Military-industrial patent troll demands BEEELLIONS from Cisco Emboldened by a win against Apple that was upheld last February, VirnetX – inventor of key VPN technologies or a patent troll, depending on your point of view and understanding of its patents – has now taken up cudgels against Cisco. In a hearing in front of a Federal jury over a complaint first filed in 2010, VirnetX has said …
Because if they did try to go Cisco for a massive amount as it seems that they should, then Cisco would pull out all the stops and do some serious smashing of their own. And those 4 patents would all be cancelled and then Microsoft and Apple would both turn around and demand their money back...
Which I think would have quietly disappeared into a Cayman bank never to be seen again!
Mines the one with the Cayman bank books in the pocket...
Surely it would be cheaper to pay to have these people killed than either fight them in court, settle or lose.
I mean, you could buy your own small airforce and army for $368 million killing a few dozen patent lawyers and their staff should cost way less than that. Even doing it surreptitiously through a sixth party recruited from South Africa.
Claim 1 in the first patent is
" A method of transparently creating a virtual private network (VPN) between a client computer and a target computer, comprising the steps of: (1) generating from the client computer a Domain Name Service (DNS) request that requests an IP address corresponding to a domain name associated with the target computer; (2) determining whether the DNS request transmitted in step (1) is requesting access to a secure web site; and (3) in response to determining that the DNS request in step (2) is requesting access to a secure target web site, automatically initiating the VPN between the client computer and the target computer. "
so if you don't use a domain name, this claim does not apply? All of the other claims build on Claim 1? Cisco should counter sue - for same amount - and also ask court to order claimant to deposit cash for likely legal costs into escrow. Alternatively they could simply ask the court to approve a settlement, in which the troll accepts full and unlimited financial liability for any security breaches in products based on it's patents, then hit them with a suit for every single VPN breach ever reported by a Cisco customer ....
That'd be fun to watch :)
Also why the **** was the patent granted? It's not original - read it, no-one familiar with 1990s IT would've taken this as original work in 2000 - and it's unbelievably broad in it's claims. No competent patent examiner / office would have dreamed of granting it. Maybe Cisco should be allowed to sue the officer(s) that granted it - personally, as well as via the Office - for sheer stupidity. (Then again, if one could sue for stupidity, where would it end .... )
Firing any patent lawyer that is unable to explain why they granted a patent during a trial against/for said patent would go a long way. I bet we would see an increase in the scrutinizing over issued patents then.
Or at least require that 2 out of 3 non co-located patent clerks agree on the patent-ability of an idea before one is issued. I agree that it would increase the time to patent, so rectify that by hiring more clerks and raising the price of a patent by the correct factor to compensate for the increase in budget costs due to the increase in clerks. It's a win win, more jobs created and greater scrutiny towards the patents filed prior to them being issued.
Also, if stocks can now be traded on nanosecond scales, then patents should be shortened as well. We can't all live in a world that is speeding up yet still allow companies to continuously lobby to increase the length of time they "own" an idea. The same for copyrights, evolve or die, how many generations should get to make a living off a drawing of a mouse.
You can assign an invention to anyone you want - but the inventors on the patent have to be the inventors. You have to sign a declaration that you invented it.
Stuffing the list with a 130 VIP inventors to make you look big and scary is perjury- and the federal government generally doesn't like you lying to it.
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