A small Web development and open source software company called CityWare was recently named alongside Google, Yahoo, Amazon and other software giants in a patent infringement lawsuit. What makes this unusual is that CityWare has no products or customers and no longer exists. The company was formed by software developer Nate Neel in 2004, but folded soon after due to lack of customers.

The art of patent trolling has inherited an important maxim from the real estate business: location is everything. The defunct company became the victim of a patent infringement lawsuit because it was operating in the Eastern District of Texas, a jurisdiction that is notoriously friendly to patent trolls. Bedrock Computer Technologies, the company that filed the patent suit, likely named CityWare in the suit solely to increase the chances of having the case heard in that region.

Another characteristic that makes this case unusual is the person behind it. Bedrock Computer Technologies is owned by David Garrod, a former Goodwin Procter lawyer who is an active contributor to patent reform efforts. Garrod is leading an initiative against false patent markings in collaboration with PubPat, a nonprofit organization that was founded in 2003 to fight against abuses of the patent system.

Garrod contends that the technology companies infringe Patent 5,893,120, which describes "methods and apparatus for information storage and retrieval using a hashing technique with external chaining and on-the-fly removal of expired data." It's a textbook example of patent trolling: a lawsuit over a relatively broad and dubious patent executed by a company that makes nothing itself against a random assortment of deep-pocketed industry leaders. The fact that CityWare, which doesn't even exist, was named in the suit to help obtain a favorable venue further erodes the credibility of the lawsuit's claims.

IP reporter Joe Mullin tracked down PubPat founder Dan Ravicher and asked if he was aware of Garrod's outside activities. Ravicher has a pragmatic view of the issue and says that Garrod's commitment to fighting against false marking makes him a valuable partner for PubPat despite his outside trolling work.

"Without Dave's assistance we couldn't do this campaign, which I'm convinced is a public good," Ravicher told Mullin. "We disagree about software patents. Dave's going to do that other stuff, with or without the false marking campaign."

False marking primarily describes scenarios where companies mark their products as patented when they do not have a patent or when the relevant patent has expired. On behalf of PubPat, Garrod has filed several lawsuits against companies that perpetrate false marking. He does this as a volunteer without compensation from PubPat.

This situation reflects the diverse spectrum of ideological views about what constitutes abuse of the patent system. Garrod clearly recognizes the problematic nature of false marking, but seemingly feels no ethical compulsion to refrain from filing arguably spurious patent infringement lawsuits.

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