More than four years after Webvention LLC began peppering hundreds of companies with licensing demands for allegedly infringing its sole patent, the prolific and controversial nonpracticing entity may have finally reached the end of the line.
In a series of motions filed on Tuesday in U.S. district court in Baltimore, Webvention agreed to end litigation with about a dozen companies that faced infringement claims or had sued to invalidate the patent, which relates to common HTML features. The filings come after one of Webvention’s lawyers notified defense counsel last month that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had wholly invalidated the patent in a reexamination proceeding. The PTO ruling is referenced in a joint stipulation of dismissal filed with Hearst Corporation.
