Advanced Ground Information Systems (AGIS), on the other hand, has a funny looking website and claims to offer exchange of data, voice, and video for military tactical operations. Check out the front page of their website:
The funny bit was that AGIS sued Life360 the same week in which the latter had $50 million in financing, and when Life360 researched AGIS their LinkedIn showed no employees and their corporate headquarters was stationed at a waterfront mansion.
AGIS claimed that any company showing a location marker on a map or connects a group of individuals using a location-sharing service is infringing. The matter took to the federal court, and Life360 stated that AGIS would need to license their entire patent portfolio to all other startups, otherwise they will attempt to invalidate their entire IP portfolio. Luckily for Life360, their strong defense won them a verdict of non-infringement.
Life360 offers the following advice to others who are experience bullying from patent trolls:
- Go nuclear: publicly call them out for what they are
- Share information and resources: open-source all prior art collected, draw attention to your case by offering free legal advice to others in the field
- Go with your gut and commit to it: you're less likely to be approached with trolling lawsuits if you have a history of making the legal process difficult
Hey Sasha,
ReplyDeleteNice job explaining the Life360 v. AGIS issue. I think the CEO did a TED talk also on defeating a patent troll which also was a big help in understanding the article. Out of curiousity, how many articles did you find on this? I only found like two hahah. Thanks!