Hacker News Reader

Comment by sli | Hacker News Reader

Appears to be this company. Or they're using this company's name, but that would be wildly stupid of them to attempt if they want any chance at all of winning (which they already don't seem to have -- way too much prior art).

View on HN

It is clearly this company - http://www.gtx.com/

The inventor of the patent is listed on the register as Marvin T Ling. [1] The gtx.com website has a press release stating the owner and founder of the company is Marvin T. Ling. [2]

[1] http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=H...

[2] http://www.gtx.com/about/press/aml_president_pr.asp

> Method and apparatus for conducting electronic commerce transactions using electronic tokens

So cam girl sites are under threat?

Once they get some precedent under their belt. They have to do this via small-time operators first because porn people have money.

If most or all the small-time operators settle, that doesn't set precedent, though, right? A judge isn't going to look at a future case and say "well, all these other companies settled, so seems like the patent is valid". That would be absurd.

Settling doesn't set precedent. Doesn't matter how many settle.

The way I understand it this is done to make the terrorists' threats more credible to other victims, not to judges. But I would also not put too much trust in judges in particular jurisdictions, such as EDT.

What about ICOs?

> So cam girl sites are under threat?

That would be a real tragedy...

Seriously though, some of those girls make some serious money for working a few hours a day.

So it's casino chips, but on a computer?

Specifically says at the bottom of the post that it's not:

> "As far as I can tell, the guys shaking us down are NOT these guys in particular: http://www.gtxcorp.com/"

The article explicitly states that is NOT the company, but rather another company with exact same name.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com