D3 LED Settles With Minkus
Adrian J Cotterill, Editor-in-Chief
It appears that Minkus Electronic Display Systems, Inc. is settling the ‘nobody’ vendors for peanuts while trying to screw any company of size so it came as no surprise to us to hear this week that another of the minnows in its litigation case had figured it was easier and cheaper to settle with them than fight on.
D3 LED, LLC entered into a release and settlement agreement with Minkus Electronic Display Systems for United States Patent Number 5,309,174. The release and settlement agreement resolves the dispute between the parties that was pending in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware. Blah blah blah.
See also our story ‘More Minkus Pussies‘.
For those still hanging in there and refusing to settle with Minkus the news for YOU is good. Minkus is likely pissed that so many companies appeared to be much bigger than they actually are (we believe that Minkus was given poor advice from one of the well known industry consultants who has been advising them to date).
Minkus are asking for millions from the big guys. Don’t expect any of them to back down easily.
June 10th, 2011 at 13:09 @590
Who is the industry consultant?
June 10th, 2011 at 15:02 @668
Truly mind-boggling that the patent was ever granted in the first place.
The patent describes a mechanism for delivering a “message” from a central location to series of remote locations and for the disposition of that message (delivery and post-delivery) to be reported back to the central location as well
Other than the fact that digital signage is digital video as opposed digital text and the “message” is much larger, how is that different to – for example – an SMS message delivered to a mobile phone where delivery is certified.
And what’s next for Minkus? Going after MMS gateways? If digital cinema ultimately becomes remotely controlled, do they go after Texas Instruments?
June 10th, 2011 at 15:17 @679
It may be that Minkus has found that he had no ground whatsoever with some of these companies. D3 is a sign hardware manufacturer. As Mark described, this patent is about content delivery, not hardware. So it may be that “settled for peanuts” may be not much different than simply dropping them from the case. And it is better business sense for these “Pussies” to pay a few thousand and be done than to pay lawyer fees to fight.
June 10th, 2011 at 16:40 @736
Where did this come from anyway? Very interesting-I must have talked and dealt with a dozen guys in my career over the past 10-15 years that claimed to have the very same patent/idea nailed down. Anyone know when was the patent granted? Go get em DailyDOOH!
June 10th, 2011 at 22:31 @979
William,
It was filed on 5th March 1991 and issued 3rd May 1994.
http://bit.ly/kwwPae