NEWS
AvMarkets sues LinkedIn for patent infringement that
A US company has sued business network LinkedIn for allegedly infringing a patent
covers matching buyers and sellers in online markets.
AvMarkets, which allows aviation companies to buy and sell their goods on its site, owns a US patent protecting a method for “generating increased numbers of leads via the Internet”.
Te patent says these can be sales leads, and it protects receiving leads for data items, such as numbers of automotive parts; indexing them; listing them as hyperlinks on static web pages; and generating web pages.
In a suit filed at the US District Court for the District of Delaware, AvMarkets has targeted a LinkedIn group, ‘buyers and sellers of aircraſt spare parts from all over the world’, as the source of the alleged infringement.
According to the suit, the LinkedIn group brings buyers and sellers together by using the patented technology. AvMarkets argues that because (i) LinkedIn generates hyperlinks and web pages about products; (ii) search engines can crawl LinkedIn groups; and (iii) LinkedIn generates revenue for itself and sellers using the site, it should be liable for infringement.
AvMarkets wants damages and pre-judgment interest, which is a sum accounting for the time between the start of the alleged infringement and the date of the lawsuit (it has not specified dates), as well as a permanent injunction.
A spokesman for Niro, Haller & Niro, which is representing AvMarkets in the case, said the date from which the alleged infringement began was
in more than 60 years, introduced provisions allowing parties to challenge the validity of business method patents.
Auvil said this was because, in the mind of Congress, the patents are seen as having questionable value and the “potential to wreak havoc in the market”.
Chris Larus, partner at Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi LLP, said because the patent in this dispute is of a business nature, AvMarkets may find it difficult to successfully assert it against LinkedIn.
“something we will need to look into” but that “we have done our due diligence and believe we have a legitimate claim”.
Steve Auvil, partner at Squire Sanders LLP, said the patent in the suit seems to be a business method invention, adding: “Tere has been a ton of litigation [involving business method patents] because so many of these patents have validity issues.”
Te America Invents Act, signed in January 2011 and which is the biggest US patent reform
Amazon performs U-turn on Space Marine
Internet retailer Amazon has re-instated an e-book on its website that it removed last year aſter complaints about trademark infringement.
Amazon pulled Spots the Space Marine in December 2012 aſter Games Workshop claimed common law trademark rights for ‘space marine’ (covering books). Te toy-maker publishes e-books under the Warhammer brand, which features fictional characters called ‘space marines’.
Te book’s removal prompted a furious online backlash, with science fiction enthusiasts claiming the term ‘space marine’ had been used generically since at least the 1930s. Games Workshop has owned a US trademark for ‘space marine’ (for goods such as games, not books) since 1987.
In a blog post, the book’s author Maggie Hogarth said it re-appeared on Amazon on February 7. She said Amazon’s move was “one small battle in a long war” against over-zealous trademark owners seeking to claim rights over generic terms.
Games Workshop released a public statement that said: “Games Workshop has never claimed
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to own words or phrases such as ‘warhammer’ or ‘space marine’ as regards their general use in everyday life.”
Amazon appears to have reinstated the book because Games Workshop does not own a US trademark for ‘space marine’ that protects books, and a large amount of general use pre-dates the company’s common law claims over books, said Chris McLeod, partner at law firm Squire Sanders.
He added: “It’s hard to say whether the company was overzealous [when filing its original complaint] because it does have a mark covering all goods, including books, in the EU.”
Despite the existence of the EU mark, McLeod said Games Workshop seems to have filed its complaint only against Amazon’s US site. Te book remains on sites in countries such as the UK, which is covered by the EU mark.
Matt Sammon, partner at Marks & Clerk LLP, said filing a complaint with Amazon was a sensible approach, adding: “Court action would have been
Trademarks Brands and the Internet Volume 2, Issue 1
heavy handed and, to Hogarth’s own admission, litigation would have blown her out of the water.”
He said the case shows what a tricky position Amazon and online marketplaces such as eBay are in when they’re dealing with alleged IP infringement.
McLeod added: “Te case confirms that trademark registrations are far stronger than relying on use. It also shows that context is everything: if the term is in a book title and the book has existed for a long time, then you might struggle to show that the mark is distinctive, not descriptive.”
www.worldipreview.com
He added: “Te suit is targeting one service, a LinkedIn group, and it will be very difficult to quantify damages because the group is only one feature of the entire LinkedIn system. It will be hard to identify its specific revenue stream.”
Tis is not the first time AvMarkets has asserted this patent. In late 2011, the company sued aviation company Inventory Locator Service, a subsidiary of Boeing, for patent infringement, settling with the company soon aſter. Tough terms of
the deal are confidential, Larus said
such an early settlement suggests that AvMarkets’ demands may not have been particularly high, potentially seeking a licence fee that was lower than the cost of litigation.
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