Sanders Media

There has been a surge of lawsuits involving intellectual property and patent infringement recently. Many of them cross the border into the absurd. Here are a few examples.

1. A company called Psion filed suit against any company using the term “netbook”. Despite “netbook” being a generic term referring to small, very mobile laptops, Psion felt its trademarked “netBook” was being infringed. Never mind that their “netBook” was a completely different product. They had also ceased to manufacture their device several years ago.
2. A company in Texas is suing at least 20 companies for storing consumer payment information and allowing either stored value payments or one-click payments on their sites. Apple, MasterCard, Visa and Walmart are among the companies being sued. The company bringing the suit is a notorious patent hoarder. Their only form of income seems to come from lawsuits.
3. A very popular iTunes app store game, EDGE, has been forced out by a patent infringement lawsuit. The man bringing the suit has a history of bullying game developers with his numerous lawsuits. He claims to have the trademark on any software using the word “edge”.

These lawsuits may be merely an annoyance to larger companies, but they threaten to stifle the innovation that smaller companies have long provided. Another consequence is higher prices. How else do companies like Apple and Walmart make up for the millions paid out in these suits?