Greetings!
I wanted to keep you up to date on whats going on with SlickEdit.
In October of 2012, Uniloc USA, Inc. filed a lawsuit against SlickEdit, Inc., alleging patent infringement (U.S. patent 5,579,222) concerning a license management system.
Uniloc USA, Inc. is a patent-assertion entity or “patent troll,†i.e. a company whose sole business is to sue software companies including Adobe, Microsoft, Sony, and Symantec. It has sued more than a dozen companies over this patent.
In an unusual turn of events, after more than a year of litigation Uniloc USA, Inc. asked the Court to dismiss its own lawsuit against SlickEdit, Inc. This came a week after the court held a three-hour Markman hearing on February 13, 2014 in which SlickEdit argued that Uniloc’s patent covered far less than what Uniloc was claiming.
Make no mistake, this is a BIG win for SlickEdit in what amounts to be a David vs. Goliath scenario.
Patent infringement suits are considered extremely costly to defend against. Even in cases like this where there is no infringement, small companies are often forced to settle due to the astronomical legal fees associated with patent cases.
I knew SlickEdit did not infringe. I hired a great attorney and worked closely with him. We were able to put together a solid case and ultimately saved the company a lot of money.
I interviewed nine different patent attorneys at nine different firms and easily chose Tim Shannon of Verrill Dana, LLP. Tim and his team mastered the patent, mastered our product inside and out, and led a claim construction argument that literally threatened to derail Uniloc’s entire national campaign. Tim never let up and got us a great result. I highly recommend his service.
Glad to be done with this mess. Now I can continue to have a blast working on the product!
Clark