Is this Triangle company a patent troll?
Open Source: A weekly tech newsletter from The News & Observer
Hey all! This week, I learned my cousin Max is a local astrophotographer. In his spare time, he captures pics of the cosmos from his South Durham home and from around Jordan Lake. Check some of them out. I think they’re incredible:
On to this week’s tech news:
Is this Triangle company a patent troll?
Our lawyers had to go through this story carefully.
Patent trolls are companies that don’t make a product or provide a service. They instead earn money by threatening to sue, and sometimes actually suing, other businesses for infringing on their patents.
Which brings us to the case of NAPCO Inc. v. Landmark, both North Carolina companies locked in an ongoing legal battle over whether Landmark is a patent troll (and whether it’s even illegal to be one).
Landmark, which lists its main office near Research Triangle Park, has sent out patent infringement warnings to more than 1,000 companies in recent years. But when NAPCO, which makes packaging, received an infringement warning from Landmark, it did something likely no other North Carolina company has done before: It sued the alleged patent troll first.
iBuyer gets fined
Just as we were publishing a story about “instant buyer” companies like Opendoor in the Triangle housing market, Opendoor was hit with a $62 million fine by the Federal Trade Commission for tricking home sellers with misleading marketing.
Using pricing algorithms, Opendoor makes homeowners guaranteed, all-cash offers. It then tries to flip the homes at a profit.
Opendoor is by far the largest iBuyer in the region. The company is based in San Francisco and started buying homes in North Carolina in 2017. Last summer, The News and Observer found Opendoor was the top Wake County home buyer during the pandemic.
As of July 27, iBuying companies owned 5.2% of active or upcoming home listings in the Triangle MLS region, which covers eight local counties. The percentages were higher in Wake (7.4%), Durham (11%), and Johnston (9.5%).
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OTHER TECH NEWS FROM THE TRIANGLE:
Local company designs new cargo aircraft [GrepBeat]
NC Central University leads research project to improve supply chain security [TechWire]
Google swells Durham office footprint as hiring continues [Triangle Business Journal]
3 things from the wider tech world:
Robinhood, the upstart online brokerage, will cut 23% of its full-time workforce, including 82 positions in Charlotte. It’s the second round of layoffs this year at the company, which is suffering from people trading less on the market. Robinhood was popular during the pandemic when many used it to trade stocks (and stonks). [WSJ]
MIT researchers found judges are more likely to cite cases that have Wikipedia articles than comparable cases that don’t. The study raises concerns that the free, user-generated platform could inappropriately impact matters in the courtroom [The Next Web]
Whether students have an “intellectual disability” or are “homeless” needs to remain confidential. But cyberattacks show how the safeguards around this personal information is fragile. [NYT]
Podcast pick of the week:
A lot of people are trafficking spiders online. Gross! (or Neat! if you’re weird) [Slate]
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This newsletter was produced with financial support from a coalition of partners led by Innovate Raleigh as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work. Learn more; go to bit.ly/newsinnovate
