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15 Oct 2007
Intellectual property licensing firms IP Innovation and Technology Licensing Corporation have filed a lawsuit against Red Hat and Novell for alleged patent infringements in their Linux distributions.
The legal case is the first patent challenge against Linux distributors in court, and concerns patent numbers 5,072,412, 5,533,183 and 5,394,521.
All three describe a "user interface with multiple workspaces for sharing display system objects" and were issued between December 1991 and February 1995.
The suit was filed on 9 October in the district court of Eastern Texas, where judges are known to favour patent owners.
The plaintiffs demand an injunction prohibiting Novell and Red Hat from continuing to infringe the three patents, as well as unspecified damages.
Novell and Red Hat have indemnification clauses in their user agreements, vowing to protect end users from such claims. Users can therefore trust that they will not be affected by the suit.
A Novell spokesperson said that the firm is evaluating its options and vowed to defend its interests. Red Hat did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Do you agree?
Two points:
1. First of all, the patent is ASSIGNED to the Xerox Corporation. That means that only Xerox owns the legal capability to sue any one. Others do not. Proof would be required where the suers have acquired from XEROX any rights on this patent. Even if the inventor have rights to royalties from Xerox, they don't have any right to represent the patent. And, if they did not even have any royalties agreements from Xerox, no one has case whatsoever for any claims from any one. Only XEROX owns that right, unless there's proof otherwise. The first thing that the suers need to be requested to provide is a documet from Xerox proving that they can make any claim. Even the individuals who are listed as inventors, in this case, have no right to sue any one, unless Xerox has granted legal rights to any one. 2. The patent has only a few months of life left. The suers ought to be punished if they are found to have no legal basis to sue anyone, and are mis-representing if not, and can be sued-back for a number of reasons, begining with usurpation.
Posted by: mbls 14 Oct 2007