News & Insights
Celebrating LOToberfest!
Ken Seddon
The original Oktoberfest was held in 1810 as the citizens of Munich celebrated the marriage of soon to be King Ludwig I and his bride, Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen. If you’ve never been, I would encourage you to experience Oktoberfest at least once, as the celebrations […]
Red Hat’s Patent Promise
By Patrick McBride, Senior Director of Patents Red Hat, Inc.
Patrick McBride
What is the best way for technology companies to protect themselves from patent aggression without discouraging open source innovation? Red Hat has worked on various approaches to this problem, including a substantial new revision of its Patent Promise.
Red […]
How Open Source and Proprietary IP Can Co-Exist
Open source software imparts a number of benefits, including decreasing product development time, distributing development across a community and attracting developers to your organization. However, some organizations shy away from it due to perceived risks […]
Patent trolls are a huge problem in the US
Patent trolls are a huge problem in the US. They can cost small business hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. We’ll discuss what to do if a patent troll comes after your business and how to […]
How to Participate in Open Source While Maintaining IP Integrity
Open source software can provide significant benefits to an organization—it can decrease product development time, distribute development across a community, and attract developers to your organization—but some organizations shy away due to perceived risks […]
Retailers must band together to defend themselves against patent trolls
A new ruling could undercut a U.S. Supreme Court decision that appeared to give some relief to retailers and other companies that face frequent patent lawsuits.
How Uber Complicates Alphabet’s Patent Philosophy
Given its war chest, Alphabet (GOOGL) can pick up fights frequently and win many of them. This partly explains why its legal dispute with Uber is getting a lot of attention. But there’s an […]
Canadian fintechs join the global fight against pesky, costly patent trolls
Two Canadian fintech companies have teamed up with some of America’s biggest tech giants to fend off patent trolls. Although they represent two extremes of Canada’s financial services sector – FI.SPAN is a startup […]
LOT Member Profile: FI.SPAN
Founded in 2016 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
FI.SPAN Helps Fin-techs, Banks and Businesses Win
You’re a small or mid-sized business. Every month you pay about 1000 invoices. Your accountant tracks all these invoices, runs them through your AP system, then uploads roughly half of them — through an […]
What Makes LOT Members Outperform
Ken Seddon
The second quarter of 2017 brought us a bang and a fizzle. The bang was the large number of companies joining LOT. Our community continues to grow at a record pace, adding 34 new members including Volkswagen, Vizio, Salesforce, eBay, Net App, Tesla, Electronic Arts, […]
The Real Impact of TC Heartland on the EDTX Venue
By Diane Lettelleir, JC Penney
Diane Lettelleir
For the last few decades, venue for patent infringement suits has generally been considered to be nationwide. With the rise of PAEs, one of the significant challenges faced by most defendants targeted by patent infringement litigation initiated by PAEs, is being […]
PATENTBUSTERS® Tip: OTDP due to lack of a Terminal Disclaimer
By Howard Skaist, Berkeley Law & Technology Group
Howard Skaist
This is the first article of a three-part series sharing some of Berkeley Law & Technology Group’s PATENTBUSTERS® tips. These tips suggest tools companies can use to efficiently devalue or invalidate an asserted patent, potentially saving time […]
Why Nokia Could Step Up Its Patent Enforcement
If we consider Nokia’s (NOK) financial reports for the past several quarters, we can see an image of a company in need of growth boosters. Nokia relies on selling network equipment and services for […]
Canadian fintechs join the global fight against pesky, costly patent trolls
Two Canadian fintech companies have teamed up with some of America’s biggest tech giants to fend off patent trolls. Although they represent two extremes of Canada’s financial services sector – FI.SPAN is a startup […]
Why Canadian Startups Need IP Protection Strategies—And How to Get One for Cheap
An IP protection strategy is often not the first or even the tenth thing startup founders think about. This is particularly true for Canadian companies because Patent Assertion Entities, otherwise known as “patent trolls,” […]
Cisco Systems Pushes Back against Patent Trolls
Taking on patent trolls
Earlier this year, Cisco Systems (CSCO) joined LOT1 Network, a nonprofit alliance originally forged by Alphabet’s (GOOGL) Google as a long-term defense against patent trolls. Patent trolls are individuals or businesses […]
Join a defensive aggregator and what is your financial return?
Defensive aggregator models continue to evolve to address the challenge posed by patent assertion entities. While determining the financial return on these can be challenging, there are solutions – as a work-through of the […]
Why we stepped up to the patent troll problem
Entrepreneurs don’t pour all their energy into building startups just to have a patent assertion entity (PAE, or “patent troll”) attack them with patents of questionable quality. That is, unfortunately, a very common patent […]
The state of the industry: the biggest regional tech trends of 2016
As the tech sector continues to mature, regional differences have become more pronounced, but some industry trends ignore geographic boundaries. It’s become a cliché, but still rings true: 2016 was yet another milestone year for the […]
Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO), Slack Become Members Of Google’s Patent Network
A mutual defense alliance to protect companies against so-called “patent trolls,” known as the LOT Network, announced the addition of four more members on Wednesday, including the car maker Daimler and the online learning service Udemy.
The […]
