Another Blow for Patent Troll

Printer OEMs have continued to pursue patent troll MPHJ, by disabling another patent being used by the organization.

Thanks to an intervention by the OEMs, U.S. Patent No. 8,488,173 held by MPHJ has been disabled by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the Patent Trial and Appeals Board (PTAB).

Actionable Intelligence, which likens “patent trolls to cockroaches—impossible to eradicate—predicts U.S. Patent No. 7,477,410, held by the troll, will be ruled invalid.

In March, 2014, Recycling Times reported joint actions taken by Ricoh Americas, Xerox and Lexmark who jointly filed two actions at the United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO), including Inter Partes Review of U.S. Patent No. 8,488,173 and certain claims of U.S. Patent No. 7,477,410. The OEMs requested the USPTO to rule the claims for U.S. Patent No. 8,488,173 “are unpatentable and were fully anticipated by various prior art references”. Also, the companies noted, “MPHJ’s business practices are currently under investigation or have previously been investigated by the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) as well as the Attorneys General of Minnesota, Nebraska, New York and Vermont.”

Dr Harvey Levenson has told RT Media that he has a lot to say about patent trolls attacking the print industry technology at a seminar he is running at GraphExpo on September 14 in Chicago. His presentation called: “Patent Protection … Patent Trolls BEWARE!” will include an update to a US Senate Judiciary Committee, an OEM and a patent attorney representing the imaging industry. Further details:
http://graph15.mapyourshow.com/6_0/sessions/session-details.cfm?scheduleid=1017

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Please contact Violien Wu, Head of News & Editorial, via violien.wu@iRecyclingTimes.com