Kaspersky Lab has put paid to the claims of a patent troll by going on the offensive and ultimately managing to force the troll to pay to end a lawsuit.
In a typically robust blog post, the company's founder Eugene Kaspersky wrote that Wetro Lan had been shooed off "with its tail between its legs".
"The way this has been achieved," he wrote, "will go down in the annals of patent law as a crucial precedent, since no one before has ever secured a victory like we just have: we not only forced the troll to withdraw its lawsuit; we also got it to pay us compensation!"
Eugene said in the US summer of 2016, Kaspersky Lab had been served with a claim alleging infringement of a data packer filtration technology patent, and seeking a settlement out of court.
{loadposition sam08}"But, as you’ll know, we never give in to patent trolls. We don’t do deals with them; if we did, they’d only be back for more later on. So – also on script – they came back with sterner words: ‘see you in court’. A while later they did see us in court, in their fave court in a rural district of Texas," he wrote.
The patent in question had been filed in 2010 but expired in 2012. However, Wetro Lan was making claims for violation of the patent between 2010 and 2012.
Eugene pointed out that the patent was so obvious that it had been called Stupid Patent of the Month by the Electronic Frontier Founder.
When Kaspersky Lab did not yield to the original demand from Wetro Lan, it reduced the demand to US$60,000 and then to US$10,000.
But, Eugene wrote, his company did not give in even at that point and issued a counter-offer for US$10,000 to drop the case.
"But this time we decided to tear up the rule book: we issued it with a counter demand sum – US$10,000 – for us to drop the lawsuit (remembering that the court only dismisses a lawsuit if both parties agree thereto).
"And at just US$10,000 it was a bargain for the price, for otherwise we would continue our meetings in court on which the troll would spend a lot more money and energy (on an unwinnable case) and run the risk of having to pay our court costs."
Wetro Lan then asked Kaspersky Lab to reduce its demand to US$2000 but the anti-virus company refused to go below US$5000.
The claim was then withdrawn and Kaspersky Lab received the US$5000 it had demanded.
Eugene said these were very unusual results in the US. "Accordingly, they’re results that tend to keep the shrewder trolls off our back. The less shrewd, however, still keep coming, not even taking the time to find out about our successful anti-troll reputation – or even just our basic anti-troll slogan: ‘We fight them to the last bullet – their last bullet’.
"Perhaps if they did they too would stay away. But they don’t. So they get stung."