[asterisk-biz] Flexible FollowMe and MWI Patented?

[Trixter aka Bret McDanel]

On 5/30/07, Steve Totaro <stotaro at totarotechnologies.com> wrote:
> http://www.freepatentsonline.com/20070038740.html
>
> Anyone with some law knowledge know if this is enforceable?  According
> to the diagram, this patent could apply to large number of already well
> developed systems.
>
> http://www.freepatentsonline.com/20070038740-0-large.jpg
>
enforcability of a patent varies greatly, however the cost to defend
against a bogus patent can often exceed $2M as such most licensing of
silly patents is much more affordable.  Case and point RTIs patent on
LCR, they ask $20k to license it, as such cisco, lucent and many
others have paid (vonage paid becuase of the sprint lawsuits at the
same time and they wanted to IPO).  Google called shenanigans and RTI
sued for $5B or some silly number.  AFAIK that hasnt gone anywhere
since then.

If you goto court with a jury (optional you can have a bench trial and
let the judge decide), its likely that they wont know that much about
technology, and they will believe that if the USPTO gave the patent
its valid, unless you can demonstrate clearly and in a non-technical
way that it shouldnt be.  Juries vary greatly, but t he average person
on the street has limited tech knowledge, why would a jury pool be any
different (especially when one side is likely to exclude anyone with
such knowledge).

-- 
Trixter http://www.0xdecafbad.com     Bret McDanel
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