Seen by many companies as a scourge and nuisance, NPEs, known derisively as “patent trolls,” generate revenue from patent litigation and licensing fees but do not produce any products or provide any services.

NPEs defend their business model as a legitimate pursuit of patent rights. They also assert that they help small inventors and entrepreneurs monetize their patents and help them fight against large companies when they would otherwise not have the resources to engage in drawn out, expensive patent infringement litigation.

Florida inventors and entrepreneurs may be affected by the activities of NPEs. It’s important to consult with a Melbourne patent attorney wherever you live or do business to ascertain your legal rights.

The number of lawsuits involving NPEs has steadily climbed during the past few years. As of the end of 2011, about 4,000 separate companies had been sued by NPEs at least once, and more than 6,000 unique defendants have faced lawsuits filed by NPEs since 2005. One study concluded that the cost of defending against NPE lawsuits in 2011 totaled $29 billion.

These numbers have gotten the attention of corporations and their counsel, to say the least, and many are using creative tactics to contend with NPEs.

One emerging path is to work with so-called defensive patent aggregators, which are essentially “anti-NPEs.” Patent aggregators acquire patents and license them to their members, as reported by Corporate Counsel magazine. For example, San Francisco-based RPX holds a portfolio of more than 2,000 patents. It identifies and buys what it considers to be high-value patents that could be used offensively against its member-clients. RPX claims it never uses the patents offensively in patent infringement litigation.

A relatively new litigation tactic is for companies – even competitors – to band together in joint defense groups to hold down defense costs and streamline proceedings. NPEs often file many lawsuits that assert similar claims against numerous defendants. Some companies are defending these suits through joint defense agreements that strive for unified legal arguments and to divide work responsibilities among outside counsel.

Another approach is for companies to use the same outside counsel as a way to hold down legal costs. This approach, however, raises confidentiality and trade secret concerns, requiring measures to protect against divulging proprietary and confidential company data and information.

Companies are also looking to fight fire with fire by taking advantage of provisions in the 2011 America Invents Act (AIA) allowing for proceedings before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to challenge the validity of patents (known as inter partes review and post-grant review).

Also, the AIA expands (as of March 16, 2013) the realm of “prior art” knowledge that can be used to trim back, if not outright invalidate, a patent. “Prior art” essentially means any previous patent, technical paper, public knowledge, or use of an invention that makes it ineligible for a patent.  A Melbourne patent attorney can help determine if your patent falls under the realm of “prior art.”

Even before a patent is granted, the AIA for the first time now permits third parties to submit information on prior art that challenges the granting of a patent. The USPTO has establish a procedure for submitting this information to allow patent examiners to consider it as part of their review of patent applications.

If you are a Florida inventor, you may want to consult an experienced attorney to understand your legal rights. Please fill out our contact form or call us at 1-866-37PATENT to reach our Melbourne patent attorneys. You can also email us at info@cflpatents.com.

Perhaps Kappos’ biggest legacy is implementing the America Invents Act, which was signed into law in September 2011. The AIA has introduced fundamental changes to the patent law system, such as scrapping the centuries-old system of protecting those who were “first to invent” to a new “first inventor to file” rule.

The White House has yet to name a successor for Kappos. The next director steps in at a critical juncture of U.S. patent law as the full force of the AIA is just getting under way.

Florida inventors will be likely be affected by this change in leadership at the USPTO. It’s important to consult with a Tampa patent attorney or in your area to assess your legal rights as the new law and court interpretations of patent law unfold over the next few years.

Patent attorneys praised Kappos for his keen grasp of patent law and the technology underlying software and the Internet. He is also widely seen as an effective administrator, overseeing a reduction in patent applications backlog.

The PTO has cut the backlog of unexamined patents from over 750,000 to approximately 605,000, or 20 percent, despite an average increase of 5 percent in applications each year. The office also reduced the amount of time that it takes to receive a first action on a patent application, from 27 months to about 16 months.

The USPTO nonetheless is facing criticism for too easily granting software patents to owners who aggressively enforce them in widespread patent litigation that, some argue, stymies innovation and the free flow of ideas.

Kappos in a recent speech addressed the criticism of the USPTO and the patent law system, saying the AIA needs time to be implemented and put into full force.

