Ensuring that we never get too comfortable under the tyranny of patents, a marketing services company called Channel Intelligence has sued a wide number of web-based startups for violating its patent on providing lists of items on the web. The suit lists nearly 20 defendants, companies, and individuals ranging from wishlist providers to productivity services, but big hitters like eBay and Amazon are suspiciously nowhere to be found.
Channel Intelligence filed its lawsuit in Delaware on Tuesday against companies like Lemonade (a revenue-sharing wishlist provider), and Remember the Milk (a task management service) for violating its patent number 6,917,941, titled "Method and apparatus for creation and maintenance of database structure."
The patent essentially describes a system for a client computer to create a database on a remote server, add items to the database, use a management tool to retrieve those items, then use a template to display their database items for the user in an organized fashion.
From the crufty patent: "The invention provides a method for configuring a database system to store information regarding a plurality of items, the method comprising: establishing a database on a computer system; establishing within the database a first object corresponding to a first item of the plurality of items; generating within the first object at least one field; associating a field identifier with each the field: and storing at least a potion of the information within each the field."
TechCrunch has a copy of Channel Intelligence's complaint, which accuses the defendants of willfully violating its patent and either giving services away or selling them for a fee. CI is seeking damages of an amount to be determined at trial.
Channel Intelligence has chosen to start small when leveraging its patent by sticking with startups and individuals who probably couldn't afford costly legal battles. If it settles with any of these companies, or if they decide to license the patent, CI could go after larger fish like Amazon and eBay with a list (har har) of victories to validate its patent. With such muddy wording in a patent on an obvious system, CI is probably trying to avoid getting swatted out of the sky by an army of lawyers marching from giants like Amazon, an obvious candidate for this suit.
One side effect of CI's tactic, however, is that this lawsuit would be prime motivation for the accused startups to pool resources and work towards getting the patent invalidated altogether.