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- From: PILCH Hartmut <phm@a2e.de>
- To: <patents@aful.org>
- Subject: divine.com swpat shakedowns
- Date: Thu, 24 Oct 2002 00:14:58 +0200 (CEST)
This is what several articles, not all of which are easily accessible,
report:
http://www.divine.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=d3%2FPage%2Fd3SubSectionWrapper&c=Page&cid=1023213659911
http://divine.com/rl/pdf/patents.pdf
http://news.com.com/2010-1071-962485.html
> Cash-strapped Divine Inc. is mining an unlikely new revenue stream:
> patents bought on the cheap from distressed companies. It's a
> controversial and increasingly popular strategy, and Chicago-based
> Divine is right in the thick of it.
...
> Two such patents now owned by Divine involve an item at the heart of
> e-commerce: the online shopping cart.
...
> The Chicago software and professional services company hasn't been shy
> about collecting on its recent patent purchase. Officials say Divine has
> gathered licensing fees - the amounts are unspecified - from 150 to 200
> companies, most of them e-tailers or the e-commerce arms of mainstream
> companies that use the online shopping cart technology.
> Divine is in talks with about 30 other companies and has filed
> patent-infringement lawsuits in U.S. District Court here against
> 11 firms that have ignored its royalty demands.
> The defendants include some familiar dot.coms: Chicago's Transethnic,
> parent of Ethnicgrocer.com; Oregon-based Wine.com; Downers Grove-based
> FTD Inc.'s FTD.com, and Allwall Technologies Inc., a North Carolina
> company that bought the remnants of Art.com. The last two firms settled
> the litigation quickly.
...
> The Chicago company isn't the only opportunist: Amazon.com Inc.,
> Hewlett-Packard Co. and Rockwell International Corp. are among the
> technology giants that recently have stepped up efforts to enforce
> patents, creating a mini-boom for lawyers and legal boutiques that
> specialize in such work.
...
> Still, this is a perfectly legal tactic, and a source of ready money
> for patent holders. Divine, for example, is looking to license its
> entire portfolio of 65 existing patents and 90 pending patents. They
> were gained largely from two acquisitions - Open Market and eshare
> communications inc. - made during a buying spree last year.
--
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance tel. +49-89-12789608
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation http://swpat.ffii.org/
125,000 signatures against software patents http://www.noepatents.org/
- divine.com swpat shakedowns, PILCH Hartmut
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