“The key provisions of the America Invents Act have just gone into effect two months ago, and our initiatives within PTO are just newly effective as well,” he said at the Center for American Progress. “So, to the commentators declaring the system is broken, I say: Give it a rest already, and give the AIA a chance to work. Give it a chance to even get started.”

Kappos’ comments come at a time of widespread billion-dollar patent litigation in the smartphone industry, which has pitted major players in the market against one another, such as Apple and Samsung. There has also been a surged in the aggressive litigation tactics of non-practicing entities that hold patents but don’t produce any products.

The high costs of litigating these cases have prompted some to call for the elimination of software patents.

Kappos strongly disagrees: “Because many breathtaking software-implemented innovations power our modern world at levels of efficiency and performance unthinkable 50 years ago, patent protection is every bit as well-deserved for software-implemented innovation as for the innovations that enabled man to fly, and before that for the innovations that enabled man to light the dark with electricity, and before that for the innovations that enabled the industrial revolution. To those commenting on the smartphone patent wars with categorical statements that blame the ‘broken’ system on bad software patents, I say get the facts. They don’t support your position.”

Kappos pointed to an internal USPTO study that revealed that courts have upheld approximately 80 percent of the software patents involved in smartphone technology litigation.

Kappos acknowledged in his speech that patents on software must be narrow in scope, otherwise programmers and engineers could unwittingly infringe on patent rights.
“Programmers need to be able to write code and engineers need to be able to design devices without fear of unfounded accusations of infringement,” Kappos said.

“Inconsistency in software patent issuance causes uncertainty in the marketplace, and can cause threats of litigation that in turn can stifle innovation and deter new market entrants.”

If you are a Florida inventor and want to understand your legal rights, including those related to patents, please contact a Tampa patent attorney by calling 1-866-37PATENT to get in touch with our Patent Attorneys in Orlando & Tampa. You can also e-mail us at info@cflpatents.com.

Known as non-practicing entities (NPEs), or more derisively as “patent trolls”, these companies have now attracted the attention of federal antitrust investigators. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission are cranking up an investigation to examine whether NPEs are stifling innovation, especially in high-tech industries.

NPEs hold portfolios of patents but do not produce any products. They generate revenue from licensing fees and patent infringement litigation. It’s their aggressive use of litigation to generate income that has unleashed an ongoing and growing furor.

The DOJ and FTC are expected to hold hearings in December. Tech companies will undoubtedly seek heightened scrutiny of NPEs, while the patent-holding companies will press their case that they actually encourage innovation by helping smaller inventors and entrepreneurs monetize their patents.

“There has been a great deal of controversy and disagreement about whether they stifle innovation and whether they are an anticompetitive problem,” said FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz. “What we want to do is understand the industry better.”

It’s important to have a Tampa patent attorney or a patent attorney in your area examine your patent issues and rights.

Large tech companies expected to participate in the hearings include Cisco and Nokia. Cisco is no stranger to combatting NPEs. In our most recent blog, we discussed Cisco’s bold tactic of suing two NPEs for racketeering.

A Washington-based patent-holding company, Intellectual Ventures Management LLC, is also expected to participate in the government hearings. Intellectual Ventures was co-founded by former Microsoft Corp. technology chief Nathan Myhrvold.

Antitrust investigators will examine how NPEs use patents as strategic weapons against competitors, especially infringement claims based on patents that are part of industry technology standards.

It’s debatable whether independent NPEs asserting their rights raise antitrust implications. The very nature of patents seems at odds with antitrust law. Patents, after all, grant exclusive rights to holders, essentially creating a monopoly on an invention for up to 20 years.

An interesting new development involving NPEs relates to large tech companies battling each other essentially by proxy through patent-holding companies they control. For example, Nokia and Sony Corp. of America have assigned some of their patents to MobileMedia Ideas LLC, which has sued Apple, Inc. in a Delaware federal court for patent infringement, according to the Wall Street Journal. In another case, Google Inc. earlier this year filed an antitrust complaint with European regulators asserting that Nokia and Microsoft were using a patent entity as a proxy to hurt the prospects of Google’s Android mobile-phone software.

This “proxy” tactic might lead to antitrust violations, since they involve large competitors and the potential for less market competition.

