nanog mailing list archives

Re: Verisign vs. ICANN


From: Dan Hollis <goemon () anime net>
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 00:46:07 -0700 (PDT)


On Fri, 10 Sep 2004, Joe Rhett wrote:
On Thu, Sep 09, 2004 at 04:01:46PM -0700, Dan Hollis wrote:
If the patent is strong enough, wouldnt some patent attorney be willing to 
defend it on a contingency basis?
With the potential $$ in a patent violation judgement against verisign, I 
would think attorneys would be all over it.
Patent violation can be easily gathered, but the penalty is always based on
the lost revenue, which must be documented and validated.
In short, if you want to make money selling your patent to someone then you
must have a valid business that loses money so that your lawsuit against
them will have teeth.

So the attorney creates an IP holding company to which the patent is 
assigned, and the company offers to license the patent to Verisign. 
When Verisign refuses, they get sued for lost revenue.

There are companies whos entire revenue stream revolves around licensing 
patents / litigating. This is quite normal.

-Dan


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