- Sep 26, 2000
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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 couldnt 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 youre claiming anyone on a network with a scanner owes you a license? He said, Yes, thats correct. And at that point, I just lost it.
Patent Trolls:
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 couldnt 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 youre claiming anyone on a network with a scanner owes you a license? He said, Yes, thats correct. And at that point, I just lost it.
Patent Trolls:
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