Patent troll that pounded Google for $85 million beaten in round two

SimpleAir says it invented push notifications; it got cash from Apple, Microsoft.

Joe Mullin – Oct 16, 2015 11:21 am | 36

SimpleAir's website suggests it has something to do with computers, innovation, and fingers. Credit: SimpleAir

SimpleAir is a patent-licensing company owned by John Payne, an Orange County Internet entrepreneur who was formerly the CEO of Stamps.com. The company has lobbed Payne’s patents at several of the biggest names in tech, including Apple, Microsoft, Motorola, Samsung, and Blackberry, as well as media companies like Disney. By 2012, most of those companies had settled patent lawsuits brought by Payne, but Google did not.

Google has paid a price for resisting Payne’s patents. Last year, a jury in the Eastern District of Texas found that Android’s system of push notifications infringed Payne’s US Patent No. 7,035,914. The jury deadlocked on damages, but a second damages trial resulted in Google being ordered to pay $85 million to SimpleAir and its lawyers at Dovel & Luner. Google has appealed the results of that case.

Hungry for more, SimpleAir filed suit (PDF) against Google again, alleging that Android push notifications infringe two more Payne patents, US Patent Nos. 8,601,154 and 8,572,279. For those two patents, both from “continuation” applications related to the earlier ‘914 patent, Payne and his lawyers sought more than $100 million in additional payment.

They won’t get it. Following a week-long trial, a jury found that Google did not infringe those two patents, but the jury rebuffed Google’s attempt to have the patents ruled invalid. Google was able to keep the results of the 2014 case out of this trial.

SimpleAir lawyer John Eichmann told The Recorder, which first reported the trial result, that his client would likely appeal the verdict. The newspaper said the damages being sought were undisclosed but topped $100 million.

“They [the jury] looked at the evidence and stuck it out,” he said. “And that’s certainly to their credit.”

However the SimpleAir cases turn out after the appeals, the available evidence suggests that Payne has already made a heap of cash from licensing about 10 large defendants. At last year’s damages trial, an expert testified that in his view of the license, Microsoft paid $5 million for use of the ‘914 patent technology. Google should pay far more, he said, since its system has many more messages than Microsoft’s service.

Court documents indicate that in an earlier round of litigation, SimpleAir sued (PDF) and reached settlements with CBS, eBay, Amazon, Yahoo, and MySpace, among others. All of its litigation has been based in the popular Marshall, Texas patent court. To date, only Google has taken SimpleAir’s claims to trial.