More of This

Content delivery network Cloudflare was subjected to an attempted shakedown by patent trolls, and not only did they not back down, they filed a complaint with the troll's state bar:

Cloudflare, the Internet security company and content delivery network, was founded more than seven years ago but miraculously hadn't ever been hit with a patent infringement lawsuit from a non-practicing entity (commonly referred to as a "patent troll") until this March.

Rather than pay a nuisance settlement, Cloudflare is going all-out to fight Blackbird Technologies LLC, a company founded by two former big-firm lawyers that has amassed dozens of patents and filed more than 100 lawsuits. Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince says Blackbird is a classic "patent troll," albeit one with a new, and potentially dangerous, twist on its business model.

In addition to filing its responsive papers in court today, Cloudflare also has sent letters to state bar regulatory committees in Massachusetts and Illinois, asking them to investigate Blackbird further.

In an extensive blog post this morning, Prince says that in addition to beating a patent he views as invalid, he intends to look into Blackbird's operations further "and expose how patent trolls really operate." By Cloudflare's count, Blackbird has filed 107 cases since 2014, making it "one of the most prolific trolls in the United States."

Prince goes on to say that "Cloudflare will not settle this case and doesn’t plan to settle any patent troll case, ever." In addition, Cloudflare will spend $50,000 to crowdsource prior art that could invalidate Blackbird's patents. By issuing the prior art "bounty," Cloudflare seeks not just to invalidate the patent asserted against Cloudflare, but of any of the 37 other patents and applications owned by Blackbird.

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That puts Blackbird squarely in the much-criticized business model sometimes derided as "patent trolling"—buying a patent, holding it in a shell company, filing a batch of lawsuits, and then (presumably) splitting the settlement revenue with the inventor.

There's a new twist, though. Blackbird Technologies LLC is now the patent holder and also appears to be directly owned by the attorneys who are litigating the case—Verlander and her cofounder, Chris Freeman.
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In Prince's view, Blackbird is really a law firm and so shouldn't be allowed to act as its own client. "As far as we can determine, Blackbird produces no products or services which it makes available to the public," writes Prince. "Rather, it offers litigation services and is in the business of filing lawsuits."

Blackbird's vaunted "new model" is "to distort the traditional Attorney-Client relationship," according to Prince, simply buying a client's claims rather than actually taking the person on as a client.

(emphasis mine)

We really need to find a way to shut down these parasites.

BTW, quoting from the aforementioned blog post:

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Worse still, Blackbird is a new, especially dangerous breed of patent troll. Like the dinosaur in the latest Jurassic Park movie, a synthetic combination of Tyrannosaurs and Velociraptor, Blackbird combines both a law firm and intellectual property rights holder into a single entity. In doing so, they remove legal fees from their cost structure and can bring lawsuits of potentially dubious merit without having to bear any meaningful cost. In other words, Blackbird’s new breed of entity is specifically designed to add leverage and amplify the already widely maligned problem of patent trolling.

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Blackbird Technologies has filed 107 cases since September of 2014, making it one of the most prolific trolls in the United States. Its website links to a “News” item titled “4 Frequent Filers of IP Suits to Watch this Year” which highlights Blackbird as “a newer entrant on the list of top patent plaintiffs, coming in at fourth place with 48 suits last year in the District of Delaware spanning a wide range of technologies.” Some of the patents at issue include: Bicycle Pet Carrier, Buttock Lift Support, Sports Bra, and Method for Managing a Parking Lot. A complete list of Blackbird's patents is available here. Although they have been very aggressive about filing such claims, they have still not taken a single case through trial. And only a couple of those cases made it to the claim construction phase, where the Court defines the meaning of the patents at issue. Instead, many of Blackbird’s cases have been resolved shortly after filing, suggesting that these cases were never about legal rights or claims but were instead about creating the impetus for a nuisance settlement in the face of significant litigation costs.

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Blackbird Technologies has filed 107 cases since September of 2014, making it one of the most prolific trolls in the United States. Its website links to a “News” item titled “4 Frequent Filers of IP Suits to Watch this Year” which highlights Blackbird as “a newer entrant on the list of top patent plaintiffs, coming in at fourth place with 48 suits last year in the District of Delaware spanning a wide range of technologies.” Some of the patents at issue include: Bicycle Pet Carrier, Buttock Lift Support, Sports Bra, and Method for Managing a Parking Lot. A complete list of Blackbird's patents is available here. Although they have been very aggressive about filing such claims, they have still not taken a single case through trial. And only a couple of those cases made it to the claim construction phase, where the Court defines the meaning of the patents at issue. Instead, many of Blackbird’s cases have been resolved shortly after filing, suggesting that these cases were never about legal rights or claims but were instead about creating the impetus for a nuisance settlement in the face of significant litigation costs.

They actually sued Netflix over the concept of mailing DVDs.

These people don't just need to be out of business.  They need to be disbarred for "acquiring a proprietary interest in the subject matter of litigation",^* and for, "sharing fees or firm equity with non-lawyers."^†

They should also be jailed for fraud, because their use of these patents is clearly deceptive.

^*Violation of Rule 1.8(i).
^†Violation of Rule 5.4(a) or 5.4(d).