[Asterisk-Dev] Patent lawyers?

[Jonathan Dale]

Vince Vielhaber wrote:

>On Wed, 1 Jun 2005, Dustin Wildes wrote:
>
>  
>
>>Just a thought - what about all the other commercial companies out there
>>that are doing the same type of services, ie: Cisco Call Manager?
>>Are they 'paying' patent fees in order to sell Call Manager?
>>    
>>
>
>The idea these folks are using is to go after the little guys that can't
>afford to defend themselves (or are perceived as being unable to) so they
>have a number of judgements in their favor as they get to the bigger guys.
>
>Nonetheless, the patents should never have been granted.  I understand
>that Computer & Communications Industry Association (ccianet.org) is
>fighting it and there is supposed to be some legislation in the works
>to make it easier/less expensive to challenge.  I haven't found any
>details on that yet - haven't looked either tho.
>
>Vince.
>  
>
Would this qualify for class action status?  I mean, IANAL, but it would 
seem that these patents basically say that every email system, including 
Outlook, violates one or more of them.  Would it be possible to make 
this into a class action counter-suit to invalidate the patent?  Not 
that I would enjoy helping Microsoft, but I wonder how it would look if 
this came to light in the larger technology arena?

Jonathan Dale