Scan and email a pdf? You owe us a thousand dollars.

[techs]

http://news.yahoo.com/patent-trolls-latest-gambit-sue-businesses-dare-office-201509995.html

Patent trolls’ latest gambit: Sue businesses if they dare to use office scanners

Ars Technica reports that an entity called “Project Paperless LLC” has been sending out letters to small and medium-sized businesses demanding licensing fees for using office scanners capable of sending PDFs via email. Steven Vicinanza, founder of Atlanta-based IT services provider BlueWave Computing, told Ars that both his company and several of its customers had received letters telling them that they needed to buy licenses for “distributed computer architecture” patents that cover basic networked scanning technology. At a cost of $1,000 per employee, Vicinanza said that the licenses would have cost his company a grand total of $130,000 just for the right to scan documents.

Vicinanza couldn’t believe that he was actually being threatened with a lawsuit for using office scanners, so he decided to contact the attorney for Project Paperless to get some clarification.

“[The attorney] said, if you hook up a scanner and e-mail a PDF document — we have a patent that covers that as a process,” Vicinanza told Ars. “So you’re claiming anyone on a network with a scanner owes you a license? He said, ‘Yes, that’s correct.’ And at that point, I just lost it.”

Patent Trolls:

 

[sao123]

seems to me lexmark and HP might have some sort of say in this matter, eh?
or have PP LLC, not heard of a multifunction device?

 

[Brainonska511]

How can they be going after businesses that just purchased device that has that functionality? That would be like Apple going after each purchaser of a Samsung Galaxy device for violating Apple's patents in its patent lawsuits. From the brief description here, someone needs to nail that companies ass to the wall.

 

[Theb]

seems to me lexmark and HP might have some sort of say in this matter, eh?
or have PP LLC, not heard of a multifunction device?

Those guys would dig in and pull out some big guns. BlueWave Computing might jump at a settlement when they look at what it would cost to fight.

 

[Crono]

I invented and patented double-posting technology.

OP owes me $245,000.

 

[Red Squirrel]

The patent system is so broken it's not even funny. This is barely enforceable though, but I can see lot of companies disabling the feature on it's photocopiers to protect themselves in case someone uses it to send a document outside and it happens to make it to a patent enforcement officer.

But that also brings us to another topic, WTF is up with PDFs anyway? Why can't these machines just send a jpg or something? At least you can modify it, crop it, or do anything to it that needs to be done. PDF is the most useless file format ever.

 

[Crono]

But that also brings us to another topic, WTF is up with PDFs anyway? Why can't these machines just send a jpg or something? At least you can modify it, crop it, or do anything to it that needs to be done. PDF is the most useless file format ever.

It's the preferred multi-page, cross-platform, document file-type.

I wish everything and everyone just used .doc or .docx, and .txt for anything with simple formatting. It would make it a lot easier.

 

[gorcorps]

The patent system is so broken it's not even funny. This is barely enforceable though, but I can see lot of companies disabling the feature on it's photocopiers to protect themselves in case someone uses it to send a document outside and it happens to make it to a patent enforcement officer.

But that also brings us to another topic, WTF is up with PDFs anyway? Why can't these machines just send a jpg or something? At least you can modify it, crop it, or do anything to it that needs to be done. PDF is the most useless file format ever.

That's exactly the point. When I scan shit to send out I don't want it to be altered in any way. My reports are MY reports, and are not to be changed in any way and only reproduced in full. It's the way of the business world. PDFs are safe and fairly well trusted to not be screwed with.

 

[PottedMeat]

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/patent-trolls-want-1000-for-using-scanners/2/

Her study of startups targeted by patent trolls found that when confronted with a patent demand, 22 percent ignored it entirely. Compare that with the 35 percent that decided to fight back and 18 percent that folded. Ignoring the demand was the cheapest option ($3,000 on average) versus fighting in court, which was the most expensive ($870,000 on average).

nigerian scammer: holy shit why aren't we doing this?!?!

 

[OCGuy]

My whole industry is based off of this...good luck with that. I walk or have my assistant walk to the scanner 30+ times daily, and recieve as many or more in my inbox from other sources.

 

[techs]

I invented and patented double-posting technology.

OP owes me $245,000.

I'm screwed. Would you take a Bigfoot 1 Gb. drive instead?

 

[techs]

It's the preferred multi-page, cross-platform, document file-type.

I wish everything and everyone just used .doc or .docx, and .txt for anything with simple formatting. It would make it a lot easier.

I send stuff .rtf
That way even the Mac disabled can open them.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

The patent system is so broken it's not even funny. This is barely enforceable though, but I can see lot of companies disabling the feature on it's photocopiers to protect themselves in case someone uses it to send a document outside and it happens to make it to a patent enforcement officer.

But that also brings us to another topic, WTF is up with PDFs anyway? Why can't these machines just send a jpg or something? At least you can modify it, crop it, or do anything to it that needs to be done. PDF is the most useless file format ever.

Sometimes people want a format where multiple images can be stored in a specific, predetermined order that efficiently stores typesetting information for complex layouts, which can't be easily tampered with or modified.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I send stuff .rtf
That way even the Mac disabled can open them.

Yeah I find the simpler the format, the better. I'm not a huge fan of .docx either, it does nothing special that .doc can't do (umm, display a document? lol) so by using .docx you are increasing the requirements of the receiver (having the converter installed) for no reason. We have the converter at work, and if we did not, I know the admin password so I could install it, but not everyone has that luxury. .doc is fairly standard. I usually send in that format.

Idealy open document format would be even better but most companies wont have any of the open office programs installed anyway.

 

[Lifted]

Sometimes people want a format where multiple images can be stored in a specific, predetermined order that efficiently stores typesetting information for complex layouts, which can't be easily tampered with or modified.

Beyond that they support indexes, hyperlinks, OCR, embedded fonts, layers, etc.

PDF at it's core was designed so that it looks (mostly) the same no matter where it's printed. A JPEG is useless in this regard, though TIFF's are often used when scanned documents are being stored in document management systems.

 

[Newbian]

Hopefully the inventor of email gets on the bandwagon.

 

[techs]

Hopefully the inventor of email gets on the bandwagon.

http://inventors.about.com/od/estartinventions/a/email.htm

Computer engineer, Ray Tomlinson invented internet based email in late 1971. Under ARPAnet several major innovations occurred: email (or electronic mail), the ability to send simple messages to another person across the network (1971). Ray Tomlinson worked as a computer engineer for Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN), the company hired by the United States Defense Department to build the first Internet in 1968.

Ray Tomlinson was experimenting with a popular program he wrote called SNDMSG that the ARPANET programmers and researchers were using on the network computers (Digital PDP-10s) to leave messages for each other.



I think he's still alive. Or maybe I missed the email...

 

[xanis]

But that also brings us to another topic, WTF is up with PDFs anyway? Why can't these machines just send a jpg or something? At least you can modify it, crop it, or do anything to it that needs to be done. PDF is the most useless file format ever.

PDFs are far from useless; see Lifted and Mr. Pedantic's posts. Additionally, PDFs are preferred for large printing jobs, since they support vector graphics.

I'm a UX/UI Designer (basically a Graphic Designer, except I focus on interfaces and user experiences) and I'll take a PDF over just about any other format any day of the week. PDFs are great as long as people know how to save and edit them.