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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
In the aftermath of the many Sony data breaches, the firm faces 58 class-action lawsuits. In addition to the lawsuits, Sony (SNE) has a cyber-liability coverage problem. Help Net Security writes that an unexpected development could throw a wrench in Sony’s plans to reduce their losses. The article explains that Zurich American Insurance Company, one of Sony’s insurers, has petitioned the Supreme Court of New York to exonerate it from compensating Sony for the losses that it might incur if it loses any of the many lawsuits being filed against it due to the recent breaches.
According to Computerworld, this situation has highlighted, in cases of cyber-attacks and data breaches insurance has become a separate coverage not included in the General Liability policy. Also, the companies need to look carefully at what a cyber-liability insurance policy includes since it often covers the cost of recreating lost data but rarely the costs that stem from the breach, such as legal expenses and data notification costs.
According to Alan Paller, director of research at the SANS Institute, there are very few insurance companies whose cyber-liability insurance policy includes those costs. And with those who do, the high premiums and limited payouts – not to mention that the onus to prove that they have made an adequate effort to keep intruders out rests with the company – make many businesses decide against it.
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I covered this wrinkle in cyber-insurance back in 2011, here. Proper risk management includes planning for events and how to mitigate those events. Does your firm have cyber liability coverage? Does it even know its general from its cyber liability coverage?
Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
Rackspace, which just successfully defended itself in a lawsuit filed by one patent troll, is now declaring war on another patent troll reports Barb Darrow at GigaOM. The hosting firm turned cloud infrastructure service provider announced on its blog that it sued IP Navigation Group (IP Nav) and Parallel Iron, asking the federal court in its hometown of San Antonio, TX for damages, for breach of contract, and to enter a declaratory judgment asserting that Rackspace does not infringe on Parallel Iron’s patents.
According to the Rackspace (RAX) blog post, Parallel Iron sued Rackspace and 11 others in Delaware. The other firms the non-practicing entity is suing includes; Qualcomm (QCOM), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Twitter, Trulia (TRLA), Wal-Mart (WMT), Visa (V), Groupon, PayPal, Cloudera Inc., eBay (EBAY), and Nokia (NOK). That suit alleges that the defendants infringed on three patents that Parallel Iron claims cover the use of the open-source Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS).
In his post, Alan Schoenbaum, Rackspace SVP and general counsel wrote: “Parallel Iron is the latest in a string of shell companies created to do nothing more than assert patent-infringement claims as part of a typical patent troll scheme of pressuring companies to pay up or else face crippling litigation costs. At least that is what it looks like on the surface.”
GigaOM has reported many of the non-practicing companies (aka trolls) are shells created by patent aggregators. Their goal is to wring money out of targets. Sometimes, legitimate tech companies give their IP to trolls to harass rivals or even create their own shell to pursue this sort of litigation.
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The trolls claim they are supporting small firms. The argument goes that without the patent trolls, small companies — those without the resources to enforce their own patents — can turn their IP over to a shell company to protect it. Rackspace’s Shoenbaum calls the theory “laughable.”
I have covered how patent trolls have been stifling innovation and removing over $29 billion in value from the U.S. economy for a long long time.
Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
Surprise, surprise there’s another mobile-related patent lawsuit. David Meyer at GigaOM says this time the plaintiff is an obscure Delaware-registered limited liability non-practicing entity called Steelhead. The patent in question covers ‘mobile radio handover initiation determination’ – in other words, choosing which cellular base station has the best signal as the handset moves from one place to another.
The defendants are a who’s who of the mobile world: Apple (AAPL), AT&T (T), Google (GOOG), HTC, Kyocera (KYO), LG (LGLD), MetroPCS (PCS), Motorola Mobility, NEC Corporation (6701), Pantech, Research In Motion (RIMM), Sony (SNE), Sprint (S), T-Mobile, Verizon (VZ) and ZTE (763). The article says these firms committed the mortal sin of allowing their mobile phones to act like mobile phones. But the interesting thing about this particular suit is the origin of the suit – or, more precisely, the reporting around that origin.
Mr. Meyer reports that U.S. Patent No. 5,491,834 comes from BT (BT). It was filed in 1993 and granted in 1996. The patent is still listed by the USPTO as belonging to BT. In its court filings provided by the author, (the Motorola/Google example is here), Steelhead notes that it “owns all rights of recovery under the ‘834 Patent, including the exclusive right to recover for past infringement.”
The author suggests that this case may not be BT “aggressively monetizing” its patent portfolio. BT told Mr. Meyer, “BT sold all of its rights to the patents last year. We have no involvement in Steelhead Licensing LLC’s litigation activity.”
BT claims the troll is not a shell front for the firm. A spokesperson for the telecom giant told GigaOM, “BT doesn’t share in Steelhead’s licensing income”.
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I have covered the mobile patent wars many times here. I don’t know why I find patent trolling so interesting to follow. Maybe it is the same reason I watch NASCAR highlights, for the crashes, or the buy a few Powerball tickets, just in case.
Maybe someday all the money spent on lawyers will actually go back to making things and creating jobs.
Shame on BT if this is a legit patent and they were not smart enough to enforce their claim when they had it. I’m no lawyer, it seems to me that mobiles that can’t find a cell tower to connect to don’t work.
Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
Detroit has become the only two-time winner on the top five list of fastest-growing tech cities, says Dice.Com. According to MiTechNews, Detroit was No. 5 on the Dice list this year, with year-to-year growth of 10 percent in tech job listings. The Motor City was No. 1 on Dice’s list in 2011.
Back in 2011, Dice said Detroit had more than 800 tech jobs posted on any given day; now it’s more than 1,100. Automation Alley ranked the greater Detroit region among the best for its strong record of students completing science, technology, engineering, and math degrees.
The article says that annual salaries for Detroit-based tech pros are rising at above-average rates, up 7 percent from last year to $76,515 on average.
Dice says St. Louis, Mo. was No. 1 on this year’s Dice survey at 25 percent year-over-year growth in tech job listings, followed by:
Charlotte, N.C. (22 percent)
“Detroit is a great place to be, and that’s what’s driving it,” said Dice.com senior vice president Tom Silver. “I think what’s contributing to it is a growth in opportunity as well as a pretty good cost of living. Increasingly, people are moving from more traditional tech centers like the Valley and NYC where it’s really expensive, to cities like Detroit, which are a great place to live.”
Employers are also discovering a “rich pool of talent” in cities like Detroit too — that they can get for more reasonable salaries, given the lower local cost of living.
Dice noted that Quicken Loans, Domino’s Pizza (DPZ) and New World Systems are high-profile Motown-based companies with listings on Dice.com.
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I have covered what I have called the Detroit Miracle for a while here and here.