Antitrust enforcers will also take a look at mergers or acquisitions that result in transfers of large patent portfolios. They may raise red flags if a transaction results in skyrocketing licensing fees and higher prices for consumers. More expensive royalties could also lead to certain products becoming unprofitable to develop or produce, reducing consumer choices.

If you are a Florida inventor and want to understand your legal rights, including those related to patents, please contact an Tampa patent attorney by calling 1-866-37PATENT to get in touch with our Florida Patent, Trademark and Copyright Attorneys in Orlando & Tampa. You can also e-mail us at info@cflpatents.com.

Known as “non-practicing entities” (or more derisively as “patent trolls”), these companies are essentially in the business of enforcing patent rights. They generally don’t produce or manufacture any products related to their patents.

As a group, they are active litigants. In 2007, NPEs filed 22 percent of patent lawsuits in the U.S., and in 2011 that number increased to 40 percent. One recent study concluded that $29 billion in costs were paid in 5,842 infringement claims filed by NPEs in 2011.

With that kind of money in play, it’s easy to see why NPEs are the center of attention in patent litigation. Proponents assert that NPEs encourage innovation by individual inventors and companies who don’t want to or are not capable of monetizing their patent rights.

The gist of the criticism directed against NPEs boils down to the sense that they are trying to get something for nothing.

That sentiment is certainly at the forefront of a blistering lawsuit recently filed by wireless technology companies against Innovatio IP Ventures LLC, a Chicago-based NPE. The complaint alleges that Innovatio has sent over 8,000 letters to restaurants, coffee chains, hotels and other commercial users of Wi-Fi across the country threatening litigation unless they immediately pay royalties for using technology Innovatio claims is partly covered by patents that it owns. Innovatio acquired the patents in question from Broadcom Corp.

Cisco Systems, Inc., Motorola Solutions, Inc., and NETGEAR, Inc., makers and distributors of wireless networking equipment, claim in the lawsuit that their customers are facing extortion from Innovatio related to their use of Wi-Fi in their retail establishments. Innovatio’s concerted licensing campaign is, in effect, racketeering, the complaint asserts, in violation of the federal anti-racketeering law known as RICO (Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act).

The complaint alleges Innovatio and others are “engaged in a nationwide pattern and scheme to indiscriminately and improperly threaten, defraud and extort money … from thousands of businesses, both small and large, that use standardized Wi-Fi technology.”

Innovatio and its agents, according to the complaint, are seeking to extract licensing fees through “fraud, deceit, misrepresentation and other forms of unlawful and unfair conduct.”

The complaint states that the patents in question are subject to preexisting licenses, and that Innovatio is violating its contractual obligations to seek reasonable and nondiscriminatory rates. Innovatio, according to the complaint, has systematically hidden this critical information from end users.

To prevail on their RICO count, Cisco, Motorola and NETGEAR must prove that the various assertions made by Innovatio in its letters to Wi-Fi end users were not only false but that Innovatio knew them to be false.

Innovatio denies any wrongdoing, and in related litigation is seeking damages for alleged infringement of its patents.

The RICO claim and various related lawsuits have been consolidated before federal Judge James F. Holderman, who is expected to rule soon on Innovatio’s request that he dismiss the RICO lawsuit. (In re Innovatio IP Ventures LLC Patent Litigation, 11-cv-9308, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.)

While the burden of proving a racketeering claim is tough to meet, Cisco and its fellow plaintiffs may be motivated by wanting to “send a message” to NPEs that they will play rough when their customers are drawn into patent warfare.

If you are a Florida inventor and want to understand your legal rights, including those related to patents, please fill out our Contact Form or call us at 1-866-37PATENT to get in touch with our Tampa patent attorneys, Tampa trademark attorneys, Tampa copyright attorneys. You can also e-mail us at info@cflpatents.com.

The gist of the issue is Google’s efforts to block its competitors from accessing important patents considered essential to wireless devices. Google is using litigation to seek a ban of U.S. sales of popular devices such as Microsoft’s Xbox and Apple’s iPhone and iPad that use patents involving wireless technology.

However, the FTC is on the brink of challenging this legal tack, with numerous reports suggesting that the majority of FTC commissioners is leaning in favor of filing a lawsuit against Google.

