[PLUG-TALK] Article One partners - smashing patents

[Keith Lofstrom]

One of the email lists I sign up for is "Article One Partners",
which crowdsources the the search for prior art that will 
invalidate patents.  Successful invalidations earn bounties.

For example:
------------------------------------------------------------
STUDY OF THE WEEK

http://go.articleonepartners.com/e/19302/study-index-4628/6g34s7/684906102

 [$6,500]

Server-based migration of email using distributed computing

This Study relates to server-based migration of electronic mailboxes
between source and destination email systems using distributed computing.
------------------------------------------------------------

If somebody on this list can find published literature (or a
prior patent) that covers this, they can earn $6500.  Note: this
isn't about "obvious" or "ridiculous" or other labels.  Almost
all patents are absurd, but that's the way the patent office
likes them.  Fortunately, there are specific procedures and tests
that litigators can use to invalidate some patents, and if you can
learn about the information they want and present it in the right
way, then you can help make a bad patent go away, and enable a
company to do something useful with fewer legal obstacles.

And if you are facing patent infringement litigation at your own
company, places like Article One may be helpful - though they
charge their clients a lot more than they pay in bounties.

The specific focus of this week's bounty might relate to a
mail migration that somebody here did long ago, before the
target applied for their patent.  If you read how to do it
in a magazine, or wrote a magazine article about it, that
magazine might be worth many months of rent!

Keith

P.S.  I learned about Article One from a friend who is a lawyer
for a Very Large Internet Company, which is attacked by patent
predators many times a week.  V.L.I.C., like most big companies,
applies for and cross-licenses their own patents to defend
against (cough-APPLE\\\\\-cough) such predators.

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com