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I searched the letter, and can't find the word "patent" anywhere. Unless there is a patent involved, then the wannabe plaintif is relying on "Trade Secrets" (ND
by wisty 16y ago
I searched the letter, and can't find the word "patent" anywhere. Unless there is a patent involved, then the wannabe plaintif is relying on "Trade Secrets" (NDA), rather than patents to protect his turf, I'm pretty sure you can politely tell him to fuck off. (IANAL, this is not legal advice).
I've heard that under certain circumstances, you can write a threatening letters, just to rattle the competition. Best get a lawyer to do it, as it sounds slightly credible, and they can make sure you don't actually do anything illegal, but you can often just quote legislation and "request" people back off ... it's just a request, right? The FBI did this to wikipedia, whose legal team sent a hilarious reply.
It's an extremely bad idea if you have a patent they are infringing on (as direct threats will force them to counter-sue, or settle immediately, or face extra damages), but for most things you can talk as much legal smack-down as you want.
- gavinballard 16y agoActually, in Australia and NZ (not sure on the situation in the US and elsewhere), empty threats to sue to enforce intellectual property rights are illegal (I am an Australian law graduate, not practising, this is not legal advice). It's sad that folks like this seem to think that threatening to sue at the drop of a hat is a perfectly acceptable business tactic. It's especially sad in a case like this when the intellectual 'property' (it's so ephemeral in this situation that quotes are needed) concerned involves an idea that almost everyone who has thought about location-based services has had. (No offence to Andrew and the team, they seem to have actually executed it and executed it well).