Even among so-called patent trolls, MPHJ Technology Investments LLC is short on fans. Last year state attorneys general in Vermont, Minnesota and New York launched investigations into the operations of the company, which has fired off more than 16,000 letters to small business demanding they take a license to its patent for scanning documents to e-mail.
But even scourges have legal rights. In this eight-page order issued Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Joseph F. Bataillon in Omaha granted MPHJ’s motion for a preliminary injunction that bars Nebraska’s attorney general from enforcing a cease and desist order issued to the company’s lawyers at Farney Daniels, a small firm in Texas.
