The Regional Transit Authority appears set to join a host of other municipal transit organizations in forking over a giant fare to a man in Canada who’s suing over RTA’s use of a notification system that maybe kinda not really infringes on his patents.
A lawsuit was filed February 28 in U.S. District Court on behalf of Martin Jones, a Canadian resident who claims that RTA’s alert system stomps on a handful of patents he filed back in 2001 for a bus-tracking system that would dial up riders with updated route info. It’s technology that has come to be used widely nationwide — and has come to be a profitable alternative to actual work for Jones, who reportedly is drawing a cool $50K to $75K from each of his marks.
The litigation comes as a shock to no one — not because RTA actually stole Jones’ intellectual property, which is up for debate, but because for two years, he’s been suing just about everyone who makes the mistake of communicating with a customer: more than 100 cases in all. He hasn’t sued your favorite Hungry Howie’s just yet, but he will as soon as they call you for delivery directions.
This article appears in Mar 14-20, 2012.
Hmmm…
It’s our legal/patent system that he is using so we’re enabling this troll…
Legal and litigation abuse has become as common as dog shit in the spring..smells the same and they both are hard to pick up by the ‘clean end’.
I really, really hate this lazy prick. No one is violating his little patents, he’s just a worthless piece of garbage trying to take advantage of the system. So glad he found some money-grubbing lawyers to help him do it too, because the reputation of lawyers needs some PR like this to help. Hopefully he gets whats coming to him one day.