You may know Monster Cable as the makers of cables that… well, let’s say many people consider grossly overpriced. Turns out they’re also what many people might consider patent trolls, sending cease and desist letters to all kinds of small cable makers and resellers for infringing on their connector patents. (You think connectors are standard and there’s nothing much to be patented about them? Well, that’s the point, that’s why many people might consider they are patent trolls.)

So they ended up sending one of those letters to a small company whose boss happens to be a former lawyer, and he replied with a very detailed legal memo that’s been doing the rounds of the blogosphere; and the reason I’m posting it now is that it does deserve the attention it got (and the company deserves the buzz), because it’s a pretty good read.

I love this bit:

I assume that Monster Cable International, Ltd., in Bermuda, listed on these patents, is an IP holding company and that Monster Cable’s principal US entity pays licensing fees to the Bermuda corporation in order to shift income out of the United States and thereby avoid paying United States federal income tax on those portions of its income.

And this one is sad:

My first seven years were spent primarily on the defense side, where I developed an intense frustration with insurance carriers who would settle meritless claims for nuisance value when the better long-term view would have been to fight against vexatious litigation as a matter of principle.

Yeah, that’s what reasonable lawyers like him end up doing: they quit the business and start selling computer cables.

via bol.cnet.com