

I just got sued for patent infringement for operating the voo2do.com todo list - shimon
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/17/channel-intelligence-sues-just-about-everyone-who-offers-wishlists/#

======
gm
Suggestions:

1) Talk to others who got sued, form a single group, hire a lawyer, and fight
like hell

2) Talk to others who got sued, and as a group, talk to Amazon and all the
other who are big and did not get sued, and cooperate to get a declaratory
judgment with the "sponsorship" of the big fish that did not get sued.

This is all about grabbing the low-hanging fruit to go after the people than
can defend themselves well. The natural defense is to undo that advantage of
the plaintiff.

Everyone knows it's a bogus patent, don't be foolish enough to fall for the
trick. Unite.

------
noonespecial
Any and all nerds, geeks, and IT professionals:

 _Channel Intelligence_ , its directors, high ranking employees and investors
are at this time placed on the _Information Technology No Fly List_. Please do
not sell this company or these individuals any form of information technology
service.

This includes web hosting, network support, system administration, and even PC
repair.

I also urge taxi drivers to drive right by them in the rain and small children
to make faces at them in public.

~~~
ctingom
No doubt their mothers are hamsters and their fathers smell of elderberries.

------
mileszs
In case you don't wish to scroll through all the TC comments, this might be
pertinent:

"I’m the Zlio.com CEO. If you are one of the sued companies (like us), please
contact me by email: channel at berrebi.org.

We need to discuss together"

# The above is not from me, just quoted from the TC comments!

------
micks56
Have you been served yet? You will want a lawyer right away, since the time
allowed to respond starts ticking at service.

Where are you incorporated, if at all? If you are not incorporated in
Delaware, do you have customers in Delaware? If not, did you advertise for
customers in Delaware?

I read the filing. The person that filed it is really stretching to get
Delaware as the place for all the suits. I don't think that many of these
companies will be forced to litigate in Delaware. You are included in that
assessment.

I am not a lawyer, but I am a second year law student. If you want more
information, post here or feel free to send me an email. I relatively near you
in Mass, too.

~~~
shimon
I got a "courtesy copy" of the complaint this morning (via overnight Fedex).
Does that count as service?

I'm not incorporated and haven't thought about Delaware in particular as a
place to advertise Voo2do. There are certainly Voo2do users in Delaware (and
in most other places in the world).

The only income I've received to date from Voo2do has been donations from
people who found it useful. If you consider the cost of the hosting, Voo2do
has been a net money loser for me for many years. But it's led to a lot of
other great contacts and given me a lot of satisfaction from helping other
people.

~~~
micks56
That probably does not count as service. Service of process is governed by
Rule 4 of Civil Procedure (in Mass and at the Federal Level). The overnight
likely does not meet requirements of either Mass state or federal rules of
civil procedure.

Mass. Rule 4: <http://www.lawlib.state.ma.us/mrcp4.html> Federal Rule 4:
<http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/Rule4.htm>

Did you receive a summons or was it just a printout of what we saw in the TC
article? Insufficient service is grounds for dismissal. The plaintiff has time
to correct, though.

You should see if there are any users in Delaware. If not, I doubt you can be
compelled to court there. Even if you do have users in Delaware, it is a
stretch.

For everyone on YC News, this is a reason to incorporate in your home state,
not Delaware. Incorporate in Delaware if you want VC funding. Otherwise, stay
in your home state. If you incorporate in Delaware, or any other state for
that matter, courts automatically grant personal jurisdiction in that state.
Basically, that means you have to go to court there.

This is also a reason to incorporate. Right now shimon is personally liable
for damages, if any.

~~~
shimon
In retrospect, any limitation on potential liability would be nice. But I
didn't originally set out to make Voo2do into a business -- the only way I get
money for it at present is through donations. Are you saying anyone who wants
to build and offer a web application should form an umbrella corporation for
that? What about non-web software? Where do you draw the line between
"personal experimental project" and "entity that needs a state-sanctioned
organization around it"?

~~~
micks56
"Personal experimental project" is just that. Only you use it. Once you let an
outside person use it you have distributed in the eyes of the law. You are
open to suit and are no longer within safe harbors of personal use.

If you are making something for others to use, incorporate. It will cost you a
few hundred dollars per year in filing fees, but that is just a type of
insurance against times like this.

------
chaostheory
I really hate hearing about jerks like this...

there's something that can help us fight patent trolling:
<http://www.peertopatent.org/>

It's a USPTO pilot project that let's the public review and give feedback to
some current patent applications. I'm sure this will help cut some bogus
patent claims if people just participate.

------
gills
I was relieved to see this in the comments...

"Michael Arrington - July 17th, 2008 at 2:33 am PDT I think literacy needs to
become a requirement to get a job at the PTO. Morons."

~~~
gm
Well that would rule out Arrington from working there...

