Bloomberg recently reported that Dallas-based Neiman Marcus filed a lawsuit against a potential patent litigation plaintiff after receiving a letter from a representative of an unnamed inventor offering to negotiate patent licenses. The representative, Dallas-based IP Navigation Group, purportedly sought to conduct an analysis of Neiman's technology for the purpose of seeking a license agreement. In response, Neiman Marcus filed suit against the representative without knowing the identity of the unnamed inventor. The suit seeks the identity of the patent owner and a declaration that Neiman Marcus does not infringe the patent. Neiman's move follows on the heels of Rackspace's recent announcement that it, too, had fought back against IP Navigation Group after it employed a similar tactic. According to a Rackspace blog post:

Our dealings with this particular troll reach back to December 2010 when IP Navigation Group (IP Nav), as agent for a supposedly secret patent owner, now known as Parallel Iron, accused Rackspace of patent infringement. IP Nav told us that they could not divulge the details of their infringement claims – not even the patent numbers or the patent owner – unless we entered into a “forbearance agreement” – basically, an agreement that we would not sue them. IP Nav was worried that as soon as we found out what their patents and claims actually were, Rackspace would sue to invalidate their patents or for a declaration that Rackspace does not infringe. We were unwilling to enter into such a one-sided agreement, so we negotiated a mutual forbearance agreement that required either party to give 30 days’ notice before bringing suit.

Rackspace subsequently sued IP Navigation Group and the patent owner in federal court in San Antonio, seeking damages for breach of contract and a declaratory judgment that Rackspace does not infringe the patent owner's patents.

Neiman Marcus and Rackspace's recent moves may be indicative of a growing trend among companies that are growing tired of patent litigation.

For more information, please visit our patent service page.

Klemchuk LLP is an Intellectual Property (IP), Technology, Internet, and Business law firm located in Dallas, TX.  The firm offers comprehensive legal services including litigation and enforcement of all forms of IP as well as registration and licensing of patents, trademarks, trade dress, and copyrights.  The firm also provides a wide range of technology, Internet, e-commerce, and business services including business planning, formation, and financing, mergers and acquisitions, business litigation, data privacy, and domain name dispute resolution.  Additional information about the IP law firm and its IP law attorneys may be found at www.klemchuk.com.

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