The global smartphone litigation is instructive to Florida inventors and entrepreneurs regarding the use of patents as leverage against competitors as part of a larger business strategy. However, when industry-wide technology is at stake, the federal government could intercede to rein in a market participant who aggressively uses patents against competitors.

Google holds numerous industry-essential patents following its acquisition of Motorola Mobility earlier this year. Holders of patents related to industry standards generally agree to allow access to those patents in exchange for license fees that are “fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory.” Disputes over what is “fair” and “reasonable” are not uncommon.

Regarding wireless technology, Google’s standard position is to offer licensing fees equaling 2.25 percent of the sale price of each device using the patents in question. Not surprisingly, Apple and Microsoft claim this fee is exorbitant, which totals billions in annual fees based on projected sales. Apple asserts it won’t pay more than $1 per device.

A federal judge in Wisconsin recently dismissed a lawsuit involving Apple and Motorola Mobility (now doing Google’s bidding) over the licensing fees demanded by Google related to industry-essential patents. The judge in dismissing the suit questioned whether she had the authority to rule on the issue of fair and reasonable licensing rates.

An ongoing suit in federal court in Seattle between Microsoft and Google involves similar issues over the licensing fees for industry-standards patents.

The FTC could decide to settle with Google instead of pursuing a lawsuit. Google has previously agreed to settlements with the FTC and other government enforcement agencies in recent years.

Patent litigation involving Apple, Google, Microsoft, Samsung and others is at a fever pitch as the combatants vie for dominance in the lucrative smartphone market that spans the globe. Sales in the industry last year reached $219 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

If you are a Florida inventor and want to understand your legal rights, including those related to patents, please fill out our Contact Form or call us at 1-866-37PATENT to get in touch with our Tampa Patent Attorneys, Orlando Patent Attorneys, or Melbourne Patent Attorneys. You can also e-mail us at info@cflpatents.com

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office over the past year has been adopting new rules and procedures to accomplish the goal of a more streamlined application and review process. One such tool created by the USPTO of interest to Florida inventors and entrepreneurs is the “prioritized patent examination program” with the catchy name of Track One.

The USPTO claims that Track One examinations will generally be completed within one year. Of course, this expedited review isn’t free. The filing fee is $4,800 or $2,400, depending on the size of a company. These fees are in addition to the normal filing, search, examination and publication fees. If the USPTO removes a patent application from Track One, the filing fee is not refundable.

Track One is available for non-provisional plant and utility patent applications (but not design patents).  A “utility patent” covers an invention or discovery of any new, useful, and nonobvious process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, as well as any related new and useful improvements. A “plant patent” protects anyone who invents or discovers and asexually reproduces any distinct and new variety of plant.

Some limitations apply to Track One. For example, an application for a prioritized examination can contain no more than four independent claims or 30 total claims. The USPTO will only accept up to 10,000 requests for prioritized examination in any fiscal year.

Also, the USPTO specifically admonishes inventors seeking priority examination status to obtain detailed information on the state of the prior art in order to specify accurately in the application the broadest to narrowest schedule of claims. The application must meet USPTO standards for examination (at the risk of being rejected or delayed). Applicants also have to be prepared to respond in a timely manner to USPTO actions on the application to remain on the one-year fast track, including requests for an interview with a patent examiner.

If you are a Florida inventor and want to understand your legal rights, including those related to patents, or the USPTO’s Track One program specifically, please contact a Tampa patent attorney by calling 1-866-37PATENT to get in touch with our Florida Patent, Trademark and Copyright Attorneys in Orlando & Tampa. You can also e-mail us at info@cflpatents.com.

The lawsuit, filed by small tech company Vringo, has an intriguing back story, and also reveals the potentially enormous value of holding key patents and using them aggressively.

The technology related to the dispute was developed by Andrew “Ken” Lang while a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh in the 1990s. He eventually started a company along with Donald Kosak. In 1998 and 2001, they obtained the two patents now in dispute in the lawsuit against Google.

Lycos, a leading Internet search engine company at the time the patents were granted, bought the company owned by Lang and Kosak, who gave up their rights in the patents. However, Lycos’s business eventually faltered, and Lang and Kosak put together an investment group to buy back the patents for $3.5 million. They created a company known as I/P Engine, which has a patent portfolio but no revenue.

