Patent Trolls Pose A New Threat To Retail

By Matt Pillar, chief editor

The NRF is firing up its policy machine in an effort to sway legislators to act on a troubling trend—the significant increase in frivolous patent lawsuits brought to bear on retailers by so-called patent trolls. These trolls, who make money by purchasing overly-broad and nearly expired patents with the intent of suing retailers that allegedly infringe on those patents, are stirring up expensive trouble for retailers. And in many cases, even their most preposterous allegations are costing retailers money.

Trolls have recently filed patent infringement suits against major retailers for including hyperlinks to their home pages in customer-bound e-mails, and updating menu boards and planograms remotely. According to NRF, other common retail technologies that have been victimized include:

• Wi-Fi. One of the earliest cases involved small businesses who were sued for using patented Wi-Fi routers in their stores.
• Payments. BrandsMart Executive Vice President Lary Sinewitz testified before the House Judiciary Committee in November that his business was targeted for using technology that enables debit cards and gift cards to process information from the magnetic stripe on the back of the card.

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