(Sorry, I could not resist)

------
shimon
Ask YC subtopic: Have you ever been the target of a frivolous IP lawsuit? How
do you deal with it?

~~~
fiaz
Shimon, sorry to hear this. As soon as you find a good lawyer, I wouldn't
worry about it psychologically. This "patent" is total bullshit; the absence
of big players such as eBay and Amazon leads me to believe that they are going
after easier targets in order to establish a legal precedence so that they may
go after the big guys later.

You're also in good company. I would take pride in that at the very least.

------
tonystubblebine
Another subtopic: What's CI's potential return on investment in this round of
lawsuits? What is the cost of filing a patent? What is the cost of bringing a
patent lawsuit? What percentage of small companies settle? And for how much?

I look at a company like Remember The Milk and wonder how much they could
possibly afford to pay. A quick back of the envelope calculation based on
compete.com, 170k visitors/month. Let's say that 80k are customers and 8k are
paying customers ($25/year), and that their yearly revenue is $200k. They have
three or four full time people and increasing traffic.

I guess a company like that could afford to pay $10-20k/annual for a license.
That might even be considered a good business decision given that with their
current revenue they probably don't have a lot of money in the bank to fight a
legal battle now, but that with their growth they have future profits that
should make this a minor annoyance.

~~~
henning
A patent is much more valuable if it's upheld in court. I thought that was the
idea behind patent trolling: get a bullshit patent, go after a bunch of little
guys, try some kind of divide and conquer strategy with them, hope you win and
get your bullshit patent upheld. Your patent is now much stronger and more
dangerous. Congratulations, you're a litigious douchebag.

~~~
LogicHoleFlaw
I just hope to high heaven that we see more responses like the following:

[http://www.audioholics.com/news/industry-news/blue-jeans-
str...](http://www.audioholics.com/news/industry-news/blue-jeans-strikes-back)

~~~
comatose_kid
His response makes me want to get a law degree.

------
smoody
a friend of mine has a site on that list. perhaps there's a way you can all
band together and use a single attorney. plus the eff is a great resource.

i'm sure amazon will want to help somehow as they most certainly have prior
art. and didn't they set up a website years ago to help people discover prior
art?

------
ashleyw
Contact Amazon/eBay, I'm sure they will help you guys out. If you loose, they
are next with even less to stand on. Giving you free legal support could help
them later down the line!

------
Hoff
If the concept of a letter sent to Santa Claus via your parents doesn't
provide sufficient obviousness for the whole concept (and if you can't get
Amazon into the discussion), then work with your lawyers to seek out (older)
Santa Claus web sites, or older wedding registry web sites.

This looks like potential Prior Art:

[http://web.archive.org/web/20011129215921/http://bridalregis...](http://web.archive.org/web/20011129215921/http://bridalregistry.com/)

------
dragonquest
Sorry to hear this. Though I've never used voo2do extensively, it seemed
pretty decent. Anyways, see if you can all get together and get the EFF guys
involved. Check <http://w2.eff.org/patent/> and
<http://w2.eff.org/patent/wp.php> for more info on this.

------
tc7
<http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6917941.html>

I don't blame the patent guys for not reading it. "Man, that sentence said
"said" like _487 million times_! Pass that thing on, dude."

Stamp of approval here.

~~~
paulgb
I've been wondering lately why lawyers and politicians write in the
indecipherable manner that they do. Is it really that difficult to write
unambiguously in English, or are they just doing it for job security?

~~~
noonespecial
They way they write is actually a _protocol_ like html. Many on the words used
are magic and have special meaning in a legal context.

That being said, the legal system most likely has grown purposely obtuse over
the years. They do, in fact, collect some of the highest rates per hour of
nearly any profession to argue about what the definition of "is" is.

------
dominik
Ack! Best of luck deflecting the lawsuit. Hopefully it won't be too hard, as
there are so many other defendants. Lawsuits like this make me glad I'm a law
student, so I can graduate and fight against them.

voo2do is a great service; I used it quite extensively two years ago.

~~~
shimon
Thanks, man! I don't think they can win a royalty on kind words, which has
been my biggest payoff from Voo2do.

~~~
hb
This is off the topic, but please keep passwords encrypted.

------
qw
That's one of the reasons why I wouldn't move to the US and start a business.
I think a software company really have only two choices.

1\. Ignore patents completely and hope for the best.

or

2\. Have trouble sleeping, knowing that you might have to spend a large amount
of money on a lawsuit that you will probably win anyway.

~~~
felixmar
IANAL but i think non-US startups are also targets for patent lawsuits if they
have US users. And many startups have little chance of success if they have to
stop serving US users.

~~~
rbanffy
American companies can try all they want to sue me under US laws. It will be
really fun to watch them get squashed by the local legal system reminding them
US law has no standing here.

BTW, I live in Brazil where software patents are not considered valid.

~~~
rbanffy
Oops... Hit reply too early.

But the above US companies could try to sue US residents for the patent
violation.

------
adrianwaj
Check out: <http://wishlist.com.au/> (it's almost 10 years old)

------
michaelneale
Does that mean you have reached some level of success, at least in visibility
to attract it? Can that help at all in terms of general business or investment
(should you need it) ?

------
pjackson
It should not be too hard to find prior art on this idea and invalidate the
patent. But don't go it alone.

And I agree: stop talking in public about it right away.

------
sdurkin
File or threaten to file a counter-suit for abuse of process.