Vringo, a maker of video ringtones, acquired I/P Engine in 2011. It then sued Google for patent infringement, as well as AOL, IAC Search & Media, Target and Gannett, all of which use the same Internet advertising technology from Google.

Vringo is claiming lost royalty payments of at least $500 million. The patents in dispute essentially filter Internet advertising to match the results of individual web searches. Vringo asserts that its patented technology is responsible for more than 95 percent of Google’s revenue.

Google denies the patent infringement. It says the patents don’t cover how to make money off the technology.  This of particular interest to Florida inventors seeking a patent or advice from an Orlando patent attorney.

In the meantime, Google has been developing its own Internet advertising program called AdSense. Interestingly, in 2004 Google paid more than $200 million in stock to settle a lawsuit filed by Overture, a Yahoo subsidiary, alleging that Google infringed similar ad filtering patents.

The jury trial involving Vringo and Google demonstrates how a company essentially holding only a patent portfolio can be a viable business that attracts investors, generates revenues from licensing fees and potentially obtains large jury awards in patent infringement lawsuits.

Another interesting aspect of the case is that Google to date has decided against settling, a risky strategy since a win by Vringo could mean a large jury award, and the potential for similar lawsuits down the road.

The jury trial started Oct. 16 and is expected to conclude by the end of October or early November.

If you are a Florida inventor and want to understand your legal rights, including those related to patents, please contact an Orlando patent attorney by calling 1-866-37PATENT to get in touch with our Florida Patent, Trademark and Copyright Attorneys in Orlando & Tampa. You can also e-mail us at info@cflpatents.com.

Federal judge Richard Posner is leading the charge for revising the system. In a recent article, the influential judge outlines what he sees as the endemic problems with the current system and proposes various solutions.

The contrasting view is that the patent system is working just fine and should not be overhauled. For example, Washington, D.C. software patent attorney Raymond Van Dyke opines that the current wave of criticism is focused primarily on the scorched-earth litigation in software patent infringement cases involving tech giants such as Apple and Samsung. He posits that these costly, time-consuming lawsuits simply reflect the fact that software competitors are fighting hard for market share in a relatively new industry and that the litigation acrimony will eventually subside as the industry and market matures.

The “patent-system-is-broke” school of thought associated with Judge Posner goes something like this:

Patent examiners in the U.S. Patent and Trademark office are too freely granting patents of questionable legality and validity.

The length of the exclusivity period for a patent should vary depending on the costs associated with bringing an invention to market. Developing a new drug, for example, is very costly mainly due to the extensive pre-market testing required before obtaining government approval. A 20-year period of exclusive patent protection to avoid patent infringement makes economic sense for pharmaceuticals.  However, developing new software as a rule is generally much less costly by comparison and its utility in the marketplace is generally shorter lived than pharmaceutical products. As a result, the exclusivity period for a software patent should be much shorter.

Lay jurors are ill-equipped to rule intelligently on patents involving complex technology, thus diminishing the legitimacy and effectiveness of patent challenges.

Patent trolls (entities that own patents but don’t produce a product) are essentially extorting patent licensing fees over the threat of costly patent infringement lawsuits.

The high cost of patent litigation and high expenses associated with obtaining a patent stifles innovation by hampering individual entrepreneurs and small companies and favoring large companies.

The “everything-is-all-right” argument can be summarized as:

The current system of patent laws and regulations provides ample opportunities to challenge and eradicate questionable patent claims, especially the additional avenues for challenge created under the America Invents Act.

It is short-sighted to use the current software patent battles as a reason to gut the U.S. patent system. New innovations have historically created fierce competition in the market and spawned aggressive litigation tactics. As an industry matures and settles, however, the amount of patent infringement litigation in that industry tends to diminish.

The patent system encourages innovation because patents (and associated technology) are made public, allowing entrepreneurs and others to expand and further improve the state of art. Without patents, many new technologies would remain trade secrets instead.

Software technology should not be treated any differently than other industries. It is difficult to obtain a software patent and no further restrictions are necessary, including a shortened exclusivity period.

