As many of you know, I have been involved with a lawsuit from AdvanceMe the past year and a half over their “patent.” They have sued my company and other merchant cash advance companies. Well, I am proud to say we just received word from the court that Judge Davis from the Eastern District of Texas has INVALIDATED the AdvanceMe patent in one of the AdvanceMe patent cases. He writes in his MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER on August 14, 2007 in ADVANCEME INC. vs. RAPIDPAY, LLC, ET AL that “The ‘281 patent is INVALID because it is OBVIOUS and ANTICIPATED."
Judge Davis also wrote, “The Litle & Co. prior art, the LeCard program, the Transmedia program, and the prior art Reserve Accounts were all available in the field at the time of the purported invention. Johnson [-- Barbara Johnson is listed as the inventor of the patent --] merely implemented a predictable variation of these existing methods in establishing her invention. While Johnson’s work exhibits excellent entrepreneurship, it does not entitle AdvanceMe to a legal monopoly on this method of providing financing to small businesses. Rather AdvanceMe must continue to compete in the marketplace for its share of the market, which will benefit the economy and consumers as a whole.”
I believe this is also the first patent case in the Eastern District of Texas whereby the recent Supreme Court ruling on patent obviousness in the KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc. helped invalidate a patent. In reference to the Supreme Court ruling, Judge Davis wrote,"There are multiple prior art references, not considered by the PTO when issuing the patent,that render the patent invalid, especially in light of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc."
I would like to thank all of those that have helped me put together the information that was used to show the court that this patent was not a new and novel idea.
Any comments can be sent to dg@amerimerchant.com
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2 comments:
the fact they even tried to enforce this patent should have showed you how desperate they were. I can only imagine what their investors are saying right now.
My company recently went through the same 14 months of legal expense and helped by the recent Supreme Court case the Plaintiff's patent was determined invalid based on obviousness. Naturally they have appealed. However we hope this legal extortion and attempt to get something for nothing comes to an end in this Country. The Plaintiff in this case never sold one unit of his product! I will be interested in how the Appellate Court swiftly deals with this nonsense.
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