We have witnessed quite a number of patent trolls in the past few months. Most of them have been in the web or mobile apparel development zone. The new addition to this list is the Kootol , an Indian based software start up. It is evident that Kootol Software Limited, filed the US patent application early in the year 2006 titled “Universal knowledge management and desktop search system”. The patent application states “A system for transmission, reception and accumulation of the knowledge packets to plurality of channel nodes in the network operating distributedly in a peer to peer environment”. Also the “would be” granted patent system covers Dynamic Communication & Real Time Search Engine along with one source all messaging functionality at user's hand . While it is noteworthy that Kootol is a new software start up and is a non- practicing entity which will pursue to complete the development of its software solutions in future, based on the technologies they have patented or filed for patents. Kootol has already notified a number of companies including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Apple, Bharti Airtel Ltd., Amazon, AOL, Nokia, Ford Motor, Foursquare Inc., IBM, Linkedin, Twitter, etc. for using their core technology for which they are expecting a patent soon.
It is mentioned on Kootol's website “We are in the process of sending informative notice to several other companies and developers, who are using our technology. We also welcome all the companies and developers for the licensing”. Seems like Kootol's stand is lucid , they expect to license their technology extensively to all those App developers using its core technology. But it is a crucial point to note that small time mobile or the web apparel developers will find it a pocket burning deal to fight litigation or infringement suits on a regular basis. It is evident that increasing number of Patent trolls will certainly decelerate the pace of innovations in the near future. Technology Developers and Innovators should adopt practices like Patent watch, Clearance search, or Due diligence search, Patent re-examinations, Patent infringement insurance and Early settlements, in order to save time and money invested in their venture. On this note , I conclude by stating that the bottom line is to secure your Technology as well as your Business to survive in the global competitive market.
( Image by Jenny Rollo)
