Assignment 8- Patent Trolls Part 3 MPHJ

MPHJ is a company with four patents and one pending patent. They have come up in the news because the federal trade commission has recently looked at their actions as a patent troll to try rectify the situation.

The patents in question refer to scanning documents and uploading them through the same network onto a computer, but the patents are extremely vague in nature and thus MPHJ in actual fact has no right to any money from these companies and is in simple terms scamming these companies.

To date they have contacted upwards of 1600 small to medium size companies threatening legal action if they do not pay a licensing deal. They generally ask for 1000 to 1200 per employee that works there. The legal firm they work with stands to gain 30-40% of any licensing profits that MPHJ receives.

This becomes even more ridiculous when we learn that they have taken no companies to court and have at no point in time had any intentions of taking anyone to court, because the patents are vague at best, and they would severely struggle to win any sort court case against any of these alleged patent violators.

The company is simply a scam because they send these letters demanding money and saying that "many companies had already agreed to buy licenses" which is false as only 2 companies have fallen victim to this behavior and have agreed to pay licensing fees.

As much as the federal trade commission has urged MPHJ to stop they have argued that the first amendment protects their right to send these letters as false in nature as they may be. They argue that they have a right to enforce their patents and send out any letters pertaining to them as false and malicious as they may be. They federal trade commission has tried to limit patent trolls because patents can support innovation and technological advancements and it is patent trolls like this that simply hurt the industry.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/07/business/ftc-settles-first-case-targeting-patent-troll.html