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IP Innovation and Technology Licensing v. Red Hat and Novell

On this page, you’ll find Groklaw’s coverage and resources regarding IP Innovation, L.L.C. and Technology Licensing Corp v. Red Hat, Inc. and Novell, Inc., the first patent litigation brought against Linux, including pertinent court filings, resources on how to search for prior art, Groklaw articles covering the litigation, and the complete set of trial transcripts, both as PDF and HTML.

The case, Docket Number 2:2007cv00447, began in October, 2007 with the filing of the complaint in Texas Eastern District Court and ended with a total victory for Red Hat and Novell in April 2010, after a five-day trial.

Red Hat issued a call to the Linux/FOSS community to help find prior art, listing the patents on Peer-to-Patent’s website and letting the community know very specifically what was needed. Groklaw helped look for prior art, a search which proved successful.

The patents allegedly infringed were U.S. Patent No. 5,072,412, ‘User interface with multiple workspaces for sharing display system objects’, #5,533,183, #5,394,521, all of which were found by the jury to be invalid and not infringed.

IP Innovation is a subsidiary of Acacia Research. Jonathan Taub joined Acacia as VP in July of 2007 from Microsoft. Brad Brunell also joined Acacia from Microsoft as Senior VP. At Microsoft he was General Manager, Intellectual Property Licensing.

Documents available on Groklaw

Groklaw docket through October of 2008. (Full docket on Justia)

Important Filings:

Trial transcripts

April 2010 trial transcripts as text and as PDF:

26-Apr-2010 AM [PDF], [HTML] (voir dire) PM [PDF], [HTML] (opening statements)
27-Apr-2010 AM [PDF], [HTML] PM [PDF], [HTML]
28-Apr-2010 AM [PDF], [HTML] PM [PDF], [HTML]
29-Apr-2010 AM [PDF], [HTML] PM [PDF], [HTML]
30-Apr-2010 AM [PDF], [HTML]

How to find prior art

What constitutes prior art? – resources on the Peer to Patent website. Here are their tutorials.

Groklaw’s Patents resources page.

Groklaw’s Legal Research page also includes links to patent resources.

The US Supreme Court’s standard for obviousness.

IP Innovation LLC v. ECollege.com et al ruling [PDF], where the judge explains how to invalidate a patent with prior art.

Tutorials: What are claims? [mp3]; How to determine a patent’s date [mp3]; Determining the scope of a patent; and When is something prior art against a patent? (“Prior art basically means any disclosure of the contents of a claim, prior to the application for patent…. only documents published before the filing date of the application in question are considered.”).

How to figure out the dates

Groklaw articles

Here is the collection of Groklaw articles covering this litigation. Groklaw aided in finding prior art.

03-Nov-2010 The IP Innovation v. Red Hat and Novell Trial Transcripts – Updated, as text
13-May-2010 IP Innovation v. Red Hat/Novell – The Prior Art They Used at Trial – Updated
04-May-2010 Report from the Trial in IP Innovation v. Red Hat & Novell – Updated
30-Apr-2010 Red Hat & Novell Beat IP Innovation and in Marshall, Texas, too – Updated 2Xs
16-Feb-2009 Red Hat Is Asking for Prior Art
11-Oct-2008 IP Innovation v Red Hat and Novell – 1 Year Later
15-Jul-2008 The Red Hat-FireStar Settlement Agreement is Published – updated
08-Nov-2007 Searching for Cattleback – Updated – The Acrylis Connection
21-Oct-2007 BayStar & Acacia, and A Ruling on Digital Evidence, & Today’s YouTube: Xerox’s Alto
17-Oct-2007 In which I get a lesson in patents — how do you figure out the dates?
13-Oct-2007 Prior Art – What’s a Claim Limitation?
11-Oct-2007 Patent Infringement Lawsuit Filed Against Red Hat & Novell – Just Like Ballmer Predicted


Last Updated Friday, March 18 2011 @ 11:21 PM EDT