AdvanceMe Patent Invalidated - Cover Story of The Green Sheet

The story of the invalidation of the "obvious" AdvanceMe patent just keeps on going. As I mentioned in previous posts, the New York Times wrote an article about it, University of Washington School of Law has made the story of the AdvanceMe patent invalidation part of the course curriculum for its Intellectual Law class and it has been the feature story of many publications.

Once again, the story behind the AdvanceMe patent invalidation is the COVER STORY of The Green Sheet, one of the largest credit card processing industry publications. The September 10, 2007 issue features the cover story, "AdvanceMe patent ruling opens merchant funding floodgates."

To update everyone on some facts since this article written, it indicates that the case AdvanceMe v. AmeriMerchant (the companion case to AdvanceMe v. Rapidpay) was scheduled to goto trial in January 2008. The article indicates, "experts predict it will be dismissed as a result of the August ruling."

Indeed this has already happened, the court dismissed this case shortly after the AdvanceMe patent was invalidated.

Two other items to point out about this article. In the print version of The Green Sheet September 10, 2007 edition page 67, there is a featured quote of the article that indicates:

"When you call someone and say, 'I'm being sued,' the first thing they think is, 'I don't want to get involved,' not 'Oh, I want to go through all my dusty old file cabinets,'

– Glenn Goldman
CEO, AdvanceMe

This is an actually a mistake as you can tell, that was actually my quote that appeared in the article earlier that they highlighted later saying it was Glenn Goldman that said it.

However, Glenn Goldman, CEO of AdvanceMe is quoted in the New York Times article and other publications as well as The Green Sheet as saying, "Although we feel vindicated that the court found clear infringement of our patent by each of the defendants, we respectfully disagree with the court's findings on validity."

That is not a typo my friends, Glenn feels vindicated that the court found that the defendants in the case infringed on an invalid patent that is unenforceable and OBVIOUS. Enough said......

New York Times - AdvanceMe Patent Invalidated - Extra, Extra Read All About It

The news about the AdvanceMe patent invalidation has spread like crazy (Including internationally).

I thought the way all the prior art was gathered was a unique story and apparently the New York Times did as well. You can see the article written entitled Playing Detective In A Patent Case.

In addition, the Electronic Transaction Association (ETA), the leading industry association of the credit card processing industry has a link right off their "latest news" section of their homepage entitled, AdvanceMe Patent Ruled Invalid.

The Wall Street Journal wrote about the AdvanceMe patent invalidation and referenced the NY Times article specifically how myself, David Goldin, President & CEO of AmeriMerchant was instrumental in invalidating the patent.

The story was also the cover story of ISO & Agent Weekly. A link to the article can be found here.

Prepaid Trends (page 8 of this issue) talks about how the US District Court ruled the AdvanceMe Patent invalid and I am quoted in the article saying, "If AdvanceMe had won, it would have had a legal monopoly on a patent that was not a novel idea."

It has even hit the international press. The International Tribune published a story about how the prior art was found to invalidate the AdvanceMe patent.

Payments News mentions the New York Times article today.

The intellectual property legal community has even given the Merchant Cash Advance Blog credit in assisting the invalidation of the AdvanceMe Patent. The 271 Patent Blog recently ran a story about this case.

And speaking of the intellectual property community, Vinson & Elkins, our attorneys in this litigation have posted a news release about this case. I also wanted to take the time to thank the team at Vinson & Elkins for their extraordinary work they have done on this case. We couldn't have chosen a better IP firm to handle this matter in the Eastern District of Texas. My hat goes off to Bill Schuurman, Brian Buss, Joey Gray, Floyd Walker, Hilary Preston and Graham Sutliff for their work to invalidate this patent (And for their patience of putting up with a lot of smoke and mirrors thrown to us by the other side and their attorneys). If any one of you are lucky enough to be sued like I was over patent infringment (or if you are the holder of a legitimate patent that you are looking to enforce), I couldn't recommend Vinson & Elkins highly enough for all they have done not only for my company, but the entire merchant cash advance and credit card processing industry.

If you need to choose local counsel for the Eastern District of Texas, Potter Minton was our firm and my thanks go out to Doug McSwane and his team.

I have to give a very special thanks to Jeff Sanders of Roberts & Ritholtz. Jeff was not only instrumental in helping the defendants choose Vinson & Elkins as national counsel and Potter Mitton as local counsel, but provided strategy that was second to none throughout the case.

I also want to thank everyone that came to trial, namely Tim Litle, Larry Bouchard, Lee Suckow, Skip Landon as well as everyone that provided testimony in the case including the former AdvanceMe employees.

And finally, a very special thanks to those not named above that made it possible for me to be able to fight this fight, you know who you are and thank you.