This week: Consultant/blogger/inventor Gary Odom sees infringers everywhere, AOL and Yahoo move a little bit closer to "mutually assured destruction," and more.
Patent Hawk Swoops In Again
- Odom v. Attachmate Corporation et al, 09-cv-00406 D. Oregon. [PDF]
Gary Odom is a litigation consultant, and an inventor. Last year, he used his 7,363,592 patent to sue Microsoft—a company that once employed him as an adviser on patent lawsuits—in the Eastern District of Texas. In February, The Prior Art wrote about how Odom's employment contracts with Klarquist Sparkman, one of the firms Microsoft regularly taps as outside counsel, became an issue in Odom v. Microsoft.
In that case, which has since been transferred to Oregon, Odom is demanding that a royalty be paid to him for each copy of Microsoft Office 2007 that is sold in the United States. In February, Odom sued Autodesk, seeking a similar royalty on Autodesk 2009. Odom v. Autodesk. [PDF]
Last week, Odom followed up those suits by filing one in Oregon that names 28 additional software makers. Each of the companies, he claims, owes him royalty payments. The list of defendants includes companies that range in size from British aerospace giant BAE Systems to smaller entities such as Emportal and San Diego-based SmartDraw.
Continue reading "Patent Litigation Weekly (April 13-17) " »