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Hello Mr. Sereboff,
Thank you for sending me the claim chart for claim 1 of MAZ Patent 6,185,681. Upon reviewing your notes for this claim with regard to our accused software, I fail to see how this claim might apply to our product. I was indeed hoping that you might send me your complete claim chart so that I might perform a more thorough investigation of the remaining claims cited in your fax correspondence.
I am also in receipt of the standard MAZ License Agreement you provided seeking $25,000 in fees. Since you have not yet identified how, why and where our product becomes subject to this patent; at this time, I do not feel the features of our product warrant the need to enter into a license agreement with your client.
Still further, I am somewhat troubled by your phone comments that you were the one to prepare the original patent filing and that you were unable to discover the existence of other products such as our SafeHouse software. You also failed to discover and identify any encryption products used by the federal government. Surely, in 1998, you must have been aware that the government and military routinely encrypt documents and computer files. Why didn't you investigate and disclose the existence of such products? How did you fail to discover every single file encryption product on the market? How is it that you failed to research file encryption products freely available for download in the popular Internet shareware file repositories? How is it that you failed to note that the Microsoft device driver developer documentation pertaining to the hooks available for the disk subsystems specifically mention that the hooks are available for the third-party implementation of external technologies such as transparent encryption? Did you even research this at all?
More disturbing, however, was your comment that even had you discovered such products, and specifically ours, that you would have gone ahead with the filing without change. And isn't it ironic that your own senior partner filed the trademark application before 1990 for our product line which can likely invalidate your claims. This can mean either you have never actually reviewed our product, you don't in fact believe yourself that our SafeHouse product infringes your client's patent, or, your intent all along was to assemble a complexly-worded broad encryption patent and hope to sneak it through the USPTO and subsequently bully small companies into paying a license fee.
At this point, since you have notified me in writing that in your opinion our SafeHouse product appears to infringe the '681 patent, I am contractually obligated to notify a variety of clients. Such required notice will cause immediate irreparable harm to my company's reputation and sales. I therefore request that you immediately reconsider your position as to whether or not in your opinion our software infringes '681. I ask that you send a revised letter stating that you have reevaluated the situation and that you no longer believe that our SafeHouse software is subject to the MAZ patent. Without such a letter rescinding your stated position within the next few days, I will notify my clients as required and initiate a strong and immediate campaign to bring significant media attention to this patent. Believe me, this will be press you do not need! Without further addressing whether or not my specific product is subject to this patent, I can assure you that as a recognized expert in this field, I am extremely familiar with PC and disk encryption technologies dating back to the early 1980's. I believe the claims outlined in '681 are so broad that hundreds of companies would possibly infringe; and that a considerable percentage of the encryption products employed by the government would infringe. My expert opinion is that this patent was poorly researched prior to the initial filing and that both you and the examiner failed to discover countless articles, books, developer documentation and products which should have been identified prior to and during the filing and examination of this patent.
I strongly urge you to consult with your client and provide the letter I request rescinding your position. You will find my ability to wage an effective media campaign is considerable. More so, having been successful in the past with a similar campaign against another "bad" patent, I can approach this new situation and the press with extreme credibility. If you care to research my prior situation, you will find that in addition to having the case chronicled extensively in countless newspapers and magazines (New York Times, LA Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Washington Post, etc.), I enlisted the support of numerous trade groups, lectured at industry events, attracted the personal attention and involvement of the chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Patents, Copyrights and Trademarks, and did whatever else I could to bring significant industry and political pressure upon the Commissioner's office to issue an executive order invalidating the subject patent. I prevailed without needing to step into the courtroom nor directly initiating a reexamination. Morrison & Foerster did most of the legal work for free in return for the media attention.
In short, my company is too small to engage in expensive legal actions; but when confronted with situations such as this, I cannot remain silent nor will I be bullied into signing a license agreement for something that neither applies to my product nor is likely to hold up if ever contested in court or by reexamination. If you insist of moving forward with this action or do not rescind your position in writing such that you affect my sales, then I hope your client is prepared for what shall ensue. My preference, of course, is that this thing just goes away quietly.
I look forward to hearing from you with the utmost hope that you will agree that our software does not infringe the '681 patent.
Best Regards,
Peter Avritch
President
PC Dynamics, Inc.
31332 Via Collinas, #102
Westlake Village, CA 91362
USA