{"id":41256,"date":"2013-04-09T22:28:23","date_gmt":"2013-04-10T02:28:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rbach.net\/blog\/index.php\/"},"modified":"2022-08-15T14:44:22","modified_gmt":"2022-08-15T18:44:22","slug":"rackspace-strikes-back-at-patent-troll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/rackspace-strikes-back-at-patent-troll\/","title":{"rendered":"Rackspace Strikes Back at Patent Troll"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Rackspace<\/a>Rackspace<\/strong>, which just successfully defended itsel<\/strong>f in a lawsuit filed by one patent troll,<\/strong> is now declaring war on another patent troll<\/strong> reports<\/a> Barb Darrow<\/a> at GigaOM<\/a>. <\/em>The hosting firm turned\u00a0cloud infrastructure service provider announced<\/a> on its blog<\/a> 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,<\/strong> and to enter a declaratory judgment asserting that Rackspace does not infringe on Parallel Iron\u2019s patents.<\/p>\n

\"Rackspace<\/a>According to the Rackspace<\/a> (RAX<\/a>) blog post, Parallel Iron sued<\/a> Rackspace and 11 others in Delaware. The other firms the non-practicing entity is suing includes; Qualcomm<\/a> (QCOM<\/a>), JPMorgan Chase<\/a> (JPM<\/a>), Twitter<\/a>, Trulia<\/a> (TRLA<\/a>), Wal-Mart<\/a> (WMT<\/a>), Visa<\/a> (V<\/a>), Groupon<\/a>, PayPal, Cloudera Inc.<\/a>, eBay<\/a> (EBAY<\/a>), and Nokia<\/a> (NOK<\/a>). 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<\/a> (HDFS)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In his post, Alan Schoenbaum, Rackspace SVP and general counsel wrote: \u201cParallel 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<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

\"Line<\/a>GigaOM<\/em> has reported many of the\u00a0non-practicing companies (aka trolls) are shells created by patent aggregators<\/strong>. Their goal is to wring money out of targets<\/strong>. Sometimes, legitimate tech companies<\/strong> give their IP to trolls to harass rivals<\/strong> or even create their own shell to pursue this sort of litigation.<\/p>\n

rb-<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The trolls claim they are supporting small firms. The argument goes that without the patent trolls,\u00a0 small companies \u2014 those without the resources to enforce their own patents \u2014 can turn their IP over to a shell company to protect it. Rackspace’s Shoenbaum calls the theory \u201claughable.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

I have covered how patent trolls have been stifling innovation and removing over $29 billion<\/a> in value<\/a> from<\/a> the U.S. economy<\/a> for a long<\/a> long<\/a> time<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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