Eolas is a United States technology firm formed as a spin-off from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), in order to commercialize UCSF's patents for work done there by Eolas' co-founders. The company was founded in 1994 by Dr. Michael Doyle and three of his staff members from the UCSF Center for Knowledge Management. Since Eolas successfully enforced its patent rights against many big tech infringers, the company has been the victim of negative propaganda put out by these tech giants in an attempt to escape liability, despite the fact that Eolas was created at the request of UCSF, and was founded by the inventors of the university's patents.
International Game Technology (IGT) was an American gaming company based in Las Vegas that manufactured and distributed slot machines and other gaming technology. It was acquired in 2015 by Gtech, which then adopted the IGT name for itself.
In international law and business, patent trolling or patent hoarding is a categorical or pejorative term applied to a person or company that attempts to enforce patent rights against accused infringers far beyond the patent's actual value or contribution to the prior art, often through hardball legal tactics. Patent trolls often do not manufacture products or supply services based upon the patents in question. However, some entities which do not practice their asserted patent may not be considered "patent trolls" when they license their patented technologies on reasonable terms in advance.
Paltalk is a proprietary video group chat service that enables users to communicate by video, Internet chat, or voice. It offers chat rooms and the ability for users to create their own public virtual chat room. Paltalk Desktop is available on macOS and Windows, and Paltalk Video Chat App is available for Android and iOS. While basic services are free of charge and basic software is free to download, fee-based memberships and paid upgrades to more capable versions are offered by AVM Software, the creators of Paltalk.
The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas is a federal court in the Fifth Circuit.
Jay Scott Walker is an American entrepreneur and chairman of Walker Digital, a privately held research and development lab focused on using digital networks to create new business systems. Walker is also curator of TEDMED since 2011, and a founder of Priceline.com and Synapse Group, Inc. In 2000, Forbes estimated his net worth at $1.6 billion. By October 2000, his estimated worth was down to $333 million. As of 2013, he is not on the Forbes list of the world's billionaires.
Uniloc Corporation is a patent assertion entity founded in Australia in 1992 that develops "try and buy" software distributed via magazines and preinstalled on new computers.
DataTreasury, located in Plano, Texas, United States, develops, acquires and licenses technology for secure check image capture and storage. As of 2010 the company had 2 employees, about 1000 shareholders and had generated over $350 million in licensing revenue in the previous four years.
General Patent Corporation (GPC) is an intellectual property (IP) firm headquartered in Suffern, New York that provides patent licensing and enforcement on a contingency basis. GPC also provides IP advisory services including strategy, management, patent portfolio mining, patent triage, technology transfer, and other IP-related services. The company has been privately held since it was founded in 1987 by Alexander Poltorak to assist inventors and IP owners in licensing and enforcing their IP rights. The company was incorporated in 1989.
A copyright troll is a party that enforces copyrights it owns for purposes of making money through strategic litigation, in a manner considered unduly aggressive or opportunistic, sometimes while without producing or licensing the works it owns for paid distribution. Critics object to the activity because they believe it does not encourage the production of creative works, but instead makes money through the inequities and unintended consequences of high statutory damages provisions in copyright laws intended to encourage creation of such works.
Righthaven LLC was a copyright enforcement company founded in early 2010. Based in Las Vegas, Nevada; it entered agreements from its partner newspapers after finding that their content had been copied to online sites without permission, in order to engage in litigation against the site owners for copyright infringement. The lawsuits were much criticized by commentators, who describe the activity as copyright trolling and the company as a "lawsuit factory". Righthaven LLC's CEO, Steven Gibson, who is currently a partner at Las Vegas law firm Gibson & True LLP, regularly spoke to the media about Righthaven.
Article One Partners (AOP) is an online prior art search and intellectual property research crowdsourcing community. AOP was acquired by RWS Group in October 2017 and the AOP Connect crowdsourcing platform is now part of the IP Research group within RWS. RWS IP Research provides crowdsourced prior-art-search services by utilizing an online research community. The company's President stated that, as of June 30, 2018, AOP comprises "more than 40,000 in over 170 countries."
Lodsys, LLC was a patent company located in Marshall, Texas that brought patent infringement lawsuits against a variety of companies in the US. Numerous app development enterprises have accused them of "patent trolling", referring to the fact that they have sued many developers over alleged usage of Lodsys' patents, pressuring a lot of them to settle rather than face the time and expense of fighting the lawsuit. On May 13, 2011, it was reported that they had demanded that a number of iOS application developers obtain licenses from them. Apple has written to Lodsys stating that Apple's licenses protect its app developers. However, Lodsys decided to press on with their lawsuit and has sent a detailed legal response to Apple. According to the former company website, Lodsys stated that it was not a corporate subsidiary of patent holding company Intellectual Ventures, contrary to speculation from media sources.
Righthaven LLC. v. Democratic Underground LLC, 791 F. Supp. 2d 968, was a copyright infringement case which determined that a contract giving a party right to sue on behalf of a copyright holder does not give the party legal standing to file such lawsuits. This case is one of over 200 similar cases filed by Righthaven against media outlets using content from Stephens Media. Judge Roger L. Hunt ruled that Righthaven lacked standing to file a copyright infringement suit and ordered Righthaven to show cause within two weeks why it should not be sanctioned for failure to disclose Stephens Media as an interested party.
Soverain Software LLC was a Chicago-based company which owned patents for its ecommerce technology products. The company held patents for digital shopping carts commonly used on e-commerce websites, such as Amazon.com and collected royalties on these patents, but ultimately their patents were invalidated. Soverain Software has been characterized as a patent troll.
Control Group was a technology and design consultancy firm, founded in 2001 in Lower Manhattan, New York City, by Campbell Hyers, Scott Anderson, and Colin O'Donnell.
The Innovation Act of the 113th Congress is a bill that would change the rules and regulations surrounding patent infringement lawsuits in an attempt to reduce patent lawsuits.
Personal Audio LLC is a Beaumont, Texas-based company that enforces and earns licensing revenue from five patents. The company has often been accused of being a patent troll, making money solely through royalties on frivolous and sweeping patents.
Google has been involved in multiple lawsuits over issues such as privacy, advertising, intellectual property and various Google services such as Google Books and YouTube. The company's legal department expanded from one to nearly 100 lawyers in the first five years of business, and by 2014 had grown to around 400 lawyers. Google's Chief Legal Officer is Senior Vice President of Corporate Development David Drummond.
TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods Group Brands LLC, 581 U.S. ___ (2017), was a United States Supreme Court case concerning the venue in patent infringement lawsuits.
