[IP] Preliminary ruling against Mailblocks

[Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Jonathan Weinberg <weinberg@mail.msen.com>
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2003 13:06:46 -0400
To: dave@farber.net
Subject: Preliminary ruling against Mailblocks

    I don't think anyone has noted here that a federal district court, back
on 
June 9, issued a preliminary ruling in the Mailblocks v. Spam Arrest patent
infringement suit.  Judge Coughenour said the patent was probably invalid,
on the ground that challenge-response technology was obvious when the
patent issued; the systems described in the patents weren't significantly
different from those described in articles back in 1992 and 1996.  He
therefore declined to issue a preliminary injunction against Spam Arrest,
and he stayed the entire action pending a decision by the Panel on
Multidistrict Litigation whether all of Mailblocks's lawsuits (against
various defendants) should be consolidated into a single proceeding.  (If
that happens, then all of the suits can be dismissed together, in one swell
foop.)

Jon


Jonathan Weinberg
Professor of Law, Wayne State University
weinberg@msen.com


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