I hope Actus loses big! That is ridiculous.

The most absurd part about this is how long they waited to sue. My mother could have told you that Amazon does electronic payments and she doesn't use a computer. So it's obvious that they have known of this alleged infringement, for what, a decade and not done anything about it. That should be grounds for dismissal. In the same way you have to take steps to protect your trademark, you should have to protect your patent.

And what's in the water in Marshall, Texas??

Is there anything in patent law that requires outfits like Actus to actually use their patents (assuming they really have been trampled on). Is there some reason the attorneys for the accused companies not doing "due diligence" before they make something? What are teh Factus Actus?

Reading some of the patents in question, particularly patent 7,328,189 (filed in 2001), demonstrates the garbage the US Patent Office allows. Usually patents lay claim to specific implementations, but this patent attempts to encompass any non-currency representation of data in a database which is used for future charging.

This patent cannot be defended as this is how all credit-based transactions have been processed since the invention of top-up cards, calling cards, gift vouchers, discount codes, etc. All of which, existed years before the patent was filed. All which used the same generic architecture proposed in the patent.

It's time for the international community to raise the benchmark for what is patentable and what is not.

The patent trolls love to file out of TEXAS because there are corrupt judges there who will almost always side with the plaintiff in the case no matter how ridiculous the patent is.

This patent has been in use not only in e-commerce but by the banking industry for decades.

This is just lawyers and former lawyers (judges) keeping themselves rich through extensions, delays and appeals. The defendants pay exorbitant fees to litigate frivolous lawsuits while plaintiffs will see little of any awarded judgements years from now...but the whole time lawyers' fees meters are running!

/

Actus bought up an all-but-defunct company which had a patent they thought they could exploit, suing every deep pocket in sight in hopes of getting them to settle up regardless of the frivolousness of their claims.

check this out: http://www.law.com/jsp/PubArticle.jsp?id=1202429982289

scroll to the bottom.

yep. shysters milking the system.

we need to get rid of all patents and copyrights, stop trying to make money on things, and just share and use everything.

The patent trolls love to file out of TEXAS because there are corrupt judges there who will almost always side with the plaintiff in the case no matter how ridiculous the patent is.

The judges are not corrupt. These are jury trials, the judges don't make the verdict.

It is the people that are the problem. There are certain areas of the country where the people feel the little guy is always getting shafted by big corporations and are more likely to rule against the corporations.

There was/is a county in Mississippi that was the same way. Every lawsuit against drug company's would go through there.

The people have the "Well, if I end up suing someone, I hope to win, so I'm going to rule for these guys to help me in the future", regardless of the fact that'll never happen.

You know, sort of how everyone in the US is against the 'death tax' even though it only affects like 1/10th of 1% of all people who die. Everyone hopes that one day they'd be in that percentile.