Thread: I got a mail from Kelora Systems LLC, saying something about patent infringemen

Hi ,
Today i got a letter from a lawyer saying that my website infringed U.S. Patent No. 6,275,821, entitle "Method and system for executing a Guided parametric Search"

Basically it is says:
"The patent is for a “search method” where instead of a hierarchical approach, the application uses family groupings to narrow products (they call it guided parametric search). A hierarchical approach would be one where in order to get to Small Red Widgets I would have to first go to Widgets, then to Red Widgets, then to Small Red Widgets. If you wanted to get to Small Blue Widgets, I would have to go back to the top of the hierarchical tree and then select Blue and then Small to get my Small Blue Widgets. The issue with this being you may not know how your end user may prioritize those things. They may want to see all the Small Widgets and don’t care about the color, but in this hierarchical approach, that isn’t possible as its a branch past the color selection. Magento handles this by having grouping of objects based off these characteristics. I can, just as easily start of with all Small Widgets as I could with all Blue Widgets. This seems to be what Kelora is claiming as their patent."


Any of you got this letter? What do you advise me to do?

I will contact a patent attorney to see what do i need to do

Thanks

Googling them seems like its some kind of patent "trolling". Many have recieved the letter but after taking legal advice seemed to suggest it's all false. They tried the same with EBay it seems and lost a legal case.

We too received an email from them.
Their patent on parameterized filtering of search results is a very common practice across the Internet and many claim that this patent will be invalidated once they go up against someone with deep enough pockets to take them on.
That being said, to the best of my knowledge, it has NOT been invalidated yet. Their strategy is to go after as many small to medium-sized online businesses and build a "war chest" so they can go after the bigs (Microsoft, Apple, Amazon.com, Best Buy, etc) and hope that they can score on one or more of those on the strength of victories over (and $$ won from) smaller opponents.
Rather than pay their extortion money (their first offer) or risk having to go to court (if they hold true to their threats) we've pulled this feature off of our ecommerce websites. Just a matter of our level of risk-aversion.
I suggest that you set up a Google Alert to keep you up to date on this company as events unfold.

I have a renewed faith in the judicial system.

http://www.internetretailer.com/2012...in-e-retailers

A federal judge has dismissed a big patent lawsuit against web retailers, and authorized the retailers to seek payment of their legal fees from the plaintiff. Among the companies being sued were Amazon, eBay, Newegg, Dell, Office Depot, Costco and Target.

Based on this info from MGIBBS in this thread:

A federal judge has dismissed a big patent lawsuit against web retailers, and authorized the retailers to seek payment of their legal fees from the plaintiff. Among the companies being sued were Amazon, eBay, Newegg, Dell, Office Depot, Costco and Target.

I think they are still trolling for people that will pay. Get a legal opinion on this. My gut says don't just ignore it, but don't cave and pay either. Consider asking your (or get an) attorney to Respond citing this Federal lawsuit that was dismissed.

Hope that helps somehow, you NEED a legal opinion, not one from non legal people on a forum. Especially because you are in Pakistan. If the company is US based, they will probably have difficulty unless they threaten to sue you in the US, and then you probably can benefit from the fact the Federal lawsuit was dismissed. If the company is US based and tries to sue you in Pakistan, you will need to figure out the chances of them winning. Could they sue you in some international venue like the world court in Hague, Netherlands ?

Best of luck on this,

- Charlie

http://www.security-camera-warehouse...ametric-search

I am not sure I still agree that this is a patent troll, as I once did, since the company is owned by the guy that actually got the patent, so I would give him more credit than some.

I will leave it for others to say he is a troll, and whether or not ADNSF software is violating the patent, I think he certainly is entitled to try to protect his intellectual property.