Patent Troll Says Anyone Using WiFi Infringes; Won’t Sue Individuals ‘At This Stage’

From Mike Masnick: Patent Troll Says Anyone Using WiFi Infringes; Won’t Sue Individuals ‘At This Stage’. Excerpt:

… While its initial lawsuits against coffee shops and restaurants did focus on the central corporations, with the hotels, Innovatio appears to be focusing on individual franchisees. Yes, the small businesses who own individual hotels and probably have no idea how to deal with a patent infringement lawsuit — all because they dared to offer WiFisomewhere in their hotels. To make it “easy” of course, Innovatio’s lawyers will let them settle for between $2,300 and $5,000. In almost every case, that’s going to be cheaper than hiring a lawyer to just get started dealing with this — which I’m sure is exactly what Innovatio intends.The company is represented by the infamous law firm of Niro, Haller & Niro, which is the firm that originally inspired the term “patent troll.” The lawyer representing the company, Matthew McAndrews, seems to imply that the company believes the patents cover everyone who has a home WiFi setup, but they don’t plan to go after such folks right now, for “strategic” reasons:

“Innovatio has made a strategic and business judgment at this stage that it doesn’t intend to pursue [lawsuits on the basis of] residential use of WiFi,” McAndrews said during a phone conversation last week.

And while that certainly could change, you may be relieved (or probably not) to learn that McAndrews does not “perceive” such a “strategic” decision will change. However, later in the article, he seems to indicate otherwise:

Ultimately, he said, Innovatio’s “plan is to license this portfolio to the fullest extent possible. That would include anyone who’s wireless networking.”

What would be poetic justice would be if Innovatio were to personally sue every Objectivist and pro-IP libertarian who has a home wifi system. Think they’d wake up to the injustice of IP then?