Guest Report post Posted May 18, 2002 I am only going to post some of the article because its kinda long and will post the link to it at the bottom: In early April, Allan Dickson, the president of Dickson Supply Co., received notice that due to the design of his e-commerce Web site, his company was being sued for patent infringement by Pangea [sic] Intellectual Properties LLC. Pangea owns patents concerning the display of text and images on e-commerce Web sites, as well as a patent covering automated credit checking for online transactions, Dickson said Pangea's lawyer told him. When Dickson heard this, he thought: "If they're going after us... they have to be going after everybody in the whole U.S. with a Web site," he said. Pangea has, to date, filed suit against 11 companies doing e-business in the United States, but the lawyer representing Pangea says that the number of sites potentially infringing the company's patents could run into the millions, giving Pangea's patents, and these early cases concerning them, an importance for any business hoping to sell its products online. Pangea (PanIP) did not return repeated calls requesting comment for this story. The company's Web site is missing many pages, including information on how to contact the company and who is a part of it. That information, however, was available as late as May 13 when a story about the company's lawsuits was posted on the open source news Web site Slashdot.org. At issue are two PanIP patents, awarded to Lawrence B. Lockwood, one of the principals of Pangea, in 1996 and 2001. The 1996 patent, number 5,576,951, covers a system "for composing individualized sales presentations created from various textual and graphical information data sources" using "the retrieval of interrelated textual and graphical information," according to the patent filing. The 2001 patent, number 6,289,319, which covers an automated "financial transaction processing system" in which a computer "is programmed to acquire credit rating data relating to the applicant from the credit rating service," according to the filing. Though PanIP is currently only suing 11 companies for allegedly infringing on these patents, the total number of infringing companies could run into the millions, according to Kathleen M. Walker, a private practice attorney based in San Diego who is representing PanIP. PanIP is seeking a one-time US$30,000 from each company for a license on both patents for as long as they are valid, she said. That payment would also cover a patent that PanIP claims to have pending that covers "very similar technology and may bear on these retailers," Walker added. Rest of article This I believe is complete bullshit. The reason they are suing small companies first is because they want to get all the easy money they can before they have to take on the big dogs (eBay, Amazon, Dell) and I hope if they do get to the big dogs those dogs chew them up and then sue each and every employee of this Pangea company until they are giving hand jobs to homeless people just to be able to spend the night in a cardboard box. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest DragonflyKid Report post Posted May 18, 2002 This is a capitalistic society, it's a society of money grabbing motherfuckers, money grabbing mutherfuckers are what makes this country go round and round. The golden rule of business is to turn a profit, "ethics" are expendable. If there is a way to make more money even if it's at the expense of others then it is fair game. Capitalism's heart lies in greed an excess, the world of business is cut-throat, it's the survival of the fittest, this article shouldn't suprise. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
