An Australian patent-holding company that's filed dozens of federal lawsuits can't seem to find its way into court, now that it's facing off with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Global Equity Management SA, or GEMSA, spent much of 2016 filing lawsuits against big companies in the Eastern District of Texas. It claimed various major websites—including Expedia, Zillow, and Airbnb—infringe its patents on "virtual cabinets."

The company's intensive campaign of lawsuits won it a special place in the pantheon of patent-holders, when GEMSA became the subject of EFF's long-running series , "Stupid Patent of the Month."

GEMSA "seems to be a classic patent troll," wrote EFF lawyer Daniel Nazer.

"GEMSA doesn't explain how Airbnb's website satisfies highly specific claim limitations like a 'virtual cabinet representing a discrete operating system.' In fact, the accused website bears almost no similarity to GEMSA's supposed invention." Nazer continued:

As far as we can tell, GEMSA seems to think that anyone with a website that links to hosted content infringes its patent. Complaints with such sparse, and implausible, infringement allegations should be thrown out immediately for failure to state a claim.

Nazer's post apparently hurt some feelings over at GEMSA headquarters in Australia. The patent-holding company demanded that EFF retract its post, calling it "false and malicious slander," and pay GEMSA $750,000. The EFF article was posted "with the intention of portraying our client's intellectual property as stupid in addition to numerous other malicious lies," claimed GEMSA in a demand letter.

In October 2016, GEMSA filed suit against EFF in the Supreme Court of South Australia. But the company never properly served EFF, according to EFF's complaint (PDF). The litigation moved ahead, with GEMSA protesting that its US Patent No. 6,690,400 "is not in fact 'stupid,'" and that EFF's description "does not accurately depict the complexities involved with the patent."

The Australian case included affidavits from Schumann Rafizadeh, who claimed he is the inventor of the '400 patent and "Director and Shareholder of the Plaintiff."

Without EFF taking part in the case, the Australian court issued an injunction ordering EFF to remove the article from its website and not to spread it further. Without explaining any of the court's reasoning, the injunction claims EFF is "restrained from publishing any content with respect to the Plaintiff's intellectual property." If EFF "does not comply with this order its assets may be seized and it [sic] directors and other officers may be liable to be imprisoned for contempt of Court," according to EFF's narrative of the matter.

In January, GEMSA again sent the injunction to EFF, demanding that the article be taken down and that EFF pay $750,000 in compensation.

“Right to criticize”

In April, EFF went to court to defend its blog post.

"It is important to get a court to ensure that EFF is not silenced, to have the court establish that this speech is well protected by the US Constitution and other laws," Kurt Opsahl, an EFF attorney, told Ars at the time.

EFF says the South Australian court's injunction can't be enforced because of the 2010 SPEECH Act, which prevents "libel tourism," a practice in which plaintiffs would sue US writers in countries like the United Kingdom, where it was easier to win a defamation case. Under the SPEECH Act, foreign orders aren't enforceable in the US unless they comport with both the US Constitution and state laws.

The only statements in the blog post that GEMSA even claims are false are EFF's statements that the patent is "stupid," that GEMSA is a "patent troll," and that GEMSA "is suing just about anyone who runs a website." Those statements are all "plainly hyperbolic statements of opinion," write EFF lawyers, and thus constitutionally protected speech.

The EFF suit also points out that Rafizadeh himself concedes that GEMSA "largely makes its profits from licensing fees" and that GEMSA "vigorously defends [its patent rights] against infringements by any e-commerce site."

Despite the fact that GEMSA has three pending patent lawsuits in Northern California, the same district that EFF sued in, it can't seem to manage to show up to this litigation. In an update published yesterday, EFF points out that GEMSA had until May 23 to respond to EFF's lawsuit, and it hasn't done so. Now EFF is seeking to win by default, but it still has to convince the judge that the South Australian injunction is unenforceable in the US.

An attorney for GEMSA didn't respond to a request for comment about EFF's litigation.

If the court doesn't grant a default judgment, GEMSA might seek to pressure Internet search engines and news aggregators to "de-index" the article, "effectively censoring EFF's speech on a matter of legitimate concern to US citizens," EFF explains in its motion for default judgment.

"In the United States, there is a constitutional right to criticize the patent litigation system and those who abuse it, especially where that criticism is based on disclosed, true facts," write EFF lawyers.