In a blatant attempt to grab revenue from many of the larger web based companies ex kazzaa boss kevin bermeister has hit the headlines again as he is one of those who are part of the company claiming patent infringement.
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/kevin-v-the-world-reformed-pirate-sues-tech-giants-for-millions-20111212-1oqi9#ixzz1gJ7ozDPAThe Sydney entrepreneur who created Kazaa is a shareholder and chairman of a US company that is suing the biggest names on the internet, including Google and Amazon, for patent infringement in a case that experts say could run into the hundreds of millions.
Kevin Bermeister, born in South Africa but now living in a mansion near the water in Rose Bay, reached a $150 million settlement after being sued by the music industry over the Kazaa file sharing service in 2005.
This does seem like another of those speculative claims that are often driven by over broadly written terms in patents that should never have been granted in the first place. Normally such claims can often be rejected by a court if it can be shown that prior examples of any of the claimed techniques or technologies existed before the specific patent was applied for so in reality its a game and one played more and more these days to use essentially worthless patents to hose down successful companies with substantial capital assets.
The ex-kazzaa boss was in the headlines quite a lot 5 or so years ago when he made a deal with the RIAA to indemnify his company against any further infringement claims against himself and kazzaa leaving the end users of the filesharing software to face litigation alone, a strange turn of affairs one would suggest.
Although mr bermeister is often called the founder of kazzaa many of you will know he purchased the software from the real developers and simply marketed it under the kazzaa brand name, the two software developers are perhaps more well know today as the founders of Skype, it seems all the older players in the p2p world have moved out of the highly litigious arena and on to safer shores.
