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Intellectual Ventures' Evil Knows No Bounds: Buys Patent AmEx Donated For Public Good... And Starts Suing

Posted by BernardSwiss on · 5 comments
Techdirt; By Mike Masnick 		Mail this story
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Intellectual Ventures may be running out of cash, but that doesn't mean it's slowed down the pace of evildoing. If you look over its recent lawsuits, you'll notice that over the summer, Intellectual Ventures was busy suing a bunch of banks, including Capital One (that lawsuit is embedded below). At least some of those lawsuits involve US patent 6,182,894 entitled: "Systems and methods for authorizing a transaction card." In short, it basically describes the concept of the CID or CVV number that is found on the back of most credit cards today, which you often have to enter when purchasing stuff online with a credit card. Now, we may question how the hell the idea of adding 3 numbers to the back of a card as a security measure should be patented in the first place, but let's leave that aside for a moment.

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Comments (5)

gary_newell ·
I don't know how I feel about this...

It is a bit like the big bad wolf (after eating Little Red Riding Hood) running home and getting hit by a drunk driver.

The banks have done some pretty nasty things in the past and now they might be getting something nasty done back to them by a patent trolls.

Ok we all know that it is the customers who lose out but we lose out to the banks anyway and there is only so much they can fleece us for before they have to take the hit themselves.

By the way if you are wondering how in my version the wolf manages to eat little red riding hood then in my version granny wasn't tied up in a cupboard, she was off having a good time with a certain lumberjack that should have been there to save little miss "oh grandma your eyes look very big"

jdixon ·
I wonder where Intellectual Ventures keeps their money. They'd be rather irritated if their funds were frozen, wouldn't they?
mbaehrlxer ·
allowing this just because it hits other "bad guys" is not a good idea because then it can be used as a precedent to use the same kind of patent against "good guys".

the same reason why drunk driving is not ok even if the victim is a criminal.

greetings, eMBee.
gary_newell ·
I know you are right eMBee but it is hard to feel sorry for the banks
Bob_Robertson ·
"it is hard to feel sorry for the banks"

I have to think in the abstract in order to not laugh and point.

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