The Recorder reports that patent number 7,107,605, covering a digital picture frame, was originally filed by a small software company, but ended up being asserted by a small patent-holding company, Ez4media.
Since then, the patent has been moved through a holding company affiliated with Intellectual Ventures and then into Picture Frame Innovations, a shell company owned by James Beauregard Parker. Parker’s company filed suit against Kodak and CDW on August 10. TPA readers may know Parker as someone who owns other holding companies, including some—such as BarTex Research and Illinois Computer Research—that have asserted Scott Harris patents.
An earlier Ez4media lawsuit against Apple, now settled, was briefly noted by TPA in January. (See bullet point midway down that post.) Both Ez4media and Picture Frame Innovations are represented by the Niro Scavone law firm.
Ray Niro says “IV is not involved in any way, shape, or form” in the Picture Frame Innovations lawsuit, but neither he nor IV will answer the key question: whether the patent-holding company has any financial interest in the litigation.
The appearance of a lawsuit closely connected to Intellectual Ventures raises big questions about what the company’s next move is. With over 25,000 patents, it’s got a lot of moves it could make. Intellectual Ventures’ recent behavior—demanding big licensing fees, and apparently, making some big promises about payback—is certainly an increasingly frequent subject of conversation among patent lawyers. Read Zusha Elinson’s full story.
The strategy being used here also raises some unsettling questions about clarity and openness in patent lawsuits more broadly—namely, whether those asserting patents should be able to conceal their identities from the public, even if they’re large entities. The question doesn’t just apply to holding companies, either. The success of the “patent troll” business model has grabbed the attention of a certain slice of corporate America, as well, and some large companies—including AT&T, Honeywell, and General Electric—have spun off pure-play licensing arms meant to generate revenue solely by licensing and litigating patents.
For some players, it will clearly be more appealing to put distance between themselves and the “business end” of litigation, perhaps by cutting deals to share in the proceeds of litigation while not taking ownership of the patents. Even if opposing counsel are able to determin the owners-in-interest through discovery, such documents only sometimes turn up on PACER, unfortunately. In a country of open courts, defendants should be able to confront their true accusers—and the public should have the right to know who the true owners, and enforcers, of patent rights are.
Are we moving into an era of proxy patent battles? Are we perhaps already in it?
Photo: Intellectual Ventures founder Nathan Myhrvold. flickr / jurvetson