CHICAGO — A company has offered to pay a bounty for research that invalidates Lodsys patents after it sent out scores of patent infringement notices to online adult companies and other businesses.
According to CNET.com, Article One Partners, a business that gathers intellectual property research, is conducting three new studies into Lodsys patents.
The company is offering a reward for anyone that finds prior art, examples of pre-existing technologies or other intellectual property that can be used to invalidate Lodsys’ patents, including U.S. Patent No. 7,222,078, as well as U.S. Patent Nos. 5,999,908, 7,620,565 and 7,133,834.
Lodsys’ infringement notices sent earlier this month said that various adult companies have been infringing on U.S. Patent No. 7,222,078, which includes “methods and systems for gathering information from units of a commodity across a network."
Lodsys owns a collection of patents that purport to provide interactive online advertising, subscription models and data collection, among other systems.
Meanwhile, a number of mainstream companies have filed against Lodsys with declaratory suits seeking to invalidate its patent claims, accusing the patent-holding company of unfair competition and interference.