Newegg Celebrates Defeating Patent Trolls with Prime Day-esque Sale

Online retailer turns trolls into treasure with one-day sale.

On Tuesday July 28, Newegg will offer a one-day sale “offering deep discounts on some of today’s hottest technology products.”

The reason? Newegg defeated TQP Development, a company that is believed by many to be a patent troll. Their lawsuit against Newegg claimed that Newegg’s use of newer versions of SSL server encryption technology infringed on their patents.

Rather than sue web browser makers, server infrastructure, and others, patent trolls often pursue what they consider to be the weakest link employing such technologies. This technique has landed small business, app developers, and even children, in court for their use of technologies.

For Newegg though, the lawsuit’s victory is as unsurprising as their tenacity.

Last year, Newegg defeated another patent troll, and maintained their commitment to take patent trolls completely through the litigation process, in order to exact victory.

While victories by defendants often defeat patent trolls – invalidating their patents… they’re also quite rare. Patent trolls often settle their cases for pennies on the dollar when defendants start to win their case – or run out of money. The settlement process then allows a patent troll to maintain their patent, and pursue other potential defendants in the same manner – continuing their search for a deep pocket to pick.

Texas is most commonly where these patent cases arise, due to their easy trial procedures, perceived domain over cases in seemingly all 50 states, and juries that tend to favor plaintiffs. While the court invalidated Newegg’s patent claim, they refused to award Newegg any recovery of their lawsuit costs, sticking Newegg with likely over a hundred thousand dollars in legal fees. A similar ruling also occurred earlier this month against SFA, another patent troll for which Newegg won a dismissal against last year.

Newegg

PhoneNews.com encourages revised patent laws that shield startups from the high costs of intellectual property litigation, through mandatory arbirtation. We’re not holding our breath with today’s failed political parties.