Marshall-based Webvention has had a pretty good run over the past couple of years asserting a patent covering widespread Web functions against a host of companies. But will the patent troll’s licensing and litigation model survive an order transferring the company’s docket of infringement cases out of East Texas?
In 2009, Webvention acquired a patent from Intellectual Ventures that relates to basic website presentation technologies such as pop-up menus. Webvention began demanding $80,000 licensing deals from pretty much every company with a website and a bank account, and it sued dozens of defendants that turned the deal down in federal district court in plaintiffs-friendly East Texas. Thanks to Webvention’s East Texas address, its appetite for litigation and its tiny fee demand, 322 companies — ranging from American Express to Google to United Airlines — have agreed to license the patent. So far the model has paid off for Webvention, for its lawyers at The Davis Firm and the Albritton Law Firm in Longview, and for Intellectual Ventures, which appears to be sharing in Webvention’s licensing revenue.
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