Rackspace GC Goes Public With 'Patent Troll' Strategy

Attorneys for companies across the U.S. continue to deal with litigation involving so-called “patent trolls” on a regular basis, but recently the general counsel for one company has been taking an unusual step: Alan Schoenbaum, GC for web-hosting company Rackspace, is going online to lay out his anti-troll strategy in public.

Writing on the Rackspace blog, Schoenbaum authored “Abolish the Patent, Vanquish the Troll,” which is one in a series of posts outlining his thoughts and approach to patent trolls—in this instance, litigation filed by Rotatable Technologies, a patent assertion entity (PAE).

Schoenbaum writes that, “Rotatable owns a patent that it claims covers the screen rotation technology standard in just about every smartphone,” which led the PAE to sue Rackspace, Apple, Netflix, and others.

And here’s where the GC says the PAE becomes a troll:

“When Rackspace contacted Rotatable to ask for a routine extension of time to answer their complaint, Rotatable admitted their trollish motives. Unprompted, they told us they had been instructed by their client to offer a settlement of $75,000 to anyone who contacts them asking for an extension of time. And that the number was negotiable.”

According to Schoenbaum, “Rotatable provides a textbook case of patent extortion,” noting that Rackspace isn’t just talking about it: “In the past month, we fought a troll in court, and won, and we turned the tables on another, suing them in Federal Court."

And now he’s got another strategy on the table, using some of the newest reforms of the America Invents Act. Last week, Rackspace:

“. . . filed a challenge to Rotatable’s patent in the patent office . . . It’s called an IPR, or Inter Partes Review. It’s a new proceeding made available under the America Invents Act. It gives us a chance to show why the patent is invalid and should not have been issued in the first place. Once we file the IPR, the patent holder can file a response. From there, a board of patent reviewers has a year to decide whether the patent in question is valid.”