Google Inc. v. Rockstar Consortium US LP et al

Filing 31

Declaration of Kristin J. Madigan in Support of 30 Google Inc.'s Opposition to Defendants' Motion to Dismiss or Transfer filed byGoogle Inc.. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit 1, # 2 Exhibit 2, # 3 Exhibit 3, # 4 Exhibit 4, # 5 Exhibit 5, # 6 Exhibit 6, # 7 Exhibit 7, # 8 Exhibit 8, # 9 Exhibit 9, # 10 Exhibit 10, # 11 Exhibit 11, # 12 Exhibit 12, # 13 Exhibit 13, # 14 Exhibit 14, # 15 Exhibit 15, # 16 Exhibit 16, # 17 Exhibit 17, # 18 Exhibit 18, # 19 Exhibit 19 - Part 1 of 3, # 20 Exhibit 19 - Part 2 of 3, # 21 Exhibit 19 - Part 3 of 3, # 22 Exhibit 20, # 23 Exhibit 21 - Part 1 of 2, # 24 Exhibit 21 - Part 2 of 2, # 25 Exhibit 22, # 26 Exhibit 23, # 27 Exhibit 24, # 28 Exhibit 25, # 29 Exhibit 26, # 30 Exhibit 27, # 31 Exhibit 28, # 32 Exhibit 29, # 33 Exhibit 30, # 34 Exhibit 31, # 35 Exhibit 32, # 36 Exhibit 33, # 37 Exhibit 34, # 38 Exhibit 35, # 39 Exhibit 36, # 40 Exhibit 37)(Related document(s) 30 ) (Warren, Matthew) (Filed on 2/7/2014) Modified on 2/10/2014 (cpS, COURT STAFF).

EXHIBIT 16

wire d.co m

http://www.wired.co m/wiredenterprise/2013/11/veschi/

Facebook Infringes My Patents Too, Says CEO Who Just Sued
Google
By Robert McMillan
11.01.13
7:54 PM

Ins id e the re ve rs e -e ng ine e ring lab at Ro c ks tar, Sc o tt Wid d o ws o n is lo o king fo r p ro d uc ts that infring e o n the c o mp any’s 4,000
p ate nts . Photo: Rockstar

Rockstar — the closely watched consortium that sued Google, Samsung, and six other handset makers on
T hursday — says that another big-name company is inf ringing its vast patent portf olio: Facebook.
Rockstar CEO John Veschi doesn’t want to get into the details, but he believes his company’s 4,000-patents —
which it inherited af ter Apple, Microsof t, Blackberry, Sony, and Ericsson purchased the majority of patents
owned by the imploded Canadian telecom giant, Nortel — cover, or “read on,” the kind of social network
operated by Facebook.
“I’m def initely aware of many that ‘read on’ f eatures that are in any social network, whether it’s Facebook
LinkedIn or any other thing like that,” he says. T hough he declined to say more, Veschi has said in the past that
his patent portf olio is so great that it’s hard to imagine any high-tech companies that don’t use techniques
covered by the Nortel patents.

Rockstar had been negotiating with technology companies f or more than a year and a half , trying to get outf its
such as Google to license its portf olio of more than 4,000 patents, which cover a wide range of areas. T he
company has been trying to cut intellectual property licensing deals across six broad sectors — including social
media. And while Rockstar has sealed a “f airly small number” of deals to date, it’s been a dif f icult business.
T hat’s what’s f orcing the lawsuits, the f irst of which
were f iled on T hursday in f ederal court in Texas. “We’ve
gotten to a point with many of them where they even
say to us: ‘Look, you need to sue us. I can’t really get
the attention of management because we have other
people who have sued us. And if you don’t sue us, you
haven’t basically put the table stakes down to get to
the big table.’”
Veschi says that, although Rockstar sued Google (over
search technology patents) and seven of Google’s
Android partners on T hursday, that it is incorrect to see
Rockstar as a proxy agent f or Apple, Microsof t, and
Blackberry — all of whom are part-owners of Rockstar
with seats on its board of directors. “It was basically all
my decision-making,” he says. “I think it’s important f or
people to realize that my shareholders had nothing to
do with this.”
Veschi, like many of Rockstar’s employees is an exNortel worker. He was hired by the telecommunications
giant in 2008 to f ind patent licensing revenue —
something Nortel hadn’t ever done ef f ectively. He says
that Nortel that the search and mobile phone lawsuits
that were f iled yesterday can be traced back to the f irst
work he did at Nortel f ive years ago. “Mobile and the
internet search are in some ways the most ripe
because they were actually the two f ranchises I built
f irst when I joined Nortel in 2008.”

Afte r s urviving the No rte l me ltd o wn, Ro c ks tar CEO J o hn
Ve s c hi no w c o ntro ls 4,000 p ate nts re late d to mo b ile d e vic e s
and c o mp ute r ne two rks . Photo: Dan Krauss/WIRED

Rockstar revealed yesterday that it has set up
subsidiaries to manage its patent licensing activities in mobile and search. T he company is also dividing up its
patents to include licensing f or telecommunication services providers, networking equipment, enterprise
technology and social networking, Veschi says.
From Veschi’s perspective, Rockstar is simply seeking the revenue that Nortel had coming to it f or its
pioneering work in telecommunications. Not surprisingly, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has long
f ought against such patent suits, sees things dif f erently. “T he marketplace is where this entire f ight should be
taking place,” says Julie Samuels, senior staf f attorney with the EFF. “Nortel made its money of f its products.
Now people are trying to squeeze water f orm the rock that was Nortel. In any rational economic system there
would be no there there, but because of our messed-up patent system, they’re able to do that.”