!20020122 Aurigin out of business?; MP3 sues Cooley Godward; Intouch wins
Also sorts of gossip and news within the patent world.
-- F_ckedcompany reports that Aurigin is shut down by investors
-- MP3.com sues Cooley Godward for $175 million
-- Stroock & Stroock sued for patent malpractice
-- Strange letter in a Geron stem cell patent filewrapper?
-- Boston Patent Law Association lecture on the EPO
-- Some gossip on European patent courts
Greg Aharonian
====================
-- F_CKEDCOMPANY REPORTS THAT AURIGIN IS SHUT DOWN BY INVESTORS
The following is from the pure gossip section of f_ckedcompany.com
with regards to patent information provider Aurigin.
====
Un-original
Aurigin
A total f_ck - they are gone. Did IP/patent research online. Was kinda
cool, even had customers paying them (not enough).
> From: Brent Larson
> Sent: Friday, January 18, 2002 10:21 PM
> To: Employees
> Subject: Company Update
>
> Everyone,
>
> As a surprise to me today, the Shareholders informed me that they could
> not come to an agreement on terms of funding. Therefore, they have
> instructed me to obtain bankruptcy counsel and proceed with an orderly
> shutdown of Aurigin.
>
> Elizabeth has deactivated everyone's badges so access to the building
> is not available to the employees until further notice. We will be
> contacting you via email and voice mail over the next few days to give
> you more information and setup times for you to collect your personal
> belongings from the Aurigin premises. If at all possible, it would be
> nice if the servers could remain active for customers over the next few
> days. People involved in monitoring the servers would be doing this at
> their own free will.
>
> It is a sad day for all of us to be at a company that was so close to
> being a mega success and lacked the $5 million to get us there. We will
> always be shaking our heads at the lack of investor support for a
> company that has built a market leading product, established a worldwide
> market presence from scratch, obtained an initial customer base second
> to none and secured a formidable patent portfolio.
>
> Here is my humble opinion:
>
> I still believe that someone will resurrect this company's assets in
> some shape or form as there is too much value created to sit on the
> sidelines. Maybe not all of us will be part of the new organization but
> we can all be proud of what was created as of today and hope for the
> best for those who have the courage and fortitude to take a chance on
> this new and developing market.
>
> Stay tuned to your email and voicemail if any changes arise over the
> next several days. I will be checking email all weekend to correspond
> with those needing information (if I have any).
>
> Good luck and thank you for your support and committment over the last
> two weeks.
> Brent
>
When: Jan 20 2002 08:43PM
Company: Aurigin
Aurigin totally out of cash, mgmt team resigns
Aurigin
Aurigin went through yet another round of layoffs, its third major one,
bringing it down to some 45 employees from 150 last year. This time, the
company is out of cash and unable to raise more. All "remaining" employees
were put on minimum wage until the end of the month, where either investors
pony up and they get paid retroactively or the doors are shut. Right after
that fun event, in a bizzarre ploy of the executive team, the whole
remaining management team resigned, trying to force the investors to bring
them back at their terms. It looks like the investors just waived good bye.
I would. In last minute events, a suitor has reemerged, now looking to
truly pay bottom-dollar for some of the pieces of a once-promising company.
*******************************************
Below is a memo from Kevin Rivette, Chairman and CEO on Jan 4, 2002:
To everyone; I want to thank each and everyone of you for all of the great
work you have done here at Aurigin. You are the finest team I have
every had the pleasure of working with, this team exhibits the highest
professional standards and each of you is irreplaceable. I believe
that we have created a great thing and should be proud of it. Due to
circumstances I have resigned as CEO and Chairman. Before I resigned I
accepted the resignations of the following individuals: 1) Russ Lampert
- CFO 2) John Andrews - Sr. VP of Field Operations 3) Lynne Saunders -
VP Corporate Marketing 4) Mark Fulgham - VP Products & Delivery
5) Irving Rappaport - VP Intellectual Property.
It is my belief that the investors will create an operating board and
install new management. Please support them and make Aurigin everything
that it can and should be. My personal email is kgrivette@hotmail.com.
Thanks Kevin
====================
-- MP3.COM SUES COOLEY GODWARD FOR $175 MILLION
Last Friday, Internet music site MP3.com sued the high tech law firm
Cooley Godward for malpractice, and is seeking $175 million in damages.
MP3.com had retained Cooley to give them an opinion for their My.MP3.com
service, a service that led to MP3.com being sued multiple times for
copyright infringement for which MP3.com has paid out $175 million in
settlements, judgments and legal fees. MP3.com wants that money from
Cooley, plus hundreds of millions of dollars more. An article in the
SF The Recorder reports that MP3.com is arguing that Cooley failed to
"meaningfully advise about liability in an infringement suit", and
falsely represented to MP3.com that it had secured expert opinion
testimony that there were strong and viable defenses to any copyright
infringement claims. According to Mark Pitchford, Cooley Godward's
COO, "We view the underlying claims as at odds with our view of the
underlying facts of our relationship, and therefore think the claims
are frivolous".
