[Asterisk-Dev] Patent lawyers?

[Preston Garrison]

I have dealt with many many issues in the past. Usually its just a way 
that they can get you to settle, and they can make some quick money. 
For starters I would relax, and see what it ends up turning into. 
Lawsuits take many many years to follow through, and if you have good 
attorneys you could turn years into decades. Let them file the lawsuits 
if you don't plan to stop doing such things. At this point most likely 
they only way to make them go away is money. Once the lawsuit is filed, 
that's probably when you should hire an attorney. The attorney needs to 
be based in the state they sue you in. Keep in mind through the whole 
process their plan is to get you to settle.

  I recently got done with a lawsuit similar to this. Luckily I had in 
house counsel so it didn't cost me anything to fight it. We went on for 
over a year, finally got in front of a judge advocate, who told them 
they basically had no case. They settled for hardly anything. it didn't 
even pay their attorney's fees. Alot less then I even would have agreed 
to pay in the first place, just to make it go away.


 Preston Garrison
 direct: 877-748-4142
 fax: 310-774-3901
 cell: 623-748-4140

 -----Original Message-----
 From: Brian West <brian.west at mac.com>
 To: Asterisk Developers Mailing List <asterisk-dev at lists.digium.com>
 Sent: Tue, 31 May 2005 19:26:32 -0500
 Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Dev] Patent lawyers?

 >
  > As far as I can tell none of these relate to spandsp itself. They > 
relate to certain uses of it. Is that correct?

 Correct. I should have been more clear.

 >
  > Store and forward delivery of voice and fax by e-mail is something > 
I was doing in about 1995. However, it was for an internal system, > 
and I probably couldn't produce supporting material that would > 
qualify as prior art.

 I recall doing similar in 95 as well.

  > 6208638 was files in 1997 and 6597688 was filed in 1998. They were > 
filed by J2, and describe similar things. I did those thing well > 
before 1997, and didn't consider them novel at the time. However, > I'm 
not sure I could come up with solid material to support that - > these 
things were just too obvious to document.

  I'm sure we can all find something we could classify as prior art to 
invalidate the patent.

 >
 > Who has raised these patent issues? J2?
 >

  Yes, They sent us this nice letter to license their patents and 
technology. I'm sure at the rate they are going they will quickly turn 
it into a suit.

  These patents are a bit broad if you ask me.. they are suing callwave. 
We have yet to get anything official about any suit but I'm wanting to 
cover my bases before hand just in case.

  http://www.venali.com/about/press_releases/ 
pr_j2Patents_reexam_grantd.asp

 /b

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