TechRadium Sues Twitter For Patent Infringement
By Anna Johnson on August 6th, 2009TechRadium, Inc. has filed a lawsuit against micro-blogging company Twitter in federal district court in Houston, Texas. TechRadium alleges that Twitter has infringed three TechRadium patents.
TechRadium’s patents relate to its mass notification system, which allows someone to send a single message simultaneously and instantaneously to multiple subscribers. The subscriber receives the information through any combination of devices, including telephone, cell phone, fax, wireless systems, alerts and other methods, in as many as 12 languages.
TechRadium markets its technology under the trade name IRIS(TM), which stands for ‘Immediate Response Information System.’ Apparently, IRIS is being used by many school systems, businesses, governments, and the U.S. military.
“It appears that Twitter’s core functionality is squarely within the technology described by TechRadium’s patents,” said TechRadium’s attorney W. Shawn Staples of Houston’s Mostyn Law firm in a press release.
Since TechRadium has, according to W. Shawn Staples “aggressively and successfully defended its patents in court and will continue to do so anytime there are infringements” Twitter can expect to have a fight on its hands.
Unless it settles the case, of course. And, based on a statement in TechRadium’s press release announcing the lawsuit, TechRadium seems to expect Twitter to agree to a settlement.
Lawsuits like this “are usually settled by the defendant company agreeing to pay licensing fees to use the patented technology,” said W. Shawn Staples.
So why has TechRadium waited until now to bring its lawsuit against Twitter? Presumably because now Twitter has the money to pay TechRadium those licensing fees. Had the company sued Twitter when it was just getting started, it may have been able to put Twitter out of business, but not earn a revenue stream from the micro-blogging service.
The harsh reality facing many successful technology companies is that as soon as they start becoming moderately successful, out come the patent lawsuits. Such lawsuits may well be justified, but it’s somewhat ironic that some of these patent holders don’t bother bringing a lawsuit until the alleged wrongdoer is making substantial money – or has received plenty of venture capital – based on exploiting the apparently patent-infringing technology…
