The I Shing's Journal: The end of PanIP or a new beginning?

The website at youmaybenext.com, which chronicled the struggle of a group of medium-sized e-commerce companies against PanIP's claims of patent infringement, now states that the group has settled the whole thing.

The message board and all the pages within the site are now gone, and there's only one single page that briefly outlines what happened.

But big fat question marks are all over the place. What happens now? The fifteen or so defendants who banded together to fight are off the hook, at least as far as PanIP is concerned, but what about the dozens of others? Has PanIP dropped all of its suits, or just the ones against the members of that group?

At the bottom of the page is a sort of cryptic quote: "Don't let the things you can't do stop you from doing all that you can," which I take to mean that among the things that couldn't be done was to utterly defeat PanIP and prevent its founder from continuing his campaign of lawsuits against e-commerce companies.

Back in January, the founder of the PanIP Group Defense Fund had placed a warning on the site that PanIP was sending threatening letters out to businesses who had previously been left alone. Were those letters a last-ditch effort by PanIP to generate the capital necessary to continue the fight over its patents? Or was PanIP anticipating settling its way out of paying the $19,000 in legal fees awarded to the defense group following a determination by at least one judge that PanIP's defamation lawsuit against the group was an illegal SLAPP under California law?

Should e-commerce businesses breathe a sigh of relief that PanIP has backed off, or should they be more worried than ever? If PanIP starts up its campaign of lawsuits anew, will the next round of targeted companies similarly band together to fight off the suit?

The former website of the defense group states that both of PanIP's e-commerce patents are facing re-examination by the USPTO. The "automated sales" patent has been under review since August, according to the old version of the site, which never mentioned that the other patent was actually under review. If they are indeed both under review, can PanIP even file any new lawsuits?

I do not mean to denegrate the defense group in any way... standing up to PanIP was, in my opinion, the correct and brave thing to do. And, at the same time, carrying on the fight when an olive branch is offered with few, if any, strings attached would have been foolish. I don't blame the defense group for opting out of a longer, more ugly fight, and I salute them for standing tough as long as they did. Just getting the patent office to re-examine both the patents was quite a feat, one that very well might get both patents invalidated and send PanIP packing in the end, after all.

But if the patents are re-affirmed, you can bet that a whole lot of businesses who'd never heard of PanIP or its patents will be hearing all about them real soon.

I'm ignorant to the whole story

[curtisk]

But I just read (breezed) thru their patents....so these other companies are making "loan-officer-interactive kiosks"?? and then PanIP is suing? 'Cause thats what it sounds like their patent covers.

I love the crazy patent claims that come up... :)

Re:I'm ignorant to the whole story

[The I Shing]

There's plenty of background to the story if you dig around a little. When I first read about it, I spent a whole weekend researching it and the more I found out, the more creeped out I was. I really couldn't believe that the patent system could be so easily abused.

Re:I'm ignorant to the whole story

[curtisk]

Just did the ol' Google on them, yeah, its what I thought it was, very general patent being "tweaked" to make a case and hopefully an easy cash out