The suit was filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Anyone with a
copy of the filing, I wouldn't mind getting a copy.
====================
-- STROOCK & STROOCK SUED FOR PATENT MALPRACTICE
The National Law Journal (14 January 2002, page B9) reports that the
New York law firm Stroock & Stroock has been sued for legal malpractice
by Paradise Creations. PC claims that S&S failed to make a midterm
patent payment to the USPTO and failed to track the promised corrective
actions. PC says this led to a gap in patent coverage that prevented
the company from enforcing the patent (the patent is for an erasable pen
for children's playsets).
====================
-- STRANGE LETTER IN A GERON STEM CELL PATENT FILEWRAPPER?
A PATNEWS reader sent me the following question. Anyone know the story?
====
Greg:
I have a request. When you get a chance, would you look at the file
wrapper for the patent on primate ES cells - the one that essentially
gives Geron a commercial monopoly on most uses of human embryonic stem
cells - no matter who makes the lines.
Apparently the patent was not supposed to be issued, but someone missed
the message. I want to know what you think.
It's US Pat # 5,843,780, issued on December 1, 1998.
I'm not an attorney, but this letter seems peculiar: it's a letter from
the Patent and Trademark office to the University of Wisconsin's attorneys,
dated December 10.
"This is a decision on the memorandum filed November 19, 1998, under
37 CFR 1.313 (b), to withdraw the above-identified application from
issue after payment of the issue fee.
Unfortunately, the memo did not reach the appropriate deciding official
for action prior to issuance of the patent. Any inconvenience is
regretted.
Telephone inquiries should be directed to the undersigned at 703 308-5254.
The file of above-identified application is being returned to the
Office of the Director of Group 1600.
Signed
Karna Cooper
Paralegal Specialist
Office of the Director
Office of Patent Publication"
What does that mean?
====================
-- BOSTON PATENT LAW ASSOCIATION LECTURE ON THE EPO
This Friday, the 25th, the Boston Patent Law Association is having a
luncheon lecture, "What's New in the European Patent Office?". Three
people from EPO will be speaking: Pantelis Kyriakides (VP of all of
the examiners and support staff in Munich), Gareth Lord (his assistant),
and Axel Haefeker (director of an EPO examining directorate). The
luncheon lecture starts at 11:30AM and will be at the Omni Parker House.
Cost is $95 for non-members. Contact Martina Rozumberkova at Tofias PC
(617-761-0600) for reservations.
====================
-- SOME GOSSIP ON EUROPEAN PATENT COURTS
Note: this was posted to a discussion group. Some interesting gossip
about European patent courts.
====
Firstly, whatever theory may say, the national courts have been very happy
to let the EPO Boards of Appeal make the running. The reason is quite
simple: few judges in the higher courts understand patents and none
understand software. In England, for example, there is no-one in the House
of Lords and the only Court of Appeal judge with patent experience is Lord
Aldous, aka Willie Aldous. In the High Court, Hugh Laddie is a chemist; I
don't know anything about Jacob, Pumphrey or Neuburger, but none of them
have afaik shown interest in the software problem; at least, they haven't
written on the subject. In Germany the BGH is made up of pure lawyers who
in my experience hate and fear technical stuff.
This is reflected in the way the House of Lords has talked up the Boards
of Appeal, referring to them as "judges in all but name". In other words,
the highest court in England sees the Boards of Appeal as a court. In
practice too, the English - and German - courts with the exception of the
occasionally perverse and consistently overruled 17th Senate of the Federal
Patent Court have sought to harmonise with BoA decisions. The only
disagreements I'm aware of in England arise from older precedent, which
the Patent Office feels bound by, in particular Gale's Application.
====================
-- INTOUCH SETTLES WITH AMAZON OVER MUSIC DOWNLOADING PATENTS
In a confidential agreement, Amazon has settled a patent infringement
lawsuit with Intouch Group. The patent allows people to sample music
online and that people downloading software be uniquely identified
(which would allow, for example, tracking people's preferences). It is
this latter feature which made it hard for the defendants to get a judge
to dismiss the suit, since most/all of the online music sampling systems
didn't do tracking of users.
"The litigation results may make our patent stronger in the long run,"
Intouch Chief Executive Joshua Kaplan said in an e-mail interview. "It is
our belief that the proven validity of the patents, coupled with the recent
settlement agreement reached with Amazon.com, will now encourage other
companies to seek reasonable licenses with Intouch."
Liquid Audio, Listen.com, DiscoverMusic and Entertaindom, a now-defunct
unit of AOL Time Warner's Warner Music Group, have not settled and
presumably are continuing to pursue the litigation.
"Intouch has several financial backers from the music industry," Kaplan
wrote. "The company feels it can now leverage these relationships to quicken
the pace of licensees, given the Amazon.com settlement."
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