If you are a Florida inventor and want to understand your legal rights, including those related to patents, please contact an Orlando patent attorney by calling 1-866-37PATENT to get in touch with our Florida Patent, Trademark and Copyright Attorneys in Orlando & Tampa. You can also e-mail us at info@cflpatents.com.

The article points to a variety of developments that critics see undermining innovation and economic growth, including voracious use of patents to stifle competition, the power of tech giants like Apple and Google to bully inventors and entrepreneurs through costly litigation, and more broadly the overly permissive granting of patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Regardless of where Florida inventors and entrepreneurs might stand on these important issues, the article also details emerging reform initiatives that could ultimately reshape patent and copyright laws and how companies and industries utilize patents.

For example, some leading commentators and judges are calling for Congress to create varying lengths of exclusive patent rights, rather than just the current 20-year period for all patents. They argue that a software patent – given the fluid and rapidly evolving nature of the tech industry – should be given a substantially shorter period of exclusive rights, perhaps five years.

A more extreme position taken by researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis is abolishing patents altogether. The authors of the report essentially argue that in total patents do more harm than good.

In more of a self-regulatory mode, Twitter earlier this year issued an Innovator’s Patent Agreement that provides software engineers the ability to exercise some control over the use of their creations. At the same time, the agreement requires companies to pledge that the affected patents will be used only for defensive purposes in litigation.

A similar idea is the Defensive Patent License (DPL) developed by law school faculty at the University of California, Berkeley. Signatory companies can contribute patents to a common pool that shields them from infringement lawsuits. Companies would be allowed to participate as long as they agree not sue competitors for infringement. The overarching theme of the DPL is to encourage innovation and dampen aggressive litigation tactics.

It’s an open question whether these self-regulatory initiatives will take root and appreciably change how patents are used.

While the call for patent reform is growing, the Times article notes that other commentators claim the existing system is working well, especially in the wake of the America Invents Act (AIA) passed in 2011. The AIA provides multiple tools to challenge a patent grant. For example, the USPTO in implementing the AIA recently developed an online forum that for the first time allows third parties to comment on and even challenge the validity of a patent application.

If you are a Florida inventor and want to understand the patent and copyright laws that will affect you, please contact an Orlando patent attorney by calling 1-866-37PATENT to get in touch with our Florida Patent, Trademark and Copyright Attorneys in Orlando & Tampa. You can also e-mail us at info@cflpatents.com.

“The result is huge patent thickets,” Posner writes, “creating rich opportunities for trying to hamstring competitors by suing for infringement—and also for infringing, and then challenging the validity of the patent when the patentee sues you.”

As a federal judge, Posner cannot single-handedly alter the current state of the U.S. patent system. Nonetheless, in light of his stature, his considered viewpoints are of interest to Florida inventors and entrepreneurs, as well as to federal judges and policymakers around the country. Frequently incorporating economic theory in his judicial opinions, Posner is widely seen as a leading figure on the federal bench.

Posner is unafraid of controversy. He raised eyebrows earlier this year by taking the bold move of dismissing a patent infringement lawsuit involving Apple and Motorola because neither company could, in his view, prove their damages.

In the blog post, Posner posits that it’s relatively inexpensive to develop new software innovations, and the innovations are typically incremental and short-lived in nature. This makes the software industry ill-suited for patents, he says, because patents work most efficiently when the costs of the invention are steep and the owner needs the time and patent protection to recoup initial development costs.

The judge further asserts that the current legal system is ill-equipped to adequately assess patent protection in the software industry because of the limited knowledge and expertise of patent examiners, judges and jurors, as well as the difficulty of accurately assessing damages for infringing the patent on a component, rather than an entire product.

A further complicating factor is that companies and individuals are in a mad rush to obtain patents because of the ever-shifting state of innovation in the software industry, he says.

In contrast, Posner argues that patent protection works much more efficiently in the pharmaceutical industry because of the high costs of developing a new drug compared to the relative ease of creating a cheap copycat product and the relatively long time it takes to get federal government approval for a new drug.

If you are a Florida inventor and want to understand your legal rights, including those related to patents, please fill out our Contact Form or call us at 1-866-37PATENT to get in touch with our Florida Patent, Trademark and Copyright Attorneys in Orlando & Tampa. You can also e-mail us at info@cflpatents.com .