Does The Patent Troll Have Form?
Adrian J Cotterill, Editor-in-Chief
Several people have written in and told us that the Patent Troll has a name and previous form. Could it be David Gothard, President at Activision TV, Inc. as they suggest or not?
David GotHARD
However, this particular Patent Infringement filed Monday, August 09, 2010 was owned / registered by a certain Mr. Loren Minkus who is / was Director Portfolio Management at Motorola Inc. In July of this year that patent was re-assigned from Motorola to Minkus (remember it is a Minkus Electronic Display Systems that is claiming the patent infringement in this instance).
The following are listed as ‘defendants’ in those court papers :-
- Adaptive Micro Systems LLC
- Advance Display Technologies Inc.
- ADTI Media LLC
- AMI Entertainment Network Inc.
- Aristocrat Leisure Ltd.
- Aristocrat Technologies Inc.
- AutoComm Inc.
- Barco NV
- Barco Inc.
- Barco Federal Systems LLC
- Broadsign International Inc.
- C-nario Ltd.
- C-nario Inc.
- Captivate Network Inc.
- Cayin Technology Co Ltd.
- D3 LED LLC
- Dynamax Technologies Ltd.
- E-Cast Inc.
- Helius LLC
- JCDecaux North America Inc.
- JCDecaux SA
- Lamar Advertising Company
- Lamar Media Corporation
- LSI Industries Inc.
- MediaTile Company
- Monster Media LLC
- Omnivex Corporation
- Opto Tech Corporation
- Planar Systems Inc.
- Premier Retail Networks Inc.
- Scala Inc.
- Stratacache Inc.
- TiroMedia LLC
- Titan Outdoor Holdings Inc.
- Trans-Lux Corporation
- Trans-Lux Midwest Corp.
- Trans-Lux Commercial
- WireSpring Technologies Inc.
- YCD Multimedia Inc.
Whilst there are some big companies in the list above, isn’t it funny that they are not brave enough to pick a fight against the likes of Cisco or Clear Channel?
Anyway, what would have been useful is if back in 2002 the industry had got together (then) and stood up to any blatant Patent Troll.
How many people do we know have been doing digital signage with ‘prior practice’ since the early 1980’s? The answer is a hell of a lot – especially those who have worked in the casino sector.
You don’t even have to look much further than Scala and what they did with 3M character generators and Commodore Amigas in the 1990’s to see that these sorts of patent applications and alleged infringements are plainly ridiculous.
It occurs to us that this is where an industry association really comes into its own. Who will be the first (for heaven’s sake we have enough associations) to lead the Rebel Alliance against the Dark Side?
August 17th, 2010 at 19:30 @854
Any details on what this lawsuit is alleging, other than “patent infringement?” Is Minkus even a real company and what is their relation to Motorola?
As far as Activision, yea, that was (is) a joke. They sell monitors with integrated PCs and have approved patent notifications all over their site. Is there anyone reading this that doesn’t sell monitors with IPC’s? Better question, is there anyone reading this that has every bought anything from Activision TV?
Maybe the Patent Troll is the US Government for awarding patents to commoditized products that have existed for years.
August 18th, 2010 at 17:29 @770
Wow, what are some of the details as to what David supposedly did or how it affects activision?What do you know or atleast think. email me privately if the internet troll won;t let you speak your mind on this site. I have seen a little on Activisions stuff and it looks cool
June 6th, 2013 at 01:40 @111
[…] DailyDOOH has documented this at length, and identified these companies as what are not all that affectionately known as patent trolls. Simply put, they are companies in the business of acquiring patents and then targeting companies who they think MIGHT contravene those patents. […]