It’s getting increasingly difficult to distinguish between what is a patent troll and what is a legitimate complainant. Is it too easy to pursue such litigious action? Or are patent rules in serious need of an overhaul? With so many such tech disputes constantly in the news, let’s take a closer look at a few significant patent lawsuits that have been filed in only the past couple of months.

Yesterday brought news that digital heavyweights Apple Computer Inc., Google Inc. and, er, Napster Inc. were sued for patent infringement by Intertainer Inc., a now-defunct online video and audio on-demand service. Intertainer is seeking unspecified damages from the iPod maker, popular online search engine, and online music download service for infringing on a 2005 patent that covers the commercial distribution of audio and video over the Internet.

The company holds nine patents, including United States Patent No. 6,925,469, which is intended to cover the management and distribution of digital media from various suppliers.

According to The New York Times:

Theodore Stevenson, a partner at McKool Smith, the Dallas firm representing Intertainer, said the company filed suit against Apple, Google and Napster because they were perceived as leaders in the market for digital downloads. He declined to specify the damages that Intertainer was seeking.

Apple, surely a bellwether, already is facing a number of class-action lawsuits in the U.S. that were filed toward the end of last year. One filed one year ago is a significant patent infringement claim, Apple Computer, Inc. v. Burst.com, Inc., which involves significant Apple hardware and software. The case is presently in discovery. A claim construction hearing is set for February 8, 2007; trial is set for February 26, 2008. Burst made similar claims against Microsoft and won a settlement in 2005.

Then there’s the popular online search engine. “If the counsel for Intertainer thinks they’ll wrangle a quick payoff from Google,” notes WebProNews writer David A. Utter, “they may want to consider Google’s penchant for fighting seemingly every court battle they face. Fair enough. (As a side, last month Google added another piece of search software to its arsenal with the launch of Google Patent Search. The patent search site, launched as a beta in December, is designed to sift through more than 7 million U.S. patents by a variety of parameters, including filing date, issue date, patent number and inventor.)

And as for digital-download leader Napster…uh, wait, what? “Leader in the market for digital downloads?” Napster really hasn’t mattered on a broad scale ever since music labels brought down its first iteration years ago. In fact, the music store has been conspicuous by its failure in the online digital music market, with growing losses and less-than-spectacular subscriber numbers since its launch as a legitimate player in late 2003. We’re not really sure what Intertainer thinks it’ll get from what it considers a digital-download leader. Nonetheless, it’s suing the music store.

Then, just today, The Associated Press reported that three major electronics companies have been sued by a foundation that claims that the companies’ use of Bluetooth wireless technology infringed on patented work at the University of Washington. The case was filed in U.S. District Court against Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. of Japan, Samsung Electronics Co. of South Korea and Nokia Corp. of Finland by the Washington Research Institute, a nonprofit group that seeks commercial uses for patented technology developed at the state’s public universities and enforces the patents.

According to the lawsuit, Bluetooth-based computers, cell phones and headsets made by the three companies have violated four patents, including one that was issued for research done in the mid-1990s by an undergraduate student at Washington. The foundation now holds all four patents.

Matsushita, parent company of Panasonic, and Samsung produce a wide range of electronics products, while Nokia is the world’s largest manufacturer of cellular telephones. Bluetooth involves the use of a radio frequency for wireless exchanges of data between cell phones, computers, headsets and other devices.

The three manufacturers use chip sets made by CSR PLC of Cambridge, England, which has not licensed the disputed technology. The lawsuit specifically identifies products that use CSR chips, although it is understood the Cambridge chipmaker itself was not sued because it does not sell directly into the U.S. market, where the patents are registered.

Moreover, in late October, IBM filed two separate suits that accuse Amazon.com of infringing on patents covering topics ranging from advertising to hyperlink technology to a system for electronically ordering items.

Then, in December, the patent feud between IBM and Amazon “took a new twist as the e-commerce giant countersued Big Blue for infringement and blasted its earlier accusations as ‘meritless and misleading,’” CNET News reported.

In filings with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, the Seattle-based Internet retailer denied infringing on five IBM patents and claimed that just the opposite situation was occurring. “IBM has chosen to infringe Amazon.com’s patents willfully and to obtain the commercial benefits of Amazon.com’s technology without authorization or compensation,” attorneys for the company wrote in their responses to IBM’s patent infringement allegations.

In its response, Amazon said IBM never should have earned the patents in question because they were not novel and nonobvious, and their specifications were not crafted in the “full, clear, concise and exact terms” required by federal patent law.

What do you think? Is it too easy to pursue such litigious action? Or are patent rules in serious need of a revamp? Because I’d like to patent “patent infringement litigation.” Can I do that?

References:

NYT: Patent Lawsuit Names Leading Technology Firms

WebProNews: Intertainer Blasts Google From The Past

AP: Foundation files patent lawsuit over Bluetooth

CNET News: Amazon hits back at IBM over patents