If you can’t beat them…buy them out
November 29, 2004 on 12:30 pm | In Lawsuits |Interesting article in the S.F. Chronicle today about 39 patents owned by Commerce One, a bankrupt software company, that are going up for auction next Monday. Rather than have a professional patent plaintiff (someone who speculatively buys patents just to sue big businesses hoping for settlements or billion dollar jury verdicts) buy the patents and risk suit, major industry players (such as Google, Oracle and Sun Microsystems) are discussing pooling financial resources to jointly buy and retire the patents. The company attempting to bring the pool together is called CommerceNet and has until Thursday to submit an initial offer for the patents.
S.F. Chronicle article: “Tech giants edgy over pending Web services patent sale / Buyers could try to sue firms for infringement”
Taipei Times article: Patent sale raises lawsuit concerns
Print This Post
| 
Email This Post
| 
| Subscribe via e-mail
Related Posts:
1 Comment
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
If you can’t beat them…part II
I recently reported on the pending auction for Commerce One’s patent portfolio.
Trackback by The Invent Blog | Necessity's Progeny | Nipper's Patent Law Blog — December 6, 2004 #