I'm back from Texas, where I was able to watch a patent trial (almost) in its entirety, which was a very educational experience. That case, Mass Engineered Design v. Ergotron, will be part of an upcoming feature story in the January print edition, and I'll share some of my thoughts and observations about what I saw and witnessed in Marshall here on The Prior Art.
Now it's time to return to a subject I visited in the October issue, when I focused on IP lawyers who have acquired their own patents, and then used them to sue companies, and sometimes entire industries, for patent infringement. The topic is far from exhausted.
Today I'll focus on two San Jose patent lawyers who have sued at least 20 companies in the past several months: Dominic Kotab and Kevin Zilka, the principals of Zilka-Kotab P.C., and at least three patent-holding companies—Aloft Media, LLC; Stragent, LLC; and Azure Networks, LLC.