July 16, 2010
Israel based software company Finjan has sued five rival security companies, including Symantec and McAfee, Webroot Software, Websense and Sophos.
In a lawsuit filed Monday in the U.S. District Court of Delaware, Finjan, claims that products of the defendants including McAfee’s Web Gateway and VirusScan software, Symantec’s Brightmail Gateway and Norton Antivirus all infringe core technology patents for antivirus products and security services that are held by Finjan.
Formerly a technology vendor, Finjan has sold out to M86, another security company, but still owns a patent portfolio, of about a dozen patents that are related to computer security. The company is now trying to claim royalties from these patents.
In 2008, Finjan won a jury verdict of 9.2 million dollars against Secure Computing which is now owned by McAfee.Having demonstrated that Secure Computing’s software packages Webwasher and CyberGuard TSP were infringed, A federal judge then increased the damages awarded to $13.8 million.
The company has asked the court to award unspecified financial damages and an injunction preventing the companies from selling their products.
COMMENT
Since the company no longer manufacturers, there is no longer the mutual destruction arrangement favoured by the high-tech world as an in-built mechanism to prevent companies going after injunctions. That said, it is clear that as they no-longer have a market share, Finjan have no interest in preventing others from using their patents. They simply want a reasonable royalty. It seems to me that it is not non-practicing entities that are the problem , but that there is no simple means to calculate fair royalties and to ensure that alleged infringers swiftly identify if they do indeed infringe, and, if so, that they enter into licensing negotiations in good faith.
I think that the cost of litigation in the US is the real problem, not that entities enforce their patents. Identifying and buying up patents to enforce (trolling) is not morally different from a litigating law firm working such cases on a percentage, or a university – which is typically a non-profit organization that benefits from the tax-payer and from philanthropic donations – from filing and then licensing its patents. These business models are acceptable in a free market. Patents are not licenses to manufacture. They merely provide exclusion rights and using them for that purpose is legitimate. Trading in patents is based on the exclusion right being enforceable. The ownersof this patent, if they manage to collect royalties, will no-doubt invest the money back into the economy. Transferrring patent rights to those that need it by licensing, and reinvesting resources is the basis of business. Good luck to them. Shame I don’t have shares.
Leave a Comment » | 
Israel, Israel Related, Licensing, NPE, infringement, software Patents, telecommunications | 
Permalink
Posted by Michael Factor
December 7, 2009
Israeli technology company Emblaze Ltd. has accused Apple Inc. of patent infringement. the allegations concern a live video-streaming application that the technology giant plans to provide for its iPhone and iPod Touch.
It is not clear which application is intended, but Apple approved an application last week called “Knocking”, that is the first to allow live video streaming, on the 3G network, directly from one device to another.
Meanwhile, Emblaze recently announced its own mobile platform, known as ELSE, that will allegedly integrate the patented technology for streaming video between devices. Emblaze has announced that it is open to licensing its technology to Apple but has set a deadline at December 15th for the iPhone maker to respond.
1 Comment | Intellectual Property, Internet, Israel, News, Patents, telecommunications | Permalink
Posted by Michael Factor
November 1, 2009
Israeli start-up Red Bend Software Inc. has filed suite against Google Inc. for patent infringement over Google’s Chrome browser, with the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts in Boston.
Red Bend develops software for remote updating mobile content and managing connectivity between devices. The Israeli company claims that Chrome includes an algorithm that, for some reason beyond me, is called Courgette, that enables Google to distribute partial software updates. Courgette allegedly infringes a Red Bend patent registered in April 2003, on technology which enables wireless carriers to efficiently distribute updates for mobile-phone software. Red Bend is claiming willful infringement and thus triple damages.
Disclaimer: I have no first hand knowledge or opinion as to whether Chrome infringes Red Bend’s software. For the record, I also have no opinion regarding Chrome, although as a Materials Scientist, prefer the more formal Chromium. As to Courgettes (zucchini), personally I prefer them to the light green kishu that is more commonly available in Israel.
2 Comments | Intellectual Property, Internet, Israel, Israel IP, Israel Related, News, Patents, infringement, software Patents, telecommunications | Permalink
Posted by Michael Factor
August 23, 2009
In a 2006 lawsuit, Finjan accused Secure Computing of infringing patents for thwarting hostile downloads. In March 2008, a federal jury in Delaware awarded Finjan $9 million in damages. Secure Computing was bought in November 2008 by McAfee, which reported sales of $1.6 billion in 2008.
The jury ruled that patents owned by Finjan, a company based in Netanya, Israel, were intentionally infringed, and according to an opinion by U.S. District Judge Gregory M. Sleet, Finjan has suffered irreparable harm and deserves Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Intellectual Property, News, Patents, infringement, software Patents, telecommunications, trademarks | Permalink
Posted by Michael Factor
March 17, 2009
The Bulgarian Chess Federation banned ChessBase, the world’s biggest online chess portal, from broadcasting a match live, citing copyright infringement.
This raises fascinating issues.
Generally, sports broadcasting has been copyright protected – see, for example, Israeli Supreme Court’s Tele-Event decision. Usually, some creativity on the part of the cameraman or editor is used as justification for awarding protection.
In this instance, ChessBase was steaming the moves using a text format notation and thus did not have any creative input whatsoever. If the moves themselves are considered copyright, then the rights are presumably property of the player and not the federation hostig a championship.
One assumes that noone is serious advocating that a move first played by someone cannot be played by another player until the creator has been dead for seventy years?
It does seem unlikely that a braodcaster requires the federation’s permission. On the other hand, why shouldn’t a hosting organization be able to maintain at least short term braodcasting rights of the moves?
”They issued a cease and desist, and we complied,” stated ChessBase co-founder Frederic Friedel. “It is too expensive, time-wise, to get involved in protracted lawsuits with Bulgarians, and there is little to gain, monetarily, from a victory.” Is this simply a case of copyright abuse?
Leave a Comment » | Copyright, Opinion, telecommunications | Permalink
Posted by Michael Factor
June 22, 2007
More than 100 artists launched musicFIRST last week. MusicFIRST is a lobbying group with the single agenda of trying to get Congress to enact copyright legislation to force radio stations to pay royalties when broadcasting music.
Under current US legislation, Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Copyright, Intellectual Property, News, Opinion, telecommunication, telecommunications | Permalink
Posted by Michael Factor
May 15, 2007
In an interview with Fortune Magazine, Microsoft lawyer Brad Smith alleged that the Linux kernel violates 42 Microsoft patents, while its user-interface and other elements infringe a further 65 patents. OpenOffice.org is accused of Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Internet, News, Opinion, Patent trivia, Patents, US, software Patents, telecommunications | Permalink
Posted by Michael Factor
