

Patent Troll suing coffee shops, restaurants or hotels for offering Wifi - mikeocool
http://patentexaminer.org/2011/09/innovatios-infringement-suit-rampage-expands-to-corporate-hotels/

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monochromatic
How the hell do you write an article like this without even mentioning _what
patent they're suing on_?

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eli
From the court filing:

 _U.S. Patent No. 6,714,559 (“the ‘559 Patent”) titled “Redundant Radio
Frequency Network Having A Roaming Terminal Communication Protocol.”_

Linked:
[http://www.google.com/patents?id=zi8SAAAAEBAJ&printsec=a...](http://www.google.com/patents?id=zi8SAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&source=gbs_overview_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false)

I am neither a lawyer nor an RF expert, but it looks pretty bogus to me.

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cube13
I can see how Cisco, Motorola, or any of the 802.11 equipment providers could
be infringing on this patent. It doesn't make much sense to not be suing
them... Oh, wait. Motorola and Cisco are suing these bastards.

I'm also not sure why they're not suing McDonalds, since they also provide
free WiFi, and are located in Oak Brook. Probably because McDonalds would
crush them in court.

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TheCapn
That's exactly the point. They pick "victims" that would potentially be able
to fight off the lawsuits in court but to do so would cost more than to just
settle.

A company like McDonalds keeps lawyers on retainer and are paying them
regardless of whether they're battling patent trolls at the time or not so
they'd be guaranteed to meet in court.

Having the "loser" of a frivolous suit in court pay the other's fees would
resolve this issue in a hurry.

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chrislomax
These people are literally selling their souls for money. It's a cliche but
seriously, how do these people sleep at night?

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blantonl
more importantly, at what point did a group of folks, presumably sitting
around a conference table, make the conscious decision to execute this type of
strategy?

Motorola and Cisco have jumped in, and expect others with vested interests
(Google, Microsoft, Apple etc) to pile on in behind and absolutely crush
Innovatio. So we can hope...

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pavel_lishin
> at what point did a group of folks, presumably sitting around a conference
> table, make the conscious decision to execute this type of strategy?

Three seconds after the accountant sitting in the meeting with them hit the
"=" button on his calculator.

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chrislomax
I laughed at this comment but it also such a serious comment at the same time.
Money is exactly the drive behind this movement.

I would back 100% the action to remove the "digital" patents from society. I
think some patents are essential when people have a genuine reason to file one
but such generic patents should not be granted. It's like Amazon's 1 click buy
patent, it's pathetic. You should not be able to patent an action or a method
but only inventions of a physical nature.

It's like eBay being granted the patent to be an online auction and no one
else can do it, it's unreasonable.

The problem is, these people will only work on a patent law suit until the
water runs dry, there are plenty of rivers out there so they just move on. By
the time someone has said how stupid it is and stops it, they have already
made a small fortune.

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mkopinsky
> By demanding a few thousand dollars, Innovatio ensures that, for many small
> business owners, taking up a legal defense won’t make financial sense.

What a load of crap. By only extorting a moderate sum of dough, Innovatio
ensures that, for many small business owners, taking up a legal defense won’t
make financial sense.

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gojomo
Perhaps the legal system needs a sort of 'reverse class action', so that
Innovatio would have to sue the entire class at once, and the class could pool
their resources for a defense.

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SODaniel
There is business, then there is bad business, and then there is scum. These
guys fall firmly into category 3.

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stricken
I think you may still be giving them too much credit.

