Red Hat and Novell Win the First Ever Patent Lawsuit Against Linux
The Eastern District of Texas, notorious in some circles as being very friendly to patent infringement plaintiffs, last Friday issued an utter defeat to IP Innovation, a company that, by all accounts, appears to specialize in buying patents from other companies which it then can use to threaten litigation. In IP Innovation, LLC. et al v. Red Hat, 2:07-cv-447 (E.D. Tex. 2010), a jury in the Eastern District of Texas found that the patents IP Innovation was suing under were entirely invalid.
IP Innovation, a subsidiary of Acacia Technologies Group, and Technology Licensing Corporation filed a patent infringement suit against Novell and Red Hat in 2007, for what they said were infringements in the Linux operating system distribution produced by those companies over U.S. Patents 5,072,412, 5,394,521 and5,533,183, all titled "User interface with multiple workspaces for sharing display system objects." IP Innovation had, shortly before the 2007 lawsuit, also threatened to sue Apple over the same patents. It can only be assumed that Apple paid some sort of settlement fee, since no litigation was ever commenced in that case.
Specifically, IP Innovation claimed that the defendants were infringing on (claims summarized in my own words): (1) claim 1 of the '412 patent - A system comprising of a display with separate data structures for first and second workspaces, along with controller and display objects so that the workspaces could be controlled and displayed separately; (2) claim 1 of the '521 patent - An "article of manufacture" for use in a system that includes a display, memory and input device and can switch between multiple workspaces; and (3) claim 3 of the '183 patent - A system comprising of a display, memory and an input device that is capable of showing visual objects, and capable of receiving a signal to switch between multiple workspaces.
I have not yet read the trial transcripts, as the Court has not yet released them to the public, but from my research it appears that IP Innovation not only asserted that Linux's multi-workspace functionality was infringing on its patents, but also that the open source model in general may be unethical (again, I need to read the transcripts, but I suspect that the argument went that, since open source software has many people all over the world contributing into it, these people are probably just stealing someone else's intellectual property and throwing it into open source, where it then is given away for free). I also got the sense from articles I have read that IP Innovation tried to position itself as a protector of the U.S. patent system and the defendants as detractors and thus at odds with democracy.
Accounts also state that the defendants focused on explaining the open source model to the jury in basic, understandable terms, and on prior art that existed before the patents at issue came into being. RedHat and Novell were lucky in that they had an overwhelmingly large number of examples of prior art, due in large part to their efforts in reaching out to the open source community and long-time software engineers and developers to contact them with examples of similar technology that existed prior the patents at issue. This grassroots litigation strategy was, in my opinion, a brilliant move on the part of defense counsel, one that paid off in spades. The sideshows regarding open source and the patent system... well... aside, the jury by all accounts decided the case based on the overwhelming amount of prior art that existed when the patent was first filed. This art led the jury to determine not only that Red Hat and Novell were not infringing on IP Innovation's patents, but that the three patents themselves were invalid in the first place, a stunningly decisive victory for Red Hat and Novell.
Patent suits are complex, complicated and technical. The key to winning such a suit is to keep things simple. It is imperative that you are, or your attorney is, able to explain your position and the relevant facts to jury and/or to the judge in concise, simple language that will draw the picture for you, without getting bogged down in the infinite minutia that is bound to accompany any case arising from technical innovation. Have a simple, compelling theme, and stick to it as pithily as possible. Here the defense's theme was clear and concise: prior art. Sure, they had to explain open source and also their criticisms of the U.S. Patent System, in order to counter the plaintiffs' themes, but in the end these other issues have nothing to do with the validity of the patents at issue.
Another key takeaway from this case lies in the brilliant way defense counsel utilized the existing community around Linux to do its legwork for it. Realizing that a worldwide, cooperative community of software engineers would have far better luck remembering and finding, at no charge, long-gone prior art than any team of lawyers or consultants ever could, defense counsel leveraged that massive resource to very good effect. Anyone involved in any type litigation would do well to remember that "outside-the-box" thinking can often reap large rewards.
As for open source, some believe that this suit was set in motion by competitors to cast a veil of uncertainty over Linux and open source in general, mostly due to the fact that some high level individuals in IP Innovation and its parent company are ex-Microsoft employees. Those suspicions notwithstanding, this case, along withJacobsen, serves only to bolster the open source model in the market place, and shows that it can pay to defend yourself against patent infringement suits, even if you find yourself a defendant in Texas' notorious Eastern District.
