Fort Worth Lawyer Suing Twitter Over Patent
FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) - A Fort Worth lawyer is suing Twitter, saying the social networking site is infringing on his client's patent.
Attorney Jon Suder says the United States Patent Office granted his client, VS Technologies, a patent for an interactive, virtual community including famous people.
The attorney says VS Technologies patented the idea in 2000, long before everyone from Ashton Kutcher to your high school gym teacher started tweeting, and they want royalties for the idea.
"He wants what the law affords him. If he has a valid patent that's being infringed, the law says that he's entitled to be compensated by no less than a reasonable royalty, and that will be determined by a jury.
Suder is not saying Twitter stole his client's idea, just that the idea is patented.
Internet law expert Travis Crabtree says a lot of times these lawsuits are brought by what he calls 'patent trolls.' Crabtree says they poke around looking for old patents hoping they can build a case for infringement against a succesful social network to make some money.
Earlier this week a lawsuit was brought by a Plano company named 'Gooseberry Natural Resources' against tech news websites FARK, Digg and Reddit among others over the use of an online press release patent.
