Such discovery will uncover facts to demonstrate this Court has jurisdiction over Lodsys.
If the judge agrees, it looks like we'll finally get evidence one way or the other regarding the Intellectual Ventures' connection.


There are all sorts of patent trolls at play and they are being used by real companies (with products) to launch legal attacks on the competition. This way they can pretend not to use their patents offensively and they cannot be sued back, either. One of the trolls which gets used by Apple and Microsoft is MPEG-LA, which is generally busy attacking Google, with support from Microsoft boosters. By E-mail correspondence we are starting to piece together an accurate picture of which company uses which troll/s. We'll publish the details about this some time this year (some mail is explicitly confidential and some is out of date or inaccurate, so more research or organisation is required).

Yesterday Eben Moglen was quotes as saying that the "big challenge is software patents.

"Companies are acquiring munitions to destroy Linux. We've been preparing for this 2 decades..."

Recent Techrights' Posts

Ensuring That Every Computer User Anywhere in the World Can Take Control of All His or Her Computers
We must fight the people who attack general-purpose computing, in particular those who push this agenda very aggressively inside Linux
What Happened to the Open Source Initiative (OSI) Elections: The Purge, the Cover-up, and the Witch-hunts
OSI has gone "full Microsoft"
 
Gemini Links 28/04/2025: Autism and Structural Navigation
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, April 27, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, April 27, 2025
In 24 Countries Observed by statCounter Vista 11 is Still Less Than a Quarter of Windows Users Despite All Other Versions Being 'Expired'
They ought to move to GNU/Linux
Links 27/04/2025: Pope Goodbyes, "Politics of Fear", Slop Redux and More Google Shutdowns (Google Debt Had Grown This Year)
Links for the day
Links 27/04/2025: Serenity Dialectics, Hockey Jersey Ethics, and More
Links for the day
Links 27/04/2025: Death of Nest Thermostats, Death of Metaverse
Links for the day
Links 27/04/2025: Projects Workflow and Discovering Technology
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, April 26, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, April 26, 2025
Microsoft Isn't on the Map in USSR
To them, it's either Google or Yandex
In Central America Windows Became a Small Force
These are countries where Windows used to have well over 95% of the "market"
What's Very Vexing to GAFAM, EPO and Others Is That It's Incredibly Hard to Censor Us (and Nobody Ever Successfully Did That Before)
resist, do not capitulate
Site May be Even Faster Now
It basically takes less than a tenth of a second to serve the page
Receiving SLAPPs and Collecting Them Like Trophies (the SLAPPs Always Fail)
People who file lawsuits bring even more attention to themselves (or to embarrassing statements about them)
Year of GNU/Linux on the Laptop?
It's not happening only in Lenovo
What People Must Understand About the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
some facts about the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
Many of the Scandals Are Interconnected (Overlapping People and Corporations)
We're only getting started
More Copyright Lawsuits Against LLM Slop Providers and Suppliers of LLM Slopfarms Would Benefit Society
It's not just bad for the Web and for society; it's also legally dangerous
Links 26/04/2025: General Assassinated in the Town of Balashikha, US Promoting Seafloor Mining
Links for the day
Links 26/04/2025: Facebook Layoffs Again, Remembering What's Real, and Say No to Mass Surveillance
Links for the day
Links 26/04/2025: NOAA Budget Cuts and "Dog Days Ahead"
Links for the day
In defence of JD Vance, death of Pope Francis
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Three Years in Prison for Disney Employee’s ‘Menu Hacking’: The Economic Fallout of Digital Menus
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, April 25, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, April 25, 2025