Free for a Fee

Massive patent troll suit seeks to tax USB hubs at Wal-Mart, Amazon, Best Buy

18 11 2015

Ars Technica

September 25, 2015

Joe Mullin

A shell company with a patent linked to Intellectual Ventures, the world’s biggest patent-holding company, has quietly filed a new lawsuit in the Eastern District of Texas against a vast range of computer peripheral makers and sellers.

The complaint (PDF), filed last week under the name Minero Digital LLC, demands that 26 companies pay royalties on USB hubs, which link together multiple USB-enabled devices. The defendants include the nation’s biggest electronic retailers, like Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Fry’s, and Amazon. Also named are relatively small networking companies like HooToo. Major manufacturers are also included; Minero says that Belkin alone has eight different brands of USB hubs that infringe its patent.

more.

The content in this post was found at http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2015/10/22/patent-quality-is-much-ado-about-nothing-without-better-patent-examiner-controls/id=62654/ and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.