Comment
Ken
Is everyone who sells or makes NVRs and DVRs infringing on a patent?
I’ve recently become aware of an existing patent on all NVR and Hybrid systems. Although an old patent, and seemingly overly broad and never defended, the owner is now on a campaign to sue many firms. Here is the patent, which is a reissue. U.S. Patent No. RE43,462 issued June 12, 2012, for Video Monitoring and Conferencing System. The ‘462 Patent was a reissue of U.S. Patent No. 5,625,410.
The owner of the patent is initiating lawsuits against distributors, end clients and manufacturers. Florida based Hawk Technologies owns the reissued patent # RE43462. From what I’ve read, they are in business only to own IP and pursue patent infringement lawsuits. Here is a link to the first page of the patent: http://www.patentlens.net/patentlens/patents.html?patnums=US_RE43462#p0 This is very disturbing on a number of fronts; all of them have me questioning the legitimacy of the patent. It is overly broad, non-specific regarding details of how it is built, probably deliberately. It has not been defended for the entire time the original patent was issued, allowing the technology to become commonly applied and in “general use”. It is also something that may be obvious to someone “trained in the art”. To my understanding, these are each reasons to deny sole license.
I’ve seen several articles that named some current and former defendants. Nice Systems settled with them, BJs is now being sued, and some end users have received letters from the firm’s attorney. Avigilon took a proactive approach, asking for a decision from the court before they were sued, allowing it to use the patent. Here is a link to some of the lawsuits just in one federal district. http://setexasrecord.com/news/288310-recent-patent-infringement-cases-filed-in-the-eastern-district-of-texas-53#
How can the USPTO allow a patent like this? Why hasn’t the patent been challenged yet? I don’t know if anyone reading this has dealt with the USPTO office, but I can tell you that obtaining a patent is a nightmare. This can have devastating effects to our industry, so I wonder what can be done. Is this something we need to worry about? Or will this eventually go away when someone gets the USPTO to re-examine the patent for eligibility? Why have some large firms paid them instead of challenging it? I did see that one of their lawsuits, against Burlington coat factory, was referred to the director of USPTO for action. I can only hope that this is a challenge to the patent.
Ken, What is your opinion on this?
Mitch Cohen
BRIC SECURITY
Port Washington, NY
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Response
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Patent and trademark law is a very specialized field practiced by few attorneys. Litigation is particularly technical, costly, time consuming and protracted. We will have to see how this